Small Mercies: A Novel

by Eddie Joyce

  “Well, I think we’re sitting at your table, Peter. Won’t that be fun?”

  He stormed away, pulling Gina with him. Peter drained his flute, ordered a vodka tonic. Later, it would occur to him that he should have left right then.

  * * *

  Dinner was held in the grand room of the library, thirty odd tables scattered in haphazard fashion. Without the prospect of spending the night with Gina, the party reverted to what it always had been for Peter: a boring, self-congratulatory banquet, with frequent, long-winded paeans to the singular excellence of the firm of Lonigan Brown. On top of that, he had to contend with David’s incessant glaring from across the table and the drunken nattering of Jennifer Jansen, a thirteenth-year litigation associate who, despite repeated and pointed explanations to the contrary, still held out hope that one day she too would be made partner. He refilled his wineglass frequently and by the time Truman Peabody staggered to the lectern to give his annual report on the firm, replete with personalized commendations for partners who had done outstanding work in the past year, Peter was drunk and miserable and half hoping that David would stop glaring at him and just throw a punch already so he could kick the shit out of him.

  Truman cleared his throat dramatically and launched into it.

  “In the winter of 1894, two young men—James Lonigan and Lionel Brown . . .”

  A low groan passed through the cavernous room. A flurry of hands reached for wine bottles around the tables. At least his table was tucked in the back, out of sight. Peter considered the uneaten piece of pink beef that sat on his plate. His mind turned to the countless affairs he attended growing up on Staten Island: CYO awards dinners, Little League banquets, Christmas lunches. Their combined cost was probably a fraction of the tab for this event. He dug his fork into the cold slab of beef and lifted it off the plate. He waved it at Gina across the table.

  “Hey, Gina, at least at the Staaten, they gave you chicken francaise. Am I right?”

  Gina stifled a giggle and David’s glare narrowed and his temples clicked. The rest of the table looked around in confusion. Peter dropped the beef back to his plate, took another long pull of wine. He excused himself and wandered off in search of the bathroom. When he got back to the table, David was absent and Truman had moved on to the individual citation portion of his speech. He tried to catch Gina’s attention, but she wouldn’t look at him.

  A wave of applause went up as someone from a nearby table rose to acknowledge Truman’s laudation.

  “Gina,” Peter whispered low across the table. Her eyes pivoted to him briefly, her chin trembling as she shook her head. Another partner rose to accept his round of weak clapping.

  “Gina.”

  Peter scanned the nearby area. No sign of David. Jennifer was snoring lightly beside him, waking only to join the intermittent applause. The other people at the table—two retired partners and their spouses—were either sleeping or riveted to Truman’s speech. Peter scurried around the table and slid into David’s empty seat.

  “Gina, what happened? What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, Peter. I don’t know.”

  “Did David leave?”

  A final burst of applause drowned out her answer. People stood to clap this time, a standing ovation signifying that the speech was over. A high-pitched drone echoed through the room as Truman brushed against the microphone while exiting the lectern.

  “Did David leave, Gina?”

  The rest of their table was rousing. The party wasn’t over, but a large chunk of people started heading for the coat check. The associates in attendance would flee for hipper quarters to finish their night; the tippling partners would continue their debauchery in a dark-paneled bar at a private club. Peter put his hand on Gina’s knee.

  “Gina.”

  “Oh, shit,” she said and stood. “What the fuck is he doing?”

  Peter rose, confused. He heard a noise all around him, a finger tapping on a microphone. He followed Gina’s gaze to the front of the room. David’s milky face lingered above the lectern, the picture of calm determination.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen.” The microphone squealed in protest and two hundred heads turned in confusion. Peter looked around. A few people had leaked into the vestibule, but the mass of the party was still standing there, dumbfounded. Terror flooded through him. He wanted to run, but his legs were stone.

  “Sorry, a little feedback.” David paused, looked down at the floor, seemed uncertain for a second, and Peter felt the tiniest flicker of hope. Then David looked up, his nerve gathered.

