“Listen, like I said, I’m really grateful for this. You don’t even know me.”
“John was best man at my wedding,” Jimmy said. “I’ve known him and Molly since we were teenagers. If you’re in with them, you’re in with me, too.” He set his hand on her shoulder and pulled open the gate with the other. “Now, inside with you. It’s cold out here.”
Maureen walked through the gate but stopped when Jimmy didn’t follow. “What about you?”
“I’ll be in now and again, but mostly I’ll be out here. The car looks like junk but the heater works great; I’ll charge John for the gas. They can’t get through the door if they can’t get through the gate, can they?” Jimmy opened the gate wider. “Go ahead, Maureen. You look exhausted.”
Maureen headed up the walk. Safe and looked out for, that was how John and Molly and Jimmy wanted her to feel. She made a mental note to work hard to act that way, even if she had to fake it. She couldn’t deny, though, as Molly came to the door to meet her on the walk, that staying here was a relief.
“You doing all right?” Molly asked, taking Maureen’s bag.
“Hanging in. Gimme one second. I gotta call my mom and check in.”
“Take your time,” Molly said. She went back inside.
Maureen paced on the walk, the phone to her ear, waiting for her mom to answer. No way I should be here, she thought, while my mother sits home alone. She chewed her thumbnail. Have I ever thought that, even once, in the years since I left? Maybe I should move back home for a while. It would certainly help my wallet—and my mother, whether she admits it or not.
Amber answered. “So this is what it takes for you to call your mother.”
Or maybe I’ll keep my apartment, Maureen thought, and we’ll go from there. “Hey, Ma. Everything okay?”
Molly leaned out the front door, mouthing a question: Wine? Maureen nodded, making the sign of the cross in Molly’s direction.
“Fine. The same,” Amber said. “No sign of that creep. I got my eye out for him, though.” A pause for a sip of wine. “How about you, honey? You okay? You need anything?”
Maureen stared at her phone as if she’d never before heard the voice on the other end. “I’m okay. I’m staying with friends. Waters said it would be best.”
“I know,” Amber said. “He stopped by not long ago to check up on me, said he’d come by again later. He’s a nice man. You can tell he used to be handsome.”
“He is,” Maureen said. “Nice, I mean. He’s trying his best to look out for me.”
Molly reached a glass out the front door. Maureen took it, waiting to drink until she was off the phone.
“Detective Waters is doing a better job of watching over us,” Amber said, “than some other men I could mention, but won’t.”
Like that man whose ring you wear? The woman is never gonna make sense, Maureen thought, so let her be.
“I’m not far,” Maureen said. “I’m over in Annadale.”
“Don’t tell me,” Amber said. “If I don’t know I can’t tell that SOB if he comes looking.”
“Ma, don’t say things like that,” Maureen said. “Did Waters put that idea in your head?”
“He didn’t have to. I know how these things work. I watch TV.”
Maureen spent a moment trying to figure out if her mother was serious. She decided that she didn’t want to know. “This will be over soon. Don’t worry about me.”
“Look up at the sky,” Amber said. She waited. “You looking?”
Maureen tilted her head back. May as well play along. “I’m looking, Ma.”
“What do you see?”
“A few stars, mostly clouds. I think an airplane.”
“You see any pigs flying around up there?”
Maureen chuckled. “No.”
“When you do,” Amber said, “call me back. That’s when I’ll stop worrying about you. You’re my daughter, for chrissakes.” She hung up.
Maureen looked up again at the sky. Was her mother losing it, she wondered, or finally coming back down to earth? How did you tell the difference?
For dinner, Molly reheated pot roast and potatoes left over from Sunday dinner at her folks’. I promised you home-cooked, she had said. I didn’t make any promises about whose home or who cooked it. Maureen savored every bite, told Molly this would be the first thing she would learn to cook when she got back in her apartment, and that she’d cook it for her and John as soon as she mastered it. Molly promised that when that happened she’d bring dessert.
