The Linnet's Wings | Page 43

WINTER ' FOURTEEN left, leaving that behind, and a moment later I heard the door close, saw the headlights of her Chevy spilling through the window and into the night. Things rarely end in a nicely wrapped up series of events. For a time, I believed I was pulling myself out of a storm, trying to find even the simplest sense among the ruins. In the morning, after a long, restless night, I took the school bus. I wondered if Sylvia was gone for good, if she’d taken up with Nicky again, if she’d thought about me. I thought she had. I was called to the principal’s office during history class late in the morning. I was excused for the day, as my mother wanted to meet me at Lipinski’s Café, over on Third Street, and we’d have a bite to eat. It had snowed all night and the Victorian rooftops and streets were covered in a thick dusting. In a few days, winter would set in for good. Lipinski’s was in an old redbrick building, near the steel mills, facing the river to the south. The goldleafed sign in the front window was faded and there was a large crack in the upper-right hand corner, as though someone had thrown a rock at it. A large jukebox sat in the corner, near the front door. Sylvia sat in a ripped booth, glancing around nervously. She wore a navy polka-dot dress, her hair pulled back into a bun. She smiled at me, as though a force had been let go. As though she could look at it all differently, even me. I felt that things might be better between us, that I couldn’t hate her. “This is the high life, isn’t it, Mattie?” she said, motioning for me to sit. She stared out at the front entrance, where a woman with jet-black hair and a little boy huddled near the jukebox, laughing at something or another. “How was class today?” She said. “I couldn’t concentrate, if I were you.” “It could have been worse,” I said. “You look nice.” “Thank you, sweetheart,” she said. “Do you want something to eat?” I wanted to ask her where Nicky was, but it occurred to me at that point that he was out of her life, that it was over between them, and she no longer cared how he went about living, any of that. “Not really.” “That’s fine.” She smiled at me again, and as I said, she looked different, younger in some way. She reminded me of a happy-go-lucky heroine in some movie. “There are times I look where I’m at and I wonder,” she said. “I wonder if I’m just looking in on life from the outside, like there’s someone else living it for me. It’s odd, isn’t it?” “I suppose it is,” I said. I knew this was true because of what had happened, and what wouldn’t, and even now it still seems incomprehensible. “There are times I just freeze up,” Sylvia said. “I don’t know what to do. Even with the smallest things, just having a conversation. Do you think your old mother needs help?” “I don’t know. Maybe,” I said. I looked out the window and saw the black-haired woman and her son walking down the street, the boy skipping around, shouting at something. I envied them. “I’m not a great listener right now,” Sylvia said, coughing. “I’m sorry.” She sat there, while I went over to the juk V&