Jimmy? It’s me.
Rory?
The booth was dark, and there was a piece of pink gum stuck on the underside of the seat. It was always Monsignor Jim at this hour of the day, and he’d been doing it for years, since back when the pews were full every Sunday. Jim’s brother was a police lieutenant, and he’d been working with Aurora since the beginning.
How do you know it’s a boat job?
He was talking with Benducci, that’s all they’d ever do. They always leave after dinner.
Aren’t you guys a little old for this?
Isn’t that what you tell the kids when they punch their brothers?
No, I tell them to read the smutty magazines.
That’s not even funny, Monsignor.
They were quiet for a moment, and the church was quiet the way it is on Tuesday afternoons. Aurora could hear people walking by outside the stained-glass windows.
I’ll tell my brother, he said. Don’t worry, they’ll stay far back and just figure out where they’re going. His side of the box was silent for a moment. Strange, he said.
Aurora looked at her watch. There had been one time when she almost told Vin, after a job one cold December right after Salvy was born. They sat together on the porch when he got back (she had been in the kitchen; he came in from the “groceries,” said he needed a little fresh air) and they watched the gray clouds on the water. It wasn’t pretty that time of year, but it was powerful. The sky always so heavy. She had her hand around his arm and she almost confessed everything. They could have found a way to make it right. But the words were wrong, and the two of them so recently parents. So she made him a sandwich, and then Tommy was born, and they grew up, and Vincent went out on the boat less and less, until he didn’t go out at all. And when it was all over, what was the point of telling stories?
Did I do the right thing coming? she said.
The Monsignor breathed into the screen.
Do you feel that you’ve done wrong?
Sometimes.
Do you regret lying to your husband?
Of course.
I can’t imagine what it was like.
Aurora didn’t answer.
When it’s over, make Vin a cup of coffee. And then tell him five times that you love him.
The Monsignor opened the screen. She looked at his face, bulbous and sweaty, and she realized suddenly how old he’d become. It was easier to think of him only as a voice. She opened the door. That’s ridiculous, she said as she left.
• • •
It was one of those evenings after a hot summer day, where you could be sitting in the living room, the windows open, and all of a sudden the sound of the rain on the concrete. Outside, the streetlights blinking with the force of the rain. What could you expect in the morning but the trains all stopped, flooding the tracks—the abovegrounds, this far out in the borough? Cars stuck in the middle of Kings Highway, or under the F train high-rises, the Gowanus seeping onto dry land.
Dinner, Vincent doing the dishes, excusing himself to Aurora watching television to say that he was taking the Napoli out for a quick fish. Him on the boat, kicking it away from the wood dock, his fishing pole on his right, which he moves to the back once he’s out of sight of the house, when he picks up Benducci in a blue sweatshirt.
She is sitting in the kitchen sipping coffee. This rain, she thought. He’ll get soaked.
She’s wearing a leopard-print blouse and tight black slacks, because that’s what she likes to wear around the house.