After they loaded the dishwasher, Maureen left Molly at the dining room table, hunched over her last few papers, Miles Davis soft on the stereo. She walked to Molly’s living room window, pulled a curtain aside, and looked out at the front yard. The white pickets of the fence leaned like drunks in line for the men’s room. The rocky yard dipped and rolled. Scraggly crab grass sprouted at random. The slate walkway looked beaten to pieces by a gang of hammer-wielding eight-year-olds. Not exactly the picture-perfect American Dream.
But Molly does live in a house of her own, Maureen thought, aching with envy, not an apartment owned by someone else. Molly lives in a house with a fence and a porch light and locks that no one but she can change or open. A house with rooms painted colors she chose, where she walks up her busted path to get her own mail and take the trash to the curb, and wave to neighbors who know and look out for her.
“I’m glad you came at night,” Molly said, joining Maureen at the window. “That’s when the yard looks the best.”
“John doesn’t mend fences?”
Molly laughed. “What a loaded question to ask an English major about her temperamental boyfriend.”
“Then I won’t ask if he gardens.”
“That mess out there will keep,” Molly said. “We’ll knock it out after the school year, when I have the time.”
“Is there a reason Jimmy McGrath is sitting out there in his car,” Maureen said, “and not in here with us?” Reflected in the window, her face looked formless, as if made of wax. She squinted, thinking she could see the thumbprints of her maker in her cheeks. Please God, she thought, don’t let that really be me. “Is he staying away from me?”
Molly frowned. “Why would you think that?”
“Just wondering,” Maureen said. “I don’t know what I’m saying.” She set her wine on the windowsill and studied her hands. “I feel sometimes like Sebastian is some filthy disease I’m carrying and no one wants to catch it from me.”
“Right. And that’s why you’ve got a small army looking out for you. That’s why I’m letting you stay in my house.”
Maureen leaned her forehead against the cold glass. “I didn’t mean it like that, Molly. I’m not ungrateful.” She closed her eyes. “I’m tired. Not just in my body but deep down, deeper than my bones. I’m exhausted in my soul.”
She waited, eyes closed, listening to Molly’s breathing. Is this when I get kicked out? When everyone says fuck it and gets back about their own business? Somewhere in the house, the central heat kicked on. Wouldn’t that be nice to have? Maureen thought. Heat, warmth on command. She straightened, grabbed her wine, drained what was left of it. “Look, Molly—”
“I know how you feel,” Molly said. “It’s awful, like it takes everything you have in you to keep breathing. Things get bad, and then they get worse.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s cold by the window. Let’s sit.”
They moved to the couch. Nestling into one of its corners, Maureen searched for something harmless to talk about. On the fireplace mantel sat pictures in drugstore frames. Molly in front of a classroom, Molly and John, Molly and a very handsome man that wasn’t John, arms around each other, laughing, obviously very happy together. Maureen wondered how John felt about that photo. Well, she thought, it was Molly’s house. Maybe that picture kept John honest, reminded him that while he may be the One, he wasn’t the only one ever. “You and John have been together,” Maureen said, “what, two years?”
�
�About that,” Molly said. “This time around.”
“Think you’ll get married?”
“Marry him?” Molly said, grinning. “Then I’d have to live with him.”
“The place is small for two,” Maureen said, not entirely convinced that Molly was kidding. “That’s for sure.”
“John’s a funny man,” Molly said. “He’s real impulsive in some ways. In other things, he’s real deliberate. With us, he’s deliberate. This place is small, but we could do two if we had to. And right now, this place is our only option. I’m not giving up owning my own house to rent an apartment.” She crossed her legs on the couch. “Soon, we’ll buy a place. We’re both saving. I’d never get enough from this place alone. All things in due time. There’s no rush.”
At this point in the conversation, Maureen knew decorum dictated that she offer up some lighthearted sisterly criticism of John’s bullshit stalling. She should warn Molly about John’s genetic male fear of commitment and about the universal female trait of indulging it because this man was different, because this relationship was unique. The same lies every woman told herself and her mother and her sisters and her friends while waiting for the man she loved to evolve into a man she could marry. But Maureen came up empty in both the wisecrack and the criticism department. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe she was blank because Molly spoke so matter-of-factly, without irony or defensiveness. Or maybe she wanted to believe in Molly and John—and Jimmy and Rose, for that matter—for her own sake. So she could believe that couples who made plans and promises and stuck together did, in fact, exist.
