Small Mercies: A Novel

by Eddie Joyce

  “There’s a new Indian restaurant on New Dorp Lane.”

  “A new Indian restaurant? Well, that changes everything.”

  “There’s a good sushi place on Hylan Boulevard, I hear.”

  “Ahh, sushi and Indian. I had it wrong. Staten Island’s a bastion of diversity and open-mindedness.”

  His sarcasm flicks a raw nerve. Years ago, Peter said that Staten Island was the servants’ quarters of the city. He didn’t mean anything by it, was trying to make a point. But the phrase stuck with Gail. She thinks of it every time she sees him. Worse still is the truth of it, as reflected in her own mind. Whenever she comes to the city, she feels out of place, an outsider, the shanty Irish servant traipsing clumsily through the dining room, with its fine china and exquisite crystal. He smiles across at her, satisfied by his peremptory dismissal of her idea. She feels the blood rush to her face.

  “Don’t give me that shit, Peter. I’ve seen where you live. Not a lot of plumbers or cops. Not a lot of black people either. Don’t give me a lecture on diversity.”

  His eyes narrow. He’s been spoiling for a fight, trying to goad her into one since they sat down, and now he has what he wants.

  “True enough, Gail, true enough. But at least it’s not a bunch of wannabe gangster gindaloons who wear their ignorance like a badge.”

  Real anger in his voice. Something is definitely wrong. Now, she’s worried about him and angry at him all at once.

  “I don’t know why you would say that, Peter. I truly don’t. You’re talking about your own people.”

  “They’re not my people.”

  He takes a sip of coffee and his face contorts with the presence of a novel thought.

  “And what do you care anyway? They’re definitely not your people. You should hate them even more.”

  “You’re Italian by blood. I’m Italian by borough.”

  She watches the anger slide from his face. He dips a piece of toast into egg yolk.

  “Italian by borough? That’s pretty good. How long you been holding that one back?”

  “A few years. Been waiting for the right moment.”

  “Well done.”

  He laughs and she smiles. She takes a sip of coffee. She should leave this where it is, let this good mood linger, end on this note. But Peter’s intransigence galls her. His whole life is a rejection of her, of his own family, of how he was raised. She doesn’t understand.

  “I don’t know what’s so wrong with wanting my family to be close by. I barely see your kids. You never bring them to visit. You act like there’s something wrong with us.”

  “Jesus, Mom. We’re coming over on Sunday. The whole family.”

  She starts crying. How many of these lunches have brought tears to her eyes? Too many.

  “That’s not what I mean. I don’t understand where things went wrong. We should be closer. Bobby would have wanted it that way.”

  “Jesus, Mom, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “And now Tina’s met someone . . . I don’t know.”

  She didn’t want to bring it up this way. She’s laying it on Peter, trying to conjure some sympathy from him. A pained expression crosses his face. He takes his BlackBerry from his pocket and scans it. His fingers dance frenetically for a few moments and then he puts it away. He looks back at her, his lips rearranged in a sheepish frown.

  “I heard about Tina.”

  “Heard what?”

  “That’s she dating someone, dating Wade.”

  How does he know his name?

  “I think it’s serious, Peter.”

  “It is.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Wade is a friend of mine. You’ve met him.”

  “A friend of yours?” she asks, shocked.

  “Yes,” he says, eyes averted.

  Things are dawning on her. A tiny conspiracy is forming in her head.

  “Did you introduce them?”

  He tilts his head down and scratches the back of his neck, a tick he’s had since he was a teenager, when he was being evasive.

  “Sort of. I gave him Tina’s number last year. He lost his wife a few years ago and I thought maybe she could help him, you know, with the grief.”

  “Jesus, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know he lost his wife.”

  Gail feels a softening in her dislike for this man she doesn’t know. A widower, someone who’s experienced loss.

  “Does he have any children?” she asks.

  “No, Morgan was . . . Morgan was his wife. She was pregnant when she was killed in a car crash. Four months along.”

  “My God.”

  “I’m not even sure Tina knows that, Mom.”

  “I won’t say anything.”

  She can’t even hate this man. Can’t even hate the man who is trying to replace her son, trying to take Tina and Alyssa and Bobby away from her. It’s not fair. She starts to cry again, tries to hide it from Peter, but she can’t. He reaches over and takes her hand.

  “Your hands are freezing, Mom.”

  “Cold hands, warm heart.”

  His face settles in a rueful stare. He looks at her as though he can’t quite remember who she is and then he looks down at their entwined hands.

  “Strange,” he says, more to himself than to her, “strange the things that you don’t realize you remember. That stick in your brain somewhere, waiting for something to stir them. ‘Cold hands, warm heart.’ Jesus, the things you forget.”

  He’s lost in some tormented contemplation. Gail can’t remember him ever being this distracted, this scatterbrained. Not even when he was a kid. The Peter she knows—the Peter who frustrates her—has floated away; it unnerves her.

  “What if Tina moves away, Peter? What if the kids move?”

  He shakes his head, as though his thoughts could be exiled by physical action.

  “He lives in New York, Mom. His job is in New York.”

  “But he’s not gonna move to Staten Island.”