  “I wanted to make one special addition to the list of noteworthy accomplishments this year. I wanted to single out Peter Amendola, litigation partner, for repeatedly fucking my fiancée, Regina Giordano. Well done, Peter.”

  He pointed to their table, laid the microphone on the lectern, and started clapping. Two hundred heads swiveled in Peter’s direction. He could already sense David’s revelation being condensed into tiny arrows—texts, e-mails, even the quaint old-fashioned phone call—and fired in Lindsay’s direction. No chance one wouldn’t find its mark.

  He lurched backward, put a hand on his chair, and vomited the better part of two bottles of red wine onto the marble floor.

  * * *

  After Peter abandons the pay phone, he wanders out to the Promenade and leans against the railing. At least the whole thing didn’t hit YouTube, didn’t go viral. No, at least that didn’t happen. Small mercies.

  He looks over at Manhattan, imagines the quiet lapping of the harbor’s black water against its bulk. It’s still there, unconquered, unbowed. A sliver of rock between two rivers.

  We owe the dead our sins.

  He was downtown when it happened, at one of the Wall Street firms that never made the leap to midtown. A joint defense meeting. He can’t even remember which case. Some associate wandered into the conference room, vague on details, a small plane had crashed into one of the towers.

  He was outside in the street when the second plane hit. When he knew. When everyone knew. His first thought was Franky. He was worried about Franky, not Bobby. Franky with the new job that he’d pulled strings to get. The mailroom job at a trading firm in one of the towers.

  What floor, Peter? What floor?

  He wandered to the ferry, the most natural thing in the world. What he’d always done. He watched the first tower crumble from the ferry’s rear deck, people crying and praying and screaming around him. He took the train, walked to his childhood home, his hand cramped from gripping his briefcase. The front door was open.

  A small crowd in the living room: Mom, Dad, Tina. Only when he saw everyone else’s eyes did he realize he was also crying. His mother hugged him and over her shoulder he saw Franky sidle in from the kitchen. Thank God.

  His mother said something about Bobby. Missing, not accounted for. But Bobby’s firehouse was in Brooklyn, well out of harm’s way. No. They’ve heard nothing. He looked around the room and there was still hope in everyone’s eyes, behind the tears. Then he found his father’s eyes. They were dull and certain. He moved his head from side to side, swiftly, slightly, a gesture for Peter alone. His mother started sobbing into his shoulder.

  We owe the dead our sins.

  He’d spoken to Bobby on the phone the night before. He was holding his own daughter, a few weeks old. He called Bobby, who was out with Franky, watching the Giants game. They were always closer, even though he and Franky were closer in age. Bobby, the youngest, but the first to be a father. He stepped outside the bar to talk to Peter.

  “It’s amazing, bro, isn’t it? It’s amazing. It’s not like anything else in the world.”

  “Yes, it is. It’s unbelievable.”

  Peter brought a hand down to his daughter’s thimble of a chin.

  “Fucking Giants.”

  “What?”

 
“Fucking Giants defense sucks.”

  “Go enjoy the game, Bobby.”

  “Thanks, bro. I love you.”

  The line went dead before Peter could respond.

  Peter wipes his eyes. Maybe he needs a change, a fresh start. Maybe it’ll do him good to be in a city without ghosts, to be someplace where his past isn’t a ferry ride away, where he doesn’t feel anchored to someone else’s ethos. Maybe Chicago is exactly what he needs.

  Out in the darkness of the harbor, an unseen ferry sounds its horn, whether in agreement or objection, Peter can’t tell.

  Chapter 5

  THE SERVANTS’ QUARTERS

  On Wednesday morning, Michael drives Gail to the ferry. Gail offers to take the train, but he’s playing golf at Silver Lake with an old firefighter buddy and the ferry is more or less on the way.

