Eddie Joyce - Small Mercies

There were even a few other mornings where he got dropped off by a girl. None of the girls was Kerry Cole, but he didn’t lack for companionship. He still had a certain appeal, still had his looks. Sitting on a bar stool — a drunken, ruined memorial to his dead brother — Franky probably did well with a certain brand of barfly.

Some women love reclamation projects.

* * *

On the counter, the coffeemaker ceases its pleasant babble. She makes a pot for Michael; she prefers the Starbucks that Tina brings with the bagels. Michael complains.

“It’s too expensive, it tastes burnt.”

Gail doesn’t care. She likes the taste. She’d rather have one good cup of coffee than four crappy ones. Michael is a big tipper, would give his last dollar to a friend, but he’s cheap in ways that perplex Gail.

Not cheap. Frugal. Saves his money on coffee so he can leave five-dollar tips for surly bartenders. Doesn’t make sense to Gail, but that’s all right. Not everything about your husband should make sense. Took her years to realize that. If she were teaching a class to prospective brides, that would be her first piece of advice.

Don’t expect everything he does to make sense.

Michael is out of bed. The weight of the house has shifted with him. She knows what he’s doing now, as sure as if she were in the room with him. A stiff walk to the bathroom, followed by a hasty flip of the seat and a long, contented piss. Regimes have fallen during Michael’s Saturday morning pisses. She can tell how many beers he had the night before by the length of his piss: ten seconds for each bottle.

Gail hears the shower start. Short piss. Michael must have been a good boy last night.

The reshuffling of the house’s order — another body in the mix, another consciousness released from slumber — always startles her. It’s like a second waking, equally abrupt but more demanding. The day has been on tracks, sliding toward its start, and now it has arrived. Soon the house, enormous in its emptiness, will shrink with the day to accommodate Michael, Tina, the kids. Gail always misses the stillness as it recedes.

The morning has caught up with her. Time to get down to business. She grabs a pad of paper and a pen. She thinks for a moment, tries to conjure the date.

March 12th.

The ides of March are nearly upon us. She stopped teaching last year, but this would usually be the week her eighth-grade honors class started Julius Caesar . She tried to time it right, have them read the ides of March line on the ides of March. The little things matter when you’re teaching. You’ll do anything to keep them interested, keep them reading. Over the years, a few parents complained that Shakespeare was too advanced for eighth graders, even smart ones. But Gail always thought it was perfect for middle schoolers. It dealt with friendship, betrayal, conspiracies, honor: all the same things they were starting to struggle with in their own lives. Besides, kids needed to be pushed, not coddled.

Busy time of year. St. Patrick’s Day. The start of the NCAA tournament. The Cody’s pool. Bobby’s favorite week of the year. Her blue-eyed boy with the Italian last name and the map of Ireland on his face, wearing his fisherman’s cable-knit sweater, the one Gail bought for him in Galway, to every goddamn St. Patrick’s Day parade in the tristate area: Manhattan, Hoboken, Bay Ridge, and, of course, Forest Avenue. The sweater slowly accumulating brownish stains from spilled Guinness. Watching basketball for days on end. He used to say it was like they took everything good and crammed it into one week, except for Thanksgiving and the night before Thanksgiving.

What about Christmas? she would ask.

Overrated, he’d pronounce. Other than your food, Mom. Overrated.

Wait till you have kids, she’d think. Wait until you watch them fly down the stairs on Christmas morning.

She writes “to do” next to the date and makes a few short dashes on the left side of the page, the assignments to be added.

— Cleaning supplies.

— Cold cuts.

— Call Peter about Wednesday.

— Bobby Jr.’s birthday party.

* * *

A single dash lies companionless at the bottom of the list. There was something else. She was thinking of it while she loaded the dryer. Her memory’s not what it used to be, but she knows when she’s forgotten something. She taps the pen at the empty space as though the item might write itself if prompted.

Ah well, if it’s important, she’ll remember it soon enough. The dash will not be lonely for long.

The lists aren’t as long as they used to be. She remembers a time when she couldn’t make lists at all, when the next thing to do just presented itself, usually before the previous thing had been done. One of the boys with a bloody nose and hungry to boot, one of the boys waiting to be taken to practice. The phone ringing, someone needing to be picked up at the movies. An ice pack fetched, ziti reheated in the microwave. In the car, dropping one son off at the gym, picking another up at the movie theater, the third in the back, a hostage to the situation, holding the ice pack to the bridge of his nose in one hand and a Tupperware container of leftover pasta in the other. The moviegoer gets into the car, two of his compatriots are halfway in before he asks.

“Can Jimmy and Steve come over?”

Of course they can. Their friends were always welcome, the house always open. Gail fed a small army of boys, weekend after weekend, year after year.

It would have been Bobby with the bloody nose. Bobby having to tag along with her as she ferried the older boys all over the Island. Gail adjusting the rearview to look at him, just the two of them in the car.

“You okay, captain?”

That or something like it.

A smile in response, a wad of tissue sticking out of one nostril. No bother, Mom, his smile would have said. Right as rain. The patience of a saint, everything an adventure. When he was a boy, when he was a man.

Gail sets aside the incomplete list and picks up the paper. Somewhere on the block, a car alarm rings out in protest as a sleepy-eyed neighbor fumbles for the right button on his key chain. When the alarm is silenced, Michael’s footsteps are on the stairs. He walks into the kitchen, yawning and happy.

“Good morning, beautiful.”

“Good morning yourself.”

Michael looks good for a man “on the back half of the back nine,” as he describes himself. His face is still pleasant, always on the verge of a smile, even though life hasn’t spared him from sadness. He opens a cabinet, takes out a red FDNY mug. He pours himself a cup of coffee and drizzles in a splash of milk. He kisses Gail’s cheek and sits next to her, his gaze out the window.

“So, what’s the world got in store for us today?”

“Same as always.” She licks her finger, turns a page. “How was the Leaf?”

“Same as always.”

He smiles.

“Who won the game?” When she fell asleep on the couch, Duke was losing to Virginia Tech by six points at the half.

“Duke pulled away in the second half. Too big.”

“Shoot. So when do they do the draw?”

“You mean the selection show? Tomorrow night.”

“You and the boys putting in a few entries this year?”

He frowns in mock exasperation.

“Why do you ask questions that you already know the answer to?”

“For the same reason you keep entering a pool you’ll never win. I enjoy it.”

He smiles again.

“Touché.”

The Cody’s pool is an institution, a March Madness tradition. Its genius is its simplicity. Pick the four Final Four teams. Pick the champion. Pick the total points of the final game. Ten dollars an entry. Seems easy, but if you lose one Final Four team, you’re out.