“It’s not all John,” Molly said. “I’d have a hard time letting go of this place; it was my brother’s. His widow sold it to me cheap before she took the kids to Jersey. She was in a hurry. That picture you were staring at, the one that’s not John. That’s me and my brother Eddie, the summer before he died.”
“What happened?”
“He was a cop. He was killed on nine-eleven.”
Maureen couldn’t resist looking back at the photo on the mantel. God, the family resemblance was so obvious, why hadn’t she seen it right away? At Cargo, John hung photos of Trade Center dead behind the bar: former regulars, guys from the firehouse around the corner. Was Eddie in one of those photos? Surely John would know better than to put it up. Unless Molly wanted it there. Maureen couldn’t recall seeing Eddie; the faces had faded in her memory. So many faces, she thought, come and gone, learned and forgotten, read and put back on the shelf. Who could remember them all? “I’m so sorry, Molly. That’s awful.”
“But not exactly rare around here. One reason my sister-in-law moved was to get off a block that’s half widows. Anyway, it was a long time ago.”
“Not for everyone.”
“No,” Molly said. “I guess not.” She looked at Maureen over her wine. “Anyway, that was my time with a broken soul.” She tried to smile. “It’s not fatal, if you don’t let it be. John helped. Still helps.” She sighed, as if setting down a heavy weight. “How about you? Any siblings?”
“Only child. Just me and Mom. My father took off when I was eleven.” She took a big swallow of wine. “My block was half single moms. Divorce was big in Eltingville.”
“Not just there.”
“Your folks?”
“Forty years together this summer,” Molly said, nodding over at the mantel. “And going strong. Gives me hope.”
“I hope your sister-in-law meets someone else someday,” Maureen said. Immediately and massively regretting what she’d said, she stared down at her wine, her embarrassment so acute that it caused her physical pain. She could feel Molly’s eyes on her. “Growing old alone hasn’t worn well on my mom.”
Would you please shut up, Maureen, she thought. Shame about your dead brother, Molly. Hope the widow doesn’t dry up and blow away over it, though. Jesus. This is why I don’t talk to people. This is what I get for attempting a woman-to-woman conversation about men and plans and family—three subjects about which I know nothing. Maybe Molly had the number for the animal shelter.
God, I don’t wanna be a crazy cat lady. I fucking hate cats.
“That’s nice of you to say,” Molly said, “about my sister-in-law. I think the same thing. Eddie’s life was enough of a loss, Denise shouldn’t die over it, too.
“They were saving for a bigger place when he died.” Molly put her hand on Maureen’s knee. “Wanna hear something ridiculous? I think sometimes that’s why I don’t want John moving in. Another young couple saving for a bigger place. Something about repeating that creeps me out.” Molly set her wine on the floor, rubbed her face with her hands. “God, I’m not usually this morbid.”
“It’s not morbid,” Maureen said. “Everyone has things that are hard to let go of.”
She thought of her father’s picture hanging in the hall of her mother’s house, of Amber’s wine-sodden vigils, of her wedding ring. She thought about running from that house, from her mom, at nineteen years old, abandoning her mom as her father had. Yeah, it was different, in a way. As the daughter, Maureen was supposed to grow up and move out. But the move hadn’t been a strike for maturity and independence. It was flight. She had run away. And even now, ten years later, she could hear the voice running through her head, the tone and the attitude true for sure, if not the exact words, as she packed while her mother was at work: I am so done with you. See ya never. Had her father heard the same voice as he walked out the door? Maybe all he had wanted was to get away. Escape was what his daughter had wanted, what she always seemed to want.
