Eddie Joyce - Small Mercies

“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 her 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.

She stands. Her knees ache with the effort.

“Right. I’m clearly a threat. A suicide bomber.”

“Rules is rules,” he says, a little more of the Bronx sneaking into his voice. “People are waiting.”

“Next time I’ll wear a burka. Then maybe you’ll leave me alone.”

He sighs with boredom. She knows he’s only doing his job, but still. A little common sense would go a long way. She walks off the ferry as slowly as humanly possible.

She remembers Michael telling her that he fell asleep on the ferry once, after a big night in the city. When he woke up, he was back on the Manhattan side, had slept through the unloading on the Staten Island side. Each of the boys had stories like that too. Fell asleep on the ferry, woke up back in Manhattan. Must be a rite of passage for the tippling male souls of Staten Island. They all laughed about it, but it made Gail anxious. What if something happened? What if someone did something to them? They laughed at her anxiety. Men don’t worry about the same things. Maybe they should, but they don’t.

The bustle of the terminal heightens her discombobulation. She’s forgotten the labyrinth on the Staten Island side, the assortment of tunnels and walkways leading to various bus lines, to the train, to the curb where cars could pick you up. She wanders toward the tunnel that leads to the train. She finds a quiet seat, one where she can look out the window, watch the Island slide past.

* * *

When she gets home, Michael is holding the phone in one hand and a slip of paper in the other.

“Hold on, T. Here she is now,” he says, and then covers the receiver on his chest. “What’s this?”

His index finger taps against her to-do list from earlier in the week. The item “tell Bobby” is clearly the object of his question.

“I can explain,” she says, though she can’t, not really, because she’s been dotting her to-do lists with references to Bobby for ten years and Michael’s never stopped asking her about it. She takes the phone from him.