Seven Minutes to Noon

his wife. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. It had to be done. She stayed in her place on the bench, an unofficial sister, listening as Tim struggled to define — and conclude — a marriage, a woman, a love, a life.
    “I met Lauren in law school,” he began. “We were married eleven years....”
    Then his face seemed to fall apart, shattering like a broken mosaic. And he just wept.
    Pressed next to her mother, holding hands, Alice felt her fingers suddenly pressed in a steely grip. She turned to see Lizzie staring intensely at her and realized she had stopped breathing. As soon as she took a breath, Alice found she couldn’t swallow enough air. How her mother had known this was beyond her but it became clear Lizzie was worried. She hovered and tended Alice like a child throughout the reception, bringing her plates of food just as Alice and Maggie brought Austin food, though he wasn’t interested in eating.
    Alice wished she could unleash her mother’s doting onto Austin, who stood in the corner and played with the other children. They were taking turns with the yoyo ball, jointly blocking out the roaming visitors they didn’t know and all the voices they didn’t want to hear. When a reporter snuck up to take Austin’s picture — the stark image of a gaggle of overdressed, smileless childrenfixated on a single toy — it was Simon who stepped forward to block the shot. Alice was relieved he interceded, preventing one more misrepresentation by the press. She could just see the caption, An American child at his mother’s funeral, leaving gaping holes for the reader’s imagination to fall into. None of the tragic stories Alice had read over the years in the daily papers had come close to the truth. The truth was this. And there was no explaining it.
    “Off with you,” Simon ordered in his deep voice.
    The reporter, a skinny young woman, skulked away as Simon crouched among the children. He took the yoyo ball from Ethan, who was just starting his turn, and squeezed the gelatinous ball, warping it to reveal a hidden eyeball.
    “Gross!” Austin said, and all the children giggled.
    Simon stood to his full six-foot height and yo-yoed the ball up and down; it jerked with a rubber spasticity that returned it every time.
    “What are we going to do about Austin?” Maggie had snuck up behind Alice and Lizzie.
    “We’ll take care of him,” Alice said. “We’ll be his mothers.”
    Not wasting a minute to begin her quest to win the little boy’s love, Maggie marched over and pressed herself between Simon and Austin. Simon raised his eyebrows and smiled hugely before draping an arm around Maggie’s waist. She wiggled closer to him. Austin blushed. All the children knew about Maggie and Simon’s bitter divorce, having lived through it at the side of their good friend Ethan. Alice had once eavesdropped on Ethan mimicking his parents’ arguing: “I said I was at the chemist’s!” “Who spends three hours at the chemist’s?” “A devoted father getting medicines for his child. Who do you think?” “Well then,” a hearty Maggieesque laugh, “it must be another one of your children, because ours isn’t ill!” During his performance, Ethan postured in vivid mimicry of both his parents’ sublime dramatic personae. He had perfectly captured their absurditiesand the impossibility of agreement. Every marriage had its own unwinnable argument and theirs had been simple but enormous. SHE: You are unfaithful, HE: I am not. They had parted over this irreconcilable difference.
    Mike came up with a small plate of finger foods for Lizzie, who pinched his cheek, then dug in hungrily. “You’re a mensch, Michael,” she said. “Screw the diet. I’m starving.”
    Alice didn’t bother asking, What diet? There was no diet. This was one way her mother had come to match life: by refusing its petty denials in advance.
    “Wow, will you look at that.” Mike spoke through a mouthful of bagel and cream cheese, having just noticed the Maggie-and-Simon show playing to the children in the corner.
    “They’re doing what they know how to,” Alice said.
    “Power to them,” Lizzie said through a bite of mini quiche.
    Tim seemed to float across the room like a lone boat seeking familiar mooring. When he saw Lizzie, he nodded politely. “You must be Alice’s mother.”
    “You don’t have to make small talk,” Lizzie answered.
    Tim nodded again, a small, tight nod, as if to stopper an onslaught of emotion.
    “Tim, I