“Believe me,” Maureen said, “I understand the urge to make a new start. To have something of your own, even if you don’t know what it is you want.” She lifted her glass to her mouth but didn’t drink. Her throat was dry, but she’d lost her thirst. “And I know how hard it is to get that new start going.”
Not long after, Molly collected the glasses and brought Maureen sheets, blankets, and a pillow. While Maureen took a shower, Molly slipped a pair of boxers and a T-shirt into the bathroom. Drying off, Maureen thought twice about the boxers, might be a bit weird if they were John’s, but once she was dressed she felt pretty good wearing someone else’s clothes. It was foolish, she knew, but it felt like putting on a disguise.
She could live with being someone else for a while.
When Maureen returned to the living room, Molly was on the couch, wearing pajama bottoms and an old oversized Mets jersey. I don’t know about the boxers I’m wearing, Maureen thought, but that jersey is John’s for sure. She stopped short. The gun, on the other hand. The one in Molly’s lap. No idea where that came from.
“I suppose I should have warned you first,” Molly said. “It’s nothing to be afraid of. Have you ever used a gun?”
Maureen shook her head.
“I have to tell you,” Molly said, “I’m surprised by that.”
“About as surprised as I am,” Maureen said, “that you have one.”
Molly smiled. “Because of my overly shy and demure nature?”
“I thought we were going for safety in numbers?”
“Thirty-eight is a number. It’s a semi-auto, so there are a few tricks to it. Come sit by me, and I’ll show you how to use it.”
Sitting close, Maureen learned how to release the safety and cock the hammer on the .38. She held it in her hand, pointed it. Using two hands she closed one eye and sighted the lamp across the room, the weight of the gun tugging at the muscles in her wrists and forearms. Though she hadn’t the nerve to touch the trigger, she ran her fingertip along the smooth chrome of the trigger guard, the compact barrel. She liked the solid weight of the gun in her hand, the cool metallic smell, the way it gleamed in the lamplight.
Molly’s white picket fence was a wreck, Maureen thought, but the woman took care of her gun.
Maureen recalled an old boyfriend who had owned a motorcycle, a Honda Shadow, that he adored. The .38 smelled like that motorcycle. Maureen never missed the boy, but sometimes she missed his bike
. Wrapping her hand around the gun handle felt like gripping the throttle of the idling Honda. The boy had never let her ride on her own. He’d let her start the machine, but after that he insisted Maureen play passenger. She complained but never really pushed him, always secretly afraid that once she had control, she’d lose it and disaster would follow.
Maureen almost protested, almost confessed that she doubted she could pull the trigger, even if someone came crashing through the front door. She knew her first, most powerful instinct would be to run. But then, looking at Molly, she realized she was the last line of defense. She’d be the only thing standing between the intruders and Molly, and maybe John asleep upstairs. Standing her ground wasn’t just about her safety. Other people had a stake. Like poor Jimmy. Bad news for him if someone made it into the house.
Maureen pictured herself kicking open the front door, gunning down a horde of faceless assailants pinning Jimmy to the hood of his car. Yeah, right. Calm down, girlfriend. More likely she’d be blazing away and spraying bullets through half the living rooms on the block, taking out Jimmy, the neighbor’s dog, and the streetlights. God forbid she ever had to shoot, she’d be lucky to remember to keep her eyes open.
“Maybe we should give the gun to Jimmy,” Maureen said. “He’s out there alone.”
“Jimmy can handle himself. And he’s going home when John gets here. The gun is for you.” Molly pressed her palms together, steepling her fingers. “Look, I thought it’d be a comfort, like a night-light or a guard dog. I wasn’t trying to scare you. I’m really not expecting an assault team to hit the house in the middle of the night. It’s more for the next few days than tonight. I get the feeling there’s only so much sitting around and waiting you can tolerate.”
Maureen looked down at the gun in her lap.
“If you’d rather not have it,” Molly said. “I can take it back.”
“I’ll get used to it,” Maureen said. She leaned down and slid the gun under the couch, where it lay hidden but easy to reach if she wanted it. She’d leave it there for the night and see how she felt about it in the morning, in the cold light of day.
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