Bridge of Sighs

was that they were talking about me.
    The reason I was awake to hear my father return was that I was still turning over in my mind what my mother had said about what I knew but wouldn’t acknowledge. And there in the dark I’d made up my mind. In the morning I’d tell her again that she was wrong, that there was nothing I knew and didn’t want to know. I would keep on insisting until she had no choice but to agree that Bobby had
not
been there at the trestle and hadn’t laughed with the others as I pleaded with them not to saw me in two. No, I had
not
forgiven him. Because there was nothing to forgive.
             
     
    T HE AFTERNOON the Marconis’ possessions were loaded onto the bright yellow moving van, I watched morosely from the front steps, having been specifically instructed not to get in the way of the movers. I kept expecting Bobby to come over and keep me company, on our last day together, but my mother said it was probably his job to look after his little brothers while his parents organized the move. In the middle of the afternoon he appeared at an open window, and I waved, but he didn’t wave back, and when his father passed by the same window a moment later, he drew the shade.
    My mother had been right about one thing. Bobby apparently did forgive me for not calling the turn, or at least we never spoke of it again. That last month before they moved, he still came over to our house a few times, but it seemed he’d no sooner arrive than Mrs. Marconi would call and say to send Bobby home. And of course we never again rode in the milk truck.
    Since the day Mr. Marconi made us stand in the hall, my father’s good spirits had returned, but the two of them hadn’t spoken. To my surprise, and relief, my father didn’t try to insinuate himself back into his good graces, my mother having apparently convinced him it was a lost cause. During a stretch of hot, humid days when everyone had their windows thrown open, I heard Mr. Marconi remark, his voice suddenly very near, that in his opinion they were getting Bobby away from Third Street just in time. While there’d been no context for this remark, I couldn’t help thinking that they’d been talking about us Lynches. As their move drew closer, I asked Bobby what his new phone number was, but he said he didn’t know yet. As soon as they found out, he’d call, but something in his tone made me think he wasn’t going to. I didn’t even know where their new house was, except that it was somewhere in the Borough.
    At any rate I must have looked pretty dejected sitting there all alone as they moved out, because when my father came home for lunch he suggested we go inside and help my mother, something we never did. Meals were her job, and our kitchen was tiny. She didn’t like us in there, underfoot, until she had the food on the table. On this occasion, though, she seemed to understand his reasoning and stopped what she was doing to make us a pitcher of lemonade, remarking that the day was ferociously hot and she felt sorry for the poor moving men.
    She set down two tall, sweating glasses in front of my father and me. “You and Bobby wouldn’t be seeing that much of each other in another week or so anyway,” she said. It was only one more week until Labor Day, and once school started, with me at St. Francis and Bobby back at Bridger, we’d have other things to occupy us. “Besides,” she went on. “The Borough isn’t the end of the world.”
    That’s what it felt like, though. Since leaving the West End, we’d never once returned there to visit anyone, and the only reason Bobby would have for returning from the Borough to our neighborhood was me, and I was beginning to understand that I wasn’t reason enough.

    B UT MY MOTHER was right about life moving on. I had just that last week of August to mope around and feel sorry for myself, after which school started again. Such, at least, is my recollection.
    What my mother recalls is the worst autumn of my young life, that after the Marconis left I remained militantly inconsolable. I also had several spells in September and October, and they lasted longer than the ones I’d had over the summer, leaving me both exhausted and despondent. The buoyant optimism and sense of empowerment that had accompanied that first one in the trunk were missing from these latest ones, which left me dull witted and lethargic for days. According to my mother, as soon as I felt better, I’d hop on my bike and