  “He might,” Peter says unconvincingly.

  Gail pulls her hands back.

  “Right, just like you might.”

  Peter straightens his seat, pushes his half-eaten plate of food to the side to indicate he’s done. He pulls his tie out from his shirt and runs it between two fingers, one behind and one in front. The gesture makes her realize how much of his world she doesn’t know. He has his own ticks and habits, his own troubles and annoyances, just as she does. The small things in their lives are not the same. And almost everything is a small thing.

  “Well, maybe you and Dad should think about moving somewhere else. Retiring somewhere.”

  “Sure, Peter.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Where would we go?”

  “Go wherever you want. Florida, North Carolina, Arizona. Your cost of living would drop in half.”

  “What about Franky?”

  He sucks his cheeks in and exhales in a low whistle.

  “Don’t get me started.”

  “You’re too hard on your brother.”

  “You’re not hard enough.” His voice is dull, tired; this is ground well trod. “And I’m not too hard on him. I’m the only one who’s ever really helped him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How soon we forget.”

  “Forget what?”

  His eyes widen and she remembers.

  “Oh, that,” she says and it comes out the wrong way. She can hear it, can hear herself brushing it aside. Oh, that. Like he got drunk and pissed in the sink. Oh, that. Like he grabbed someone’s ass at a Christmas party.

  “Yeah, that,” Peter says, and his “that” gets it right. His “that” lands with a heavy thud on the table between them.

  “He was upset, Peter.”
r />   “No, Mom. He was drunk. Or high. Probably both.”

  “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have said what I said. It was a horrible thing to say. A horrible thing for a mother to say.”

  She sees herself saying it, the veins in her neck bulging, the words flying out like a taut rope suddenly cut. Franky had been daring her to say it for two years, goading her. But the look on his face when she finally did?

  “First of all, he’s a grown man who’s responsible for his own actions. And second, his little hate crime happened well over a month later, Mom. I know you like to take responsibility for Franky’s sins, but this shit is insane.”

  “It wasn’t a hate crime, Peter.”

  “It was a hate crime. It wasn’t charged as a hate crime because I made sure that Franky got competent counsel. And called in a favor. But let’s not kid ourselves about what happened. He beat the living hell . . .”

  “It wasn’t a hate crime, Peter. The guy wasn’t even an Arab, wasn’t even a Muslim. Franky only thought he was.”

  Peter stares at her.

  “I don’t know what’s worse. That you think it would have been okay if he was a Muslim or that Franky couldn’t even fuck up the right way. Jesus,” Peter says, his eyes drifting away from her.

  “Enough, Peter. It was my fault.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Tell me there was no connection. Tell me it was a coincidence.”

  He chuckles behind a hand raised to indicate stop.

  “You don’t know, Peter. I’ve not been a good mother to him. Even when you were kids, I was always harder on him.”

  “Not true. In fact, the opposite is true. You were always easier on him.”

  “What about when you guys left Bobby at the beach? And I played that trick on you. That awful, stupid trick.”

  “Ah, yes, here we go. The moment-you-ruined-Franky story.”

  “You don’t understand, Peter.”

  “No, Mom. I do. I was there, remember? I left Bobby behind as well. I waited for you to bring him home, shitting my pants, just like Franky. I was there, literally in the room, when you came in without him.”

  “But it wasn’t your idea. It was his and he knew it.”

  “The next morning, Bobby had forgotten all about it. I had pretty much forgotten it. And Franky, sure as shit, had forgotten it. The only one who even remembers it is you.”

  “I hope you never do anything cruel to your kids, Peter. I truly don’t.”

  Peter winces, takes a sip of coffee.

  “Believe what you want to. But stop making excuses for someone who’s almost forty.”

  “He’s my son, Peter. I can’t abandon him.”

  He shakes his head again, dismissive. She slaps her open hand down on the table, rattling the saucers that hold their coffee cups, turning a few heads in their direction.

  “This is what I mean, this is what I’m talking about. People used to stick together, families used to stay together, live near one another, help one another. They didn’t scatter to the four winds. They didn’t abandon people because they were difficult.”

  His eyebrows arch and his mouth settles in a grin. He starts tapping the tips of his fingers together in rhythm.

  “Let me tell you something, Gail. What you just said is absolute, complete bullshit. People stick together, families help one another, rah, rah, rah. Bullshit. What about your parents? Did you stand by them? Did you stay in the old neighborhood?”

  Her hands start to tremble. She cinches her face into a steady gaze. Peter pauses for a moment, casually stirring some sugar into his coffee, and then proceeds.

  “Or did you abandon them?”

  A few harsh white spots dot her vision. The tremble trickles down to her legs. Her head feels too full, too heavy; a nosebleed is imminent. She needs to calm down, let the blood in her body rebalance. She reaches for some napkins and shoves them into her coat pocket.

  “Do you have your sheets for the Cody’s pool?” she asks, in a voice as brittle and cold as cracked ice.

  “No.”

  “Do you want to discuss candidates for the scholarship?”

  He laughs, a cackle filled with loathing.

  “No.”

  She lifts her head, fixes her gaze on him.

  “I guess we’re done then.”