  “Two birds, one stone,” he says and this makes her smile, because Michael loves his little sayings, loves how the wisdom of the ages can be distilled into a sentence. And she loves how he still makes excuses to be around her, even if it’s only twenty minutes in the car, neither of them really talking. She looks out the car window on the way; the sky is a medley of grays, has been this way all week.

  He wants to play golf in this drizzling misery?

  No, he wants to sit in a cart and drink beer. Laugh with a like-minded soul. No matter. Don’t try to understand everything your husband does. Sometimes she has to remind herself of her own advice.

  She wants to tell Michael in the car about Tina meeting someone. About Wade. She won’t get a better chance. She should tell him. He would dismiss her wilder anxieties. He would tell her that Tina and the kids aren’t moving across the country. He would remind her what Tina always says: that she wouldn’t have survived the last decade without Gail. He would kiss her forehead, tell her that all will be well. She should tell him.

  But she doesn’t. He’s happy this morning and she doesn’t want to ruin that. This time of the year is rough. Hard not to think about Bobby with everything you do: the basketball tournament, St. Patrick’s Day, Bobby Jr.’s birthday. So she sits there and says nothing.

  The car winds its way down Victory Boulevard toward the ferry, passing a mishmash of storefronts: Mexican food joints, dollar stores, a joyless beauty parlor half-filled with black women getting their hair done. A few newly refurbished shops dot the otherwise grimy tableau: a wine bar, an antique shop, a coffee place called The Good Bean. The latest doomed attempts at gentrifying St. George. In six months, the graffiti-filled shutters on these new places will be lowered for good and their bewildered owners will hurry back across the harbor to the safety of Manhattan.

  Michael stops the car in the drop-off zone. He kisses Gail good-bye and leans across the vacant passenger seat after she leaves the car.

  “Tell big shot I said hello.”

  “I will. Take it easy with the beers. You’re driving. Plus, you got the Leaf’s Saint Paddy’s Day party later.”

  His face brightens at the reminder. She married a nice Italian boy and turned him into a donkey. With a little help from the FDNY.

  “Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  The car pulls away from the curb. Gail blows on her hands, tries to coax some warmth into them. She walks into the ferry terminal, a sudden loneliness her only companion.

  Despite the cold, she sits outside on the ferry, on the side that faces the Verrazano. She prefers this side: less crowded, no tourists. The sight of the bridge always stirs something in Gail. She’s spent her entire life within ten miles of this bridge, on one side or the other. Some days this makes her proud, some days sad. Today it’s a little of both, and there’s nothing inconsistent about that, nothing at all. Most of the things people take pride in are a little sad, if you thought about it. Pride is sad. To take pride in something is to proclaim its importance, and really, how many important things are there? How many could there possibly be?

  A light rain starts to fall and a few errant drops find Gail, pushed under the overhang by a haphazard wind. She should go inside, but she doesn’t. The rain and the cold suit her melancholy. The slow, steady progress of the ferry echoes a commensurate rise in the foulness of her mood. This annual pilgrimage to see Peter is a fool’s errand. The ostensible purpose is to collect Peter’s entries for the Cody’s pool. Bobby used to do it every year, as a way of keeping his older brother in the family’s orbit. Maybe have a corned beef sandwich and a pint of Guinness to celebrate St. Paddy’s.

  But with each passing year, the lunch has become more and more of an obligation to Peter. Gail knows that’s how he feels, sitting across from her, not bothering to hide his BlackBerry, ticking off the minutes until he can pay the bill, hurry back to his office, and cross another item off his to-do list. She isn’t even sure whether he feels obligated to her or the ghost of his brother. She doesn’t care. She’s sick of her oldest son humoring her attempts at maintaining some semblance of tradition.

  She probably would have cancelled if she didn’t have to tell Peter about Tina. She’s wasted the last few days, not told a soul, convinced herself that telling Peter first made the most sense. He’s the reasonable and clearheaded one. He’ll understand, maybe even help her figure out a way to tell Franky.

