Long Bright River(80)

—Come here, says Mrs. Mahon, patting the sofa, and she teaches him where all the pieces go, and how they move.

As they play, I clear the table and then wash the dishes, slowly, doing them by hand. My shoulders sink and suddenly I realize that I’ve been carrying them up by my ears for months. I feel the specific relaxation of knowing one’s child is being well cared for by someone else. A moment of pure and peaceful inwardness, unencumbered by any guilt.

Afterward, I let Thomas teach me what he has just been taught, pretending not to know already. And then Thomas and Mrs. Mahon play against one another. Mrs. Mahon coaches him through every decision—Are you sure you want to do that? and Take that back and Wait, wait, think a minute—until at last, and under entirely false pretenses, Thomas is able to pronounce, Checkmate.

He celebrates, his little hands going into the air in the touchdown pose his father once taught him.

—I win! says Thomas.

—With help, I say.

—Fair and square, says Mrs. Mahon.



* * *



—

Later, Mrs. Mahon waits on the sofa while I walk Thomas to his bed. At Thomas’s request, I leave a light on low in the corner and hand him a superhero compendium that I gave him for his last birthday.

—I love you, says Thomas.

I stiffen. This is not a phrase I regularly use. Certainly Thomas must know how much I love him from my actions, from the way I care for him, from the various ways in which I attend to him and his well-being. I have never trusted words, especially not words that are used to describe internal emotions, and something about the phrase feels artificial to me. Phony. The only person who ever said it to me in my life, that I can recall, was Simon, and well. Look how that turned out.

—Where did you learn that, I say.

—On TV, says Thomas.

—I love you too, I say.

—I love you three, Thomas says again.

—All right, I say. Enough. Go to sleep. But I am smiling.

Back in the living area, Mrs. Mahon is dozing lightly. I clear my throat loudly several times, and she sits up with a start.

—Oh dear, she says. Long day.

She puts her hands on her knees as if to stand, and then looks at me, changing her mind.

—Mickey, she says. You know, I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’m happy to watch Thomas from time to time. He’s a nice boy. And I know you’re having a hard time at the moment.

I shake my head. That won’t be necessary, I say.

But Mrs. Mahon is looking at me in a steady, calm way that tells me she is serious, and also that she doesn’t want to hear excuses. She reminds me suddenly of some of the stricter sisters from the first grade school I attended.

—He needs consistency, says Mrs. Mahon. It doesn’t seem like he has much, right now.

For the first time all night, I bristle. There she is: the Mrs. Mahon I expected, the one who tells me how to bag my groceries and how to parent my son.

Mrs. Mahon begins to speak again, but I cut her off.

—We’re fine, thank you, I say. We’ve got it under control.

A silence settles over the room. Mrs. Mahon looks down at the chessboard. She rises, painfully, and brushes at her pants.

—I’ll leave you alone now, she says. Thank you for dinner.

As she opens the door, I surprise myself.

—Why did you leave the order, I say. I’ve been wondering since Mrs. Mahon mentioned it. And apparently we’re getting personal now.

—I fell in love, says Mrs. Mahon, simply.

—With who? I say.

Slowly, she closes the door again.

—With Patrick Mahon, she says. A social worker. A very good person.

—What was your name before it was Mrs. Mahon? I ask.

She smiles. Looks down. She walks to the sofa and, with effort, sits down. I join her there.

—I was born Cecilia Kenney, she says. Then I was Sister Katherine Caritas. Then I was Cecilia Mahon. Am, she says.

—How did you meet Patrick Mahon? I say.

—He worked for St. Joseph’s hospital, she says, which our order helped to run. He shepherded families who came in with sick children. Poor families, you know, she says. Or families who didn’t speak English, or parents suspected of abuse or neglect. Those were the hardest cases, she says. He worked around the clock there. I got to know him while I was assigned to care for the babies in the NICU. My training was as a registered nurse. A lot of us Sisters were nurses.

She pauses.

—We fell in love, she says again. I left the order. We got married. I was forty years old.

—That was brave of you, I say, after a pause.

But Mrs. Mahon shakes her head. Not brave, she says. Cowardly, if anything. But I don’t regret it.

I am afraid to ask what happened to him. To Patrick.

—He died five years ago, says Mrs. Mahon. In case you were wondering. We lived together twenty-five years, there in that house below you. This, she says, gesturing around at the apartment, was his studio. He painted, you know. Painted and sculpted.

—I’m sorry, I say. I’m so sorry for your loss.

She shrugs. So it goes, she says.

—Are those his paintings downstairs? I say.

She nods. She puts a finger on a rook and moves it two ahead. Two back. She looks at me over the top of her glasses.

—They’re very nice, I say. I like them.