Absent Friends

Racing to the hospital, Marian driving Sally's car, Marian no more fit to drive than Sally, her skin cold and her stomach churning, but she knew it was right. (Strangely, frighteningly, she took the keys, she took the wheel, because she heard Jimmy tell her to, heard Jimmy saying it was right.)

The hours there, and then the doctor, and then Sally in Marian's arms, wailing, sobbing, and Marian, too, and nothing she could do.

And the hours since. At the hospital, police officers with questions. Back at Sally's house, family, friends. Firefighters. The telephone ringing, nonstop, unbearable, finally silenced, turned off, still ringing and ringing, thought Marian, but no one could hear. Sally, white, silent, motionless.

Sally's mother, finally, asking everyone to leave, thanking them all, asking them to go home. But not me, surely, Marian thought, not me, to leave, to be alone now. Not me, too. Marian the last friend remaining, as she'd been the first, Marian expecting to stay.

Sally, green eyes finding Marian from across a vast, lifeless desert. Sally saying nothing, shaking her head.

Marian spending the night at her father's house, sitting in the yard for a long time before going to bed. Her mother's flower beds were overgrown with grass.

Now, on the ferry, Marian watched the clouds, the ships, the hills. The place where she'd grown up, where her heart had remained, grew unimaginably distant as the boat plowed without remorse toward the opposite shore.

If only, she thought: if only she could have spoken to Sally, across the desert of Sally's eyes, if only she could have found words. If only she'd found words for Kevin: Where are you going, Kevin, what are you planning, I'm sorry if I upset you, Kevin, don't go.

Why hadn't she found the words?

And so she stood now by the rail of the ferry, watching the gulls circle, watching the bridge, watching, on this perfect, beautiful day, watching everything slip away.

LAURA'S STORY

Chapter 17

Abraham Lincoln and the Pig

November 2, 2001

In the gathering twilight, Laura sat on the deck of the ferry. Not the front, to see the glittering towers of Manhattan reach for her; not the back, to see Staten Island's angry hills grimly cheering her departure. Not the west side, where the Statue of Liberty still welcomed the wretched. Laura sat outside on a wooden bench on the ferry's east side and stared at the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, the last place where Harry had stood.

She saw the bridge waver, she felt the tears hot on her cheeks, and she knew her fellow passengers were aware that she was crying. But in New York now, people burst into tears in public places. No one knew why, but everyone knew why. Strangers would comfort you if you let them, and they would leave you alone if that was what you wanted, and that was what Laura wanted, and people must have seen that because they left her alone.

“Harry?” Laura whispered.

The sun was setting, the sky had gone cold.

“Harry?”

The wind blew over her and was sharp as a blade.

“Harry?”

Yes, I'm here, came the gentle answer.

“Harry!”

He asked, Do you see now?

Laura swallowed. Her throat was parched. “We were wrong.”

No, Harry said softly, I was wrong. That is to say: years ago, when the fact finally dawned on my thick brain that the truth was—contrary to the sermon I'd been preaching all my life—neither obtainable nor by any means the highest good, at that time I was right. And when I met you, my little starfish, I should have told you that. But you were so beautiful.

“Me? I've never—”

Beautiful. So alive. It wasn't even that you'd never lost hope. You didn't need hope. You had religion. You wanted nothing but the truth. And my good fortune, when you consented to spend your time with me, astounded me. But I was sly. I knew. I knew which man you loved. Not the old and tired one who'd dedicated himself to not making waves. He wasn't the man you loved, Laura. You were in love with the crusading truth-seeker. Harry Randall, star reporter. For you—for you—I became that man again.

“Harry? Harry . . .”