Long Bright River(79)

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—

For this moment, though, I close my eyes. I know people are speaking to me, but I cannot hear them. I hear only my son’s breath, feel nothing but my own heartbeat, smell nothing but, around me, the clean air of winter.





Later that night, another knock at my door makes me jump.

Again, I see Mrs. Mahon’s face peering in at me between the lace curtains that cover the window, too close to the glass, her breath fogging it.

I am tired. I just want to rest, now, to curl up on the sofa with Thomas and watch television.

But Thomas, when he sees Mrs. Mahon, springs up excitedly.

—Hi! he shouts. Since the snow day he spent with her, he has had a special reverence for Mrs. Mahon, and has excitedly waved to her each time we’ve crossed paths.

Now, he runs to the door and throws it open for her, and I say, Come in.

The cold air that gusts into the apartment slams a door in the back.

Mrs. Mahon is carrying, in her hands, two objects: one is a bottle wrapped up in brown paper, and one is a rectangular object in Christmas paper. A little bump protrudes from the center of the latter.

—I just came to check on you both, she says. After your ordeal. And to bring you these.

Stiffly, she holds the bottle toward me, and the present toward Thomas. She speaks formally, and seems nervous.

—That’s very nice of you, I say. You shouldn’t have.

But I take the bottle into my hands.

—It’s only lemonade, says Mrs. Mahon, before I can open it. I just make it for myself. I just bottle it and keep it in the fridge. If it’s too tart you can add sugar, she says. I like mine tart.

—As do I, I say. Thank you so much.

Thomas opens his package next. When the wrapping comes off, I see that it’s a chessboard and a plastic bag that contains all the pieces. And, for a moment, I falter.

Thomas looks up at me, rather than Mrs. Mahon.

—What is it? he says.

—It’s chess, I say, quietly.

—Chest? says Thomas.

—Chess, says Mrs. Mahon. It’s a game. The best game there is.

Thomas is now delicately removing all the pieces from the bag, in order of size: first kings, then queens, then bishops, then knights, then rooks, then pawns. Mrs. Mahon names them as they emerge. At the sound of these words, I tense. I haven’t heard them said aloud since my adolescence. Since Simon.

Thomas picks up the bishops, holds one up to Mrs. Mahon.

—Is he a bad guy? he says.

He does look menacing: opaque and eyeless, the slit in his hat like a frown.

—They’re bad and good both, all the pieces, says Mrs. Mahon. Depending.

Thomas looks at Mrs. Mahon, and then at me. Mom, he says, can Mrs. Mahon have dinner with us?

I had been looking forward to a quiet night at home with my son. Now, of course, there is no option but to say yes.

—Of course, I say. Mrs. Mahon, will you join us?

—I’d be glad to, says Mrs. Mahon.

—But you should know that I’m a vegetarian, she says.

Mrs. Mahon is full of surprises.



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—

I look in my cabinets, my refrigerator, and my freezer. There is almost nothing to serve. Finally I determine that I can offer her spaghetti and tomato sauce from a jar, slightly past its suggested use-by date. Frozen broccoli will round out the meal.

Conversation, unfortunately, does not flow easily, and I serve dinner as soon as I can.

The three of us sit around my small table. I give Mrs. Mahon the seat at the head, and offer the bowl of pasta to her first. Thomas and I sit across from one another. All three of us have glasses of the lemonade Mrs. Mahon has brought. It has fresh mint in it, which Mrs. Mahon says she grows indoors. It tastes like a long overdue reminder that there is a season called summer. Thomas finishes his in three gulps.

Long silences between bites fill the room, and in them I can sense Thomas growing anxious. He wants the adults in the room to get along.

I clear my throat.

—Mrs. Mahon, I say, finally. Have you lived in Bensalem all your life?

—Oh no, she says. No, I grew up in New Jersey.

—I see, I say. New Jersey’s a very nice state.

—It is a nice state, Mrs. Mahon agrees. I grew up on a farm. Not many people think about farms when they think about New Jersey. But I do.

All of us resume eating then. Mrs. Mahon has a large dot of spaghetti sauce on the front of her reindeer sweatshirt, and I feel somehow responsible. I pray Mrs. Mahon won’t notice it, now or later, that it won’t cause her embarrassment.

Thomas looks at me. I look at Thomas.

—What brought you to this area? I say to Mrs. Mahon.

Mrs. Mahon says, The Sisters of St. Joseph.

I nod. I am remembering the class photograph on the wall of Mrs. Mahon’s house, the one I noticed while picking Thomas up at the end of his snow day.

—Did you go to a school they ran? I say.

—No, says Mrs. Mahon. I was one.

—You were one, I repeat.

—Yes, she says.

—A nun.

—For twenty years.

Why did you leave, I want to ask her, but I sense that this might be rude.



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—

After dinner, Thomas sidles over to the chess set that Mrs. Mahon bought for him, and begins to place the pieces on the board.