  His expression softens; he knows he’s pushed too hard. She stands and her legs wobble. She puts a hand on the Formica to steady herself.

  “Mom, sit down. Finish your meal.”

  She puts her coat on and heads for the door, ignoring Peter’s hushed attempts to get her to sit back down. She walks out to the cross street and raises her hand, trying to hail one of the angry yellow cabs marching down Second Avenue. One detaches itself from the herd, floats over to the curb in front of her.

  She gets into the cab and closes the door. At the edge of her blurry vision, she sees Peter hurrying up Forty-eighth Street toward her. The driver asks her where’s she going.

  “South Ferry,” she says, and the driver nods, eases the cab back into traffic. He catches her eyes in the rearview mirror and repeats the destination twice to make sure he heard her right.

  She nods in response.

  * * *

  Peter calls while she’s waiting for the ferry, conciliatory and ashamed. She listens to his apology and forgives him. She says she was in the wrong as well, though she doesn’t feel that way. She can never sustain anger. It flashes—white hot, overwhelming—and twenty minutes later, it’s gone. Sometimes she wishes it wasn’t so, wishes she could nurse a grudge, linger on a grievance. But she can’t. It’s not in her makeup. So she tells Peter she loves him and he says he loves her as well and she wonders why it’s so easy on the phone between them and so difficult in person. By the end of the call, all is forgiven and forgotten, the conflict between them tucked away and fixed with a label that reads “Things that will never be discussed again.”

  The automated doors slide open and the throngs of waiting passengers start their shuffle onto the rusted twin ramps that lower onto the ferry. Gail has been lingering in the rear of the terminal, against the side wall, talking to Peter with her head turned to the glass facade. She follows the crowd, hoping she won’t lose cell reception. Her anger is gone and all that remains is concern; something is definitely wrong.

  “Peter, is everything all right with you? Are the kids okay? Is Lindsay okay? Did something happen?”

  His response comes in a thick sob.

  “I fucked up, Mom. I fucked up. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”

  “What happened, Peter?”

  A phone rings in the background. He clears his throat, blows his nose. When he speaks again, his voice is almost back to normal.

  “I have to take this call, Mom. I’m sorry again. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Peter.”

  The line goes dead as she’s standing on one of the lowered ramps, the last of the passengers. An impulse to go back to Peter strikes her, but she stands in the center of the ramp, undecided. An overweight, mustached man in yellow rain gear waits behind her, at the crank that raises the ramps, his hands gesturing in irritation.

  “Make up your mind, lady. Ain’t got all day.”

  She glares back at him.

  “Ho-ho, feisty one.”

  She walks onto the ferry slowly. When the ramp is pulled up behind her, she turns back to the jiggly-jowled worker and gives him the finger.

  * * *

  The ferry glides across the harbor, uninhabited Governors Island giving way to the low-slung Brooklyn neighborhoods that lead to the Verrazano. The final one is Bay Ridge. The place she abandoned, as Peter put it.

  The rain has stopped. A weak March sun is trying to fight through the gray. She closes her eyes, tries to enjoy the solitude. Concern for Peter floats into h
er consciousness, unbidden. She hasn’t worried about Peter in years, but today the weepy apology, his acidic demeanor at the diner, were upsetting.

  He’ll be fine, she tells herself. He’s always been fine. He’s a clever boy, a fella whose toast always lands butter side up, as her father used to say. He’ll be fine.

  At least he knows now, about Wade. One down, three to go. She accomplished something, the trip wasn’t a total waste. Then again, he knew already. He introduced them. She can’t be angry about that, though. It was a kind thing to do. When he isn’t aggravating the hell out of her, Peter is a decent, thoughtful, successful man. That’s what the rest of world sees; why can’t she always see it? To be a mother is to fail your kids. Just ask Franky.

  Anyway, doesn’t matter how. Peter knows. The trip was not a waste.

  The twenty dollars she spent on a cab down to the ferry? Now that was a waste. Twenty dollars. Dear Christ, how do people live in Manhattan? At least the ferry’s still free. This view is still free. Twenty minutes of tranquility. She looks around, but the deck is still empty. Nothing but the gray harbor and the ghost of rain.

  She closes her eyes. It’s already been a long week. And you have miles to go before you sleep, she tells herself.

  * * *

  “Ma’am?”

  Gail wakes, hears the voice, looks up to meet its owner: a young man, stocky, wearing a policeman’s uniform. His silver name badge reads ALVAREZ. His smile hides a certain impatience.

  “You have to exit the ferry, ma’am.”

  Behind him, Gail sees the wooden pylons of the terminal’s barge. The boat is docked, cleared of all passengers. Except her.

  “Why?” she asks. “I want to ride back to Manhattan.”

  “I know, ma’am, but you still have to exit. Everyone has to leave the ferry now. You can get back on, but you have to exit first.”

  He says this with a practiced ennui. She can see in his eyes that she’s not the first old lady he’s had to usher off the ferry. She’s not sure when strangers started thinking of her as old.

  “But why? What difference does it make? Why do I have to go back through the terminal?”

  “Because of terrorism. Everyone has to leave,” he says, the impatience no longer hidden.