  No one else can help her tell Bobby. She has to do that alone.

  After the ferry docks, Gail shuffles off with the rest of the crowd and makes her way up to the Bowling Green station. The wind at the southern tip of Manhattan is ferocious. People sway as they walk. An African man selling umbrellas on the sidewalk struggles to return his sample to a usable state. A flock of middle-school kids scream in joy at their own helplessness. The detached pages of a newspaper rise from the street and hover for a moment before being whisked into Battery Park.

  She doesn’t mind the wind. It keeps her head down, her gaze lowered, preventing her from trying to see what is no longer there.

  * * *

  She doesn’t recognize the look on Peter’s face. He’s sitting across from her, glumly shaking pepper onto a plate of bacon and eggs like he’s sprinkling dirt on a grave. He tucks his tie between the buttons of his white shirt and stares down at his plate, like it’s a riddle he can’t figure out.

  Defeated, she realizes, he looks defeated. He doesn’t have the answers. His confidence is shot. Something has happened to him, something he didn’t expect and hadn’t planned on and he doesn’t know what to do. A dose of gratification ripples through her, leaving guilt in its wake. She wishes she could say something or simply ask him what’s wrong, but she can’t. It’s never been like that between them. He’s always insisted on his independence, on not relying on his parents, not relying on her. Too much track has been laid; neither of them has the capacity for the conversation that should happen. She’ll have to poke around and see what he gives her.

  “Why are we eating here? Why aren’t we in the firm’s cafeteria or the Pig ‘n’ Whistle?”

  “I like it here,” he says, looking around, as though he’s mildly insulted on behalf of the establishment. “I thought you’d be glad I still ate in diners.”

  “I like the cafeteria. I like meeting the people you work with.”

  Peter lowers his fork, wipes his mouth with a napkin.

  “Mom, you like shooting the shit with Maureen. You hate the people I work with. You’ve never given a fuck about my work, about what I do.”

  “That’s not true,” she protests.

  “It is unquestionably true. When was the last time you asked me about a case I was working on? When was the last time you asked me anything about work, other than how Maureen was doing?”

  “I don’t always understand what you do.”

  He doesn’t look up between bites.

  “You know exactly what I do. I represent corporations, sometimes individuals, who the government is investigating or who are involved in lawsuits with
other corporations. Or, as you would put it: I represent rich people. Other rich people.”

  His response is swift, premeditated. She’s forgotten what it’s like to talk to him. You have to parse every word. Every question sets the stage for answers he’s already decided on.

  “Jesus, Peter, what’s up your ass?”

  He doesn’t answer. In the dark rolling wave of his stubble, she notices a few whitecaps. A waiter meanders over and refills their coffees. When he leaves, she tries to change the tenor of the conversation.

  “I just always thought you’d end up being a prosecutor. Maybe an assistant U.S. attorney like your friend Matt from law school, and then maybe the district attorney for Staten Island.”

  His eyes lift from the plate. His fork, coated with egg yolk, hovers below his chin.

  “The DA for Staten Island?” He laughs.

  “Yes, what’s so funny about that? You could still do it, you know.”

  “Jesus, Mom.”

  He rubs his left eye, smiles at some private joke.

  “Well, it would be an interesting campaign.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing, Gail, it means nothing.”

  He does this to irritate her. Calls her Gail.

  “It wouldn’t be such a terrible life, you know. You could live on Todt Hill, the kids could go to Staten Island Academy. You could join the country club.”

  Peter stares at her blankly.

  “What?” she asks.

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Well, what if I am? Would that be so terrible?”

  “What about Lindsay? How do you think Lindsay would like living on Staten Island?”

  “I’m sure she’d like it fine.”

  Not true and Gail knows it. But Gail can’t say what she wants to say, which is maybe the problem is with Lindsay, not with Staten Island. No, she can’t say that. She tries to think of something that would appeal to Lindsay.