Long Bright River(81)

—Do you have family, Mickey? she says.

—Sort of, I say.

—What does that mean? says Mrs. Mahon.



* * *



—

So I tell her. There is less at stake, somehow, with Mrs. Mahon. I tell her about Kacey and Simon. I tell her about Gee. About my mother and father. About my cousins upon cousins who live both near and not near. Who do and don’t know me. I tell her everything that I have always been afraid will scare people away. The burdens I carry that are almost too much for anyone to bear.

Mrs. Mahon is motionless as I speak, her eyes focused, her posture alert. I feel more heard than I have ever felt.

I have a memory of making my first confession as a six-year-old, before making my First Holy Communion: the terror of it, Gee telling me to be quiet, to calm down, to just shut up and invent something; and then being shoved inside a little booth, confessing my nonexistent sins to a disembodied voice. The ordeal of it. The shame.

This version of confession, I think, would have been much more appropriate. Every six-year-old should have a Mrs. Mahon to speak to on a comfortable couch.

By the end of my story, I am so at ease, so wonderfully understood, that it’s as if I’ve entered another dimension, almost. It has been many years since I’ve felt so calm.

—Mrs. Mahon, I say. Do you still believe in God?

It’s a silly question, a frivolous one, something I’ve never asked anyone except for Kacey, when I was younger, and Simon.

But Mrs. Mahon nods slowly.

—I do, she says. I devoutly believe in God, and in the work of the Sisters. It was the great tragedy of my life to leave the convent. But it was the great joy of my life to marry Patrick.

She waggles her hand, looking first at the front, and then at the back.

—Two sides of the same story, she says.

I do as she does, inspecting my hand. The back of it is hard, weathered, scaled by the cold of the season. This happens every season, working the streets. The palm is tender and soft.

—You know, says Mrs. Mahon. I’m not a nurse anymore, but I still volunteer at St. Joseph’s. Ever since Patrick died. I go every week, twice a week. I cuddle the babies, she says.

—You what?

—The babies born to addicted mothers, she says. More and more babies in this city are being born to mothers who never stopped using. And then they don’t come around. The mothers and fathers, I mean. They go back to the street the minute the baby is born. Or they aren’t allowed to come around, in some cases. So the babies go into withdrawal, and they need holding, she says. Being held reduces their pain.

I am silent for so long that Mrs. Mahon puts a hand on my shoulder.

—All right? she says.

I nod.

—It might be nice if you came sometime, she says. Would you be interested?

I say nothing.

I am thinking of my own mother. I am thinking of Kacey, as a baby.

—Sometimes helping others gets the mind off its own problems, says Mrs. Mahon. I find, at least.

—I don’t think I can, I say.

Mrs. Mahon looks at me appraisingly.

—All right, she says. Let me know if you ever change your mind.





Every day for a week, I stay home with Thomas. I haven’t been home with him for so long since my maternity leave. I am happy to have this time with him. It has been too long, I realize, since I’ve devoted whole days to him, and he seems to blossom: We read books and play games. I take him to the Camden aquarium and the Franklin Institute. I teach him all the small things I know about the city.

Also, I’ve recently made a decision. Now, when he comes into my room in the night, I don’t turn him away. I let him crawl into bed, pretending not to notice. In the morning, when I wake, I watch him: in a shaft of sunlight, his little-boy face, which is changing each day; and his hair, disheveled from sleep; and his small hands, tucked under his pillow, or folded over his chest, or raised above him in a gesture of surrender.

It’s getting close to Christmas, so I take him to a Christmas tree lot and buy two: a small one for us, and a slightly larger one for Mrs. Mahon, which I leave propped against her door with a note saying we are upstairs if she needs help with it.

As it turns out, she does.



* * *



—

I think every single day of apologizing to Truman. But my shame prevents me from picking up the phone. I am cut off, therefore, from my source of information about the force as well. I hear nothing from him, and nothing from Mike DiPaolo. There is nobody I can ask for an update.



* * *



—

Each morning I expect a phone call from Denise Chambers, calling me in. I’ll be fired, I assume. But every day passes without incident.





Christmas Day is freezing cold and sunny. Ice has made its way, in curling tentacles, across my windshield, and I put Thomas in the backseat before tackling the situation with a scraper. Mrs. Mahon is with her sister for the day.

Now, in the backseat, Thomas says, Where are we going?

—To Gee’s house, I tell him.

—Why?

—We always visit Gee on Christmas, I say.

This isn’t quite true: we always visit Gee around Christmas, because typically I’ve had to work on the day itself, which means I’ve had to leave Thomas with his former babysitter, Carla. I’ve always told myself that he’s too young to notice. Last year, I’m not sure that this was true. Conveniently, no such obligations exist for me this year, during my interminable period of suspension. To Gee’s house we go, then, bearing two small gifts that Thomas and I selected for her from the King of Prussia mall.