Eddie Joyce - Small Mercies

She was glad someone was showing an interest in Bobby. His own father didn’t seem to care a whit. Silently, she beseeched Michael to show her some sign of love, give her some reason for not doing something that was taking on an air of inevitability. He was oblivious, hopeless, clueless. He’d turned into her father in the space of six months, but she would not be her mother. She would not rage silently and do nothing.

One night, Danny cupped his hands around her ear, but instead of praise for Bobby’s play, he said, “Jesus, you look beautiful tonight.”

She pretended not to hear him, but it was hard to ignore his hand casually resting on the curved muscle of her inner thigh.

She couldn’t concentrate at work; her mind kept drifting out the window into idle daydreams like those of half the students she taught. She thought of Danny’s blue-gray eyes and the feel of his fingers thrumming on her thigh. The whole thing was madness, some bizarre echo of high school; two middle-aged adults playing at teenager. She barely knew him and yet, twice a week, it took all her self-restraint not to turn and start kissing him in a gym full of people.

Bobby and Tina became a couple. They started holding hands and kissing in public, sometimes a touch more aggressively than Gail thought appropriate. She was certain that what she saw was the tip of the teenage iceberg; more expansive explorations were undoubtedly taking place behind closed doors, when no one else was around. She thought Michael should probably say something to Bobby, something about protection at the very least, but she wasn’t speaking to Michael and neither was Bobby, so she let it lie. She wasn’t going to give Bobby a lecture about safe sex and waiting for marriage, not when she spent her nights fantasizing about another man.

Besides, the euphoria vibrating between Bobby and Tina was infectious. Witnessing young love, in all its absurdity, was a powerful aphrodisiac. Gail started thinking that maybe she and Danny were meant to be together. Maybe there was an easy, clear path for them to be together. The boys were basically out of the house. Michael had no interest in her.

She knew these thoughts were ludicrous. She didn’t believe in adultery, had only recently come around to the idea of divorce. But sitting next to Danny, watching her son play basketball, felt right in a way that she couldn’t explain. Even the ghost of Father Kenny had stopped haunting her.

Still, beyond some heated leg pressing and intense flirtation, nothing had happened. She had no reason to see Danny other than at Bobby’s basketball games and the season had dwindled down to a precious few games: the Catholic school play-offs and something new this year, a March Madness-style tournament for the Island championship.

If something was going to happen, it would happen soon or not at all.

* * *

The play-off game took place on a Friday afternoon, at Bishop Ford in Brooklyn. The gym was half empty due to the early start. Some of the usual parents couldn’t make it because of work, Paul Baddio and John Keegan included. Danny came straight from his office in downtown Manhattan, wearing a charcoal gray suit, a blue shirt with a white collar, and a blue silk tie. He strode up the bleachers with a confident smile and sat down beside Gail. Dana Baddio and Mary Keegan walked in together before the opening tip and took seats on the opposite side of the gym.

Gail and Danny were alone, nervous. The first quarter of the game passed in silence, as though they didn’t know what to do with this sudden, unexpected boon.

The game itself provided little to comment upon. Bishop Ford was bigger, faster, better coached. They played with energy and discipline; their players’ movements were somehow both fluid and precise. On offense, the ball zipped from player to player, scarcely touching the floor. On defense, they contested every movement, harassed each dribble or pass. They were relentless. One of their players, whose jersey bore the appropriate last name Long, was nearly seven feet tall and rail-thin, with spindly arms that reached out and effortlessly rebuffed half of the shots that Farrell attempted.

Bound for Kentucky on a full basketball scholarship, Danny said. Gail watched as Bobby tried to box him out, but there was nothing for him to stick his ass into. Long slithered around him, gathered the errant Bishop Ford shots, and deposited the ball in the basket as easily as other people would drop a coin in a parking meter.

Midway through the second quarter, the game’s outcome was no longer in doubt. It took on the air of an exhibition as Ford’s backups battled with Farrell’s starters and the lead stagnated at twenty. Whenever Farrell made the slightest run, Long was inserted back into the game and, soon enough, the lead was twenty again.

With two minutes left in the first half, Coach Whelan called another useless time-out. Danny reached over, gripped her hand. His gaze was still focused on the court.

“I don’t know how to say this, Gail, so I’m just gonna say it. I’ve been lucky, by and large, in my life. I’ve caught some breaks, made a few of my own. Mostly, I’ve listened to my gut. If my gut told me to do something, I did it. I’ve learned not to doubt my instincts. The one mistake I made in my life, I didn’t listen to what my gut was telling me.”

He exhaled, a doleful sigh. Gail’s stomach was in ribbons.

“I married the wrong woman. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I did. Such is life. I didn’t care for the longest time, didn’t care until I met you. There’s something between us, Gail, I can feel it. I know it in my bones. I wish we’d met thirty years ago. But we didn’t. And I’m not gonna ignore what I feel. I can’t.”

He told her all this in an unbroken rush of words, his eyes drifting from the court up to her. The halftime horn sounded, punctuating his last statement, like he was trying to squeeze it all in, beat the clock.

Gail watched Bobby jog off the court toward the locker room, the inevitability of his team’s defeat already gnawing at him. She noticed, for the first time, Tina in the stands behind Farrell’s bench, looking glum.

Danny gazed at her.

“Jesus, your eyes. I could live in those eyes.”

She wanted the game to be over, wanted to leave right then.

“Danny… I don’t know how, I mean, I’m, Michael and I…”

She nearly started crying.

“It’s okay, Gail.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Excuse me, one second, Gail.”

He stood and walked down the bleachers to shake hands with a young man wearing glasses and holding a spiral notebook. Gail looked down, her hands were trembling. The doubts she thought conquered were rallying for a late charge.

She looked out across the gym. Through the small, slitted windows at the top of the opposite wall, she could see the day dying outside, the last strands of light falling away. Michael could have come to this game, she realized, and with that, all her remaining doubts surrendered. Her mind became a mantra of simplicity, like a child’s first instructive reading tome:

I will sleep with Danny. Gail will sleep with Danny. Gail will be with Danny. Danny and Gail will be together.

Danny returned. He told her that the young man he was talking to was an assistant coach for the Sacred Heart basketball team. They had an open spot and the guy liked Bobby. The coach wanted to see tape. Gail nodded.

“Will you have dinner with me tonight, Gail?” Danny asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Ever been to Peter Luger’s?”

She shook her head no.

“Best steak you’ll ever have.”

The second half passed in a blur. The final buzzer came abruptly, waking the entire gym, it seemed, from a stupor. Gail and Danny both stood, clapping for no reason, and watched the teams exchange handshakes. She glanced at the scoreboard. 79–41. A blowout. She’d barely paid attention.