Comfort & Joy

Daniel picks Bobby up and carries him toward the stairs.

“ ’Night, Joy,” Bobby calls out sleepily. “See you in the morning. ”

“Good night, Bobby. ”

I mean to get up and go to my room. I really do, but somehow I don’t move. I sit there, curled like a cat in the chair, staring at the fire. The family photographs on the mantel seize my attention. I go to the mantel, pick up the pictures, and pour over them like an archeologist looking for clues from the artifacts of a life. Who was Maggie? Why did their marriage end?

Later, when I hear Daniel’s footsteps on the stairs, I realize I’ve been waiting for him.

He comes into the room, stands in front of the fire. In the combination of orange light and dark shadows, he looks drawn and tired. We are close enough that a movement either way and we’d be touching. “I promised Bobby I’d come back down. I’m supposed to talk to you, don’t you know?”

“I’m glad,” I dare to answer.

“I’m not much of a talker these days. ” His voice is so soft I have to lean toward him to hear. “The funny thing is, I used to be a real loudmouth, back in the pubs in Dublin, when I was a lad. I could talk till I was blue in the face and falling-down drunk. ”

“It’s funny how things slip away, pieces of us, even. ”

Daniel sighs. Nodding, he reaches for the single photograph left on the mantel, tucked now behind the Christmas village, and holds it close. It’s a picture of Maggie, looking young and vibrant and beautiful.

I have no idea what to say or do. He looks so raw right now, so utterly broken, that I’m afraid to speak.

He puts the photograph back and sits down on the hearth. “So, Joy. ” He makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. “Maybe you could help me, too. It seems I was a bad father and a worse husband. I didn’t even think about putting up a Christmas tree. All I thought about was getting Bobby out of this place where the memories are so bad. ”

“Moving won’t put his heart back together. ” This is a truth I know; I learned it firsthand. I sit in the chair opposite him and lean forward. In a daring that’s completely foreign to me, I touch his thigh. “He needs you for that. ”

A frown darts across his forehead. “What the hell . . . ”

I draw back, instantly contrite. “I’m sorry. ”

He gets to his feet. “The doc said I should talk to you, for Bobby, but . . . ”

I get up and go to him, unable to stop myself.

We’re close now, almost face to face. I feel the softness of his breathing, smell the hint of wood smoke scent that clings to his T-shirt. “Daniel?”

“I feel like a bloody fool. How in the hell am I supposed to talk to you?”

I step back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have . . . ”

What? Touched him? Said anything? Come here in the first place? I have no idea what to say to him, what I did that was so wrong.

He turns away from me and goes to the fireplace. When he’s put out the fire, he goes about the business of closing up the lobby for the night, locking the doors and drawing the curtains shut, until the lobby is jet black. He disappears down the hallway, then returns.

I wait for him to look at me, and try to figure out what I’ll say when he does. How I’ll explain being an idiot for a second, a woman caught and blinded by her own needs. I try to make out his face in the dark. Is he smiling? Frowning? I can’t tell.

When everything is dark and quiet he goes toward the stairs. I can hear his hushed footsteps on the carpet and the cadence of his breathing. I wait for him to pause on the stairs, to say something, but in this I am disappointed. He makes his way up the stairs; later, I hear a door open and close, and then I am left alone, standing by the fire, staring at the photographs of another woman’s family.

* * *

The plane is going down.

“It’s burning . . . don’t touch . . . ”

“Run!”

Too late.

I’m in the air, tumbling, screaming . . . we’re going down . . .