Eddie Joyce - Small Mercies

What was it that Maria used to say?

The news of the world passes between women in kitchens.

Gail can’t remember the Italian words, only the lilt of Maria’s voice, the hand gestures and pauses, the wooden spoon used to punctuate the point. The real news of the world: births, deaths, sicknesses, affairs. Whenever Gail had a bit of news, she told Maria here in this kitchen. And vice versa. Gail had no daughters of her own, no special confidante to pass news along to. There were friends, of course, but it never felt the way it did with Maria.

Until Tina. They’ve spent a good bit of the past ten years at this table: talking, crying, commiserating. Tina sat with her at this table on the night Franky was arrested. Two days after Christmas. No one had seen him since Thanksgiving, when he showed up drunk to Peter’s house. They didn’t have any details but Gail knew it was bad. Franky had called Michael and Michael had called the only lawyer he knew: Peter. There was nothing to do but wait. So Tina waited with Gail. Had a friend stay over to watch her own kids, sat here through a long, eerie night, holding Gail’s hand, both of them sneaking glances at the phone. It finally rang a little after six in the morning.

Peter said that Franky was being held in the Tombs, would be arraigned later that morning, would probably be released later that day, but they might need to line up some money for bail. Peter had already hired a good criminal lawyer, someone who knew state courts, handled street crime.

“What did he do, Peter?”

“He beat the shit out of a cabby outside the ferry terminal in Manhattan. Broke his nose.”

“Why? Why would he do that?”

“He says the guy said something about you.”

“About me?”

Her stomach churned. Bile climbed into her mouth.

“About his mother. Like, ‘fuck your mother,’ something like that. Who the hell knows, Mom. He’s not making a ton of sense.”

After Gail hung up with Peter, Tina heard her confession. She was responsible for Franky getting arrested. What she’d said to him at Thanksgiving had precipitated this incident. But it was more than that. She blamed herself for everything that was wrong with Franky. She’d failed him from the start, had never known how to be the mother he needed. She’d cut him too much slack except on the few occasions when he really needed it. She dismissed Tina’s protestations to the contrary.

“I’m a horrible mother, Tina. Don’t ask my advice on raising kids anymore.”

Tina didn’t listen. She came to the table again and again, seeking Gail’s counsel. When Alyssa was being teased at school, beyond the usual adolescent girl nonsense. When Bobby was having trouble reading. When Alyssa was driving her nuts with her moodiness, which was pretty much all the time. Nothing terrible, thank God. Just the everyday trials and tribulations of motherhood, complicated by the absence of a father. Gail’s advice was simple, reassuring.

Be patient. This will pass. All kids go through an awkward phase. Bobby was a late bloomer too. Let them make their own mistakes. You’re doing a great job. You’re a great mother.

It wasn’t always about the kids. One day, Tina was in a nasty mood, had even snapped at Gail a few times. When the kids were out of the way, Gail sat her down, asked her if something was wrong. Tina’s face tensed for a moment, but then she started to laugh.

“How can I say this, Gail? I’m… frustrated.”

“About what?”

Tina raised an eyebrow, coughed suggestively.

“It’s, uhh, it’s been a while.”

The news of the world passes between women in kitchens.

That’s what Maria said, one of the things she used to say anyway. She said other things too, mostly advice on how to raise kids, the advice that Gail passed along to Tina years later. Gail listened to every word, soaked in every suggestion. She’d gotten no guidance from her own mother. Constance had only ever said one thing on the subject.

“Don’t have kids, Gail.”

Inside a diner on Third Avenue. A lit cigarette in one hand and a spoon in the other, alternating sips of tomato soup with drags from the cigarette.

“What?” Gail asked.

“Don’t have children. They’ll bring you nothing but unhappiness.”

Gail flinched. She searched her mother’s eyes for knowledge. Was this a sick joke? Did she already know somehow?

No. Her face was earnest, the advice as sincere as it was impossible to follow. Gail was already pregnant and about to move to Staten Island and sitting there, miserable and nauseated, for the express purpose of telling her mother those two things. She’d told her about the move first, which was a mistake, because it prompted her mother’s remark. She didn’t know about the pregnancy; she was referring to the move. Of course she was. Everything that was done in the world was done for the purpose of hurting her mother.

Gail bit her lip. She should tell her mother about the pregnancy. It would explain things. This was not abandonment. They were seeking a better life for their child, something so fundamental it could explain the history of human movements on the planet. Her mother should have understood that.

But something held her back: fear. Not for herself, but for the child she carried. Her first maternal instinct. Protecting her unborn child from the words of its grandmother. Gail and her mother finished their meals in silence. When they stepped out of the diner together, Constance would not take her arm. A warm September night, the last gasp of summer. The streets of Bay Ridge were bustling, people out and about. The sun had slipped from sight, but the clouds above glowed an apocalyptic red. Men stood outside bars, hoping for a last glimpse of skin before the weather turned. Excitement, bordering on panic, in the air.

The men in the street stared at Gail as she passed, as if she were some rare beauty, which she knew she wasn’t. Her looks fell somewhere between plain and pretty. Reddish hair, but not the luxuriant fire of a movie star, just a dull auburn that most people mistook for brown. A smattering of freckles haphazardly strewn across her face. A lack of curves generally, highlighted by the near absence of breasts. In high school, the boys used to tease her, call her a pirate.

Like a pirate, Gail.

With your sunken chest.

Get it? Ha ha.

Her eyes have always been her saving grace, capable of conveying emotion with a bracing intensity. A watery blue, cool and pure. Some girls spun and their skirts lifted ever so slightly; others leaned and left a button loose. Gail stared.

Once, when her tormentors called her a pirate, she fixed her eyes on the their ringleader, Andy Tormey, whose confidence flagged in the ferocity of her stare. A few weeks later, Andy stuck his tongue in her mouth behind the brick outhouse on the playground on Ridge Boulevard. When he moved his hand up toward the tit that he’d joked wasn’t there, Gail laughed but absorbed the lesson: play to your strengths. After that, she did all that she could to draw attention to her eyes. She was never as popular as the girls with big chests or the girls who let the boys fiddle under their skirts, but she got her fair share of attention. And the jokes about her chest ended, especially after she dumped Andy before he could get his hands up her shirt.

No beauty queen, but she’s okay with that.

The men stared anyway. They ignored the ring on her finger, the old woman at her side. They will disregard a stroller too. Michael was right; there were better places to raise a family.

She stared back at the men, hoping to embarrass the more brazen oglers. They laughed but looked away.

The remainder of the walk was slow and silent. Constance shuffled along and Gail followed a pace behind her. They reached her mother’s building. Her parents lived on the third floor and she usually helped her mother up the stairs, but Constance turned to her at the building’s entrance. They hadn’t spoken a word since the diner. Through her mother’s glasses, Gail saw her own eyes, the one gift her mother had given her without condition.