{"product_id":"small-mercies-isbn-9780143107873","title":"Small Mercies","description":"\u003cb\u003e“An intimate family portrait.”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e“Eddie Joyce’s terrific first novel is so American that the story might as well have taken place at the base of the Statue of Liberty.”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Richard Russo\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e“An inside look at one Staten Island family’s struggle with grief . . . [A] poignant, deeply affecting tale.” \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eMartha Stewart Living\u003c\/i\u003e, a Book Club selection\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e“[A] terrific debut novel. . . . Joyce layers . . . different characters’ perspectives nimbly and skillfully, infusing his portrait of a messy, complicated, loving family with heartfelt emotion.”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Sara Vilkomerson, \u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, A-\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA startling and tender portrait of one family’s struggle to make peace with their son’s death\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e An ingeniously layered narrative, told over the course of one week, Eddie Joyce’s debut novel masterfully depicts an Italian-Irish American family on Staten Island and their complicated emotional history. Ten years after the loss of Bobby—the Amendola family’s youngest son—everyone is still struggling to recover from the firefighter’s unexpected death. Bobby’s mother, Gail; his widow, Tina; his older brothers Peter, the corporate lawyer, and Franky, the misfit; and his father, Michael, have all dealt with their grief in different ways. But as the family gathers together for Bobby Jr.’s birthday party, they must each find a way to accept a new man in Tina’s life while reconciling their feelings for their lost loved one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn unflinching but lyrical prose, Joyce shows us one mother’s struggle to keep her family together and preserve the memory of her son. Following Gail as she moves from the corner offices of white-shoe Manhattan law firms to the blue-collar gin mills of the outer boroughs, \u003ci\u003eSmall Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e reveals a different New York, one that exists in the hearts and minds of its inhabitants.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePresented through multiple points of view, \u003ci\u003eSmall Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e explores the conflicts and deep attachments that exist within families. Heart-wrenching and profoundly relatable, Joyce’s debut is a love letter to Staten Island and a deeply affecting portrait of an American family.“Joyce’s first novel is a paean to his native borough, Staten Island, and the resilience of the Italian- and Irish-Americans who call it home . . . The book revitalizes the once widely discussed idea of the ‘Sept. 11 novel,’ making that communal horror a pivotal part of an intimate family portrait.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] terrific debut novel. . . . Joyce layers … different characters’ perspectives nimbly and skillfully, infusing his portrait of a messy, complicated, loving family with heartfelt emotion.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Sara Vilkomerson, \u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, A-\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“An inside look at one Staten Island family’s struggle with grief . . . [A] poignant, deeply affecting tale.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eMartha Stewart Living\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e, a Book Club selection\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“The story is all Staten Island, but the themes are universal.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Staten Island Advance\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An intergenerational story of family dynamics that’s layered, complicated and intensely readable. . . . Staten Island features as more than a setting. It’s the heart of the family. . . . Firefighting was a family business, and the idea that you can save others but you can’t save yourself is a metaphor that informs the rest of the book. . . . This isn’t a novel that paints people as saints and sinners; every character here comes complete with individual triumphs and failures. We see in detail the way coping mechanisms drive the Amendolas apart and bring them back together in a way that, far from being unique to them, is part of the fabric of every close family.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—BookPage\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sense of place is as strong here as any character in \u003ci\u003eSmall Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e – with Staten Island representing a neighborhood-and-tradition-oriented lifestyle seldom found anymore on the East Coast. . . . There is a marvelous thread of March Madness woven throughout the novel as each member of the Amendola family, during ‘Bobby’s favorite week’ – the book’s seven-day time line – gear up for the annual ‘Cody’s Pool’ at Staten Island’s fictional Cody’s Tavern. Author Joyce, an attorney who like Bobby was once a Staten Island basketball phenomenon, uses the sport to inject just the right amount of humor cum passion here.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—The Buffalo News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A sharp portrait of a family’s history and its pain. . . . Joyce has a keen eye for the familial culture of Italian\/Irish tribes on Staten Island and how it informs his characters’ development. He has an insightful and descriptive touch. . . . An intimate, familiar, and appealing story of tribal longing for safety, fealty, and permanence.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Washington Independent Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eSmall Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of a family and of a tragedy, but it is also a story about ‘place’ in the best tradition of American literature. . . . There are dazzling, revelatory lines throughout.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—The Portland Press Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A realistic portrait of everyday Staten Island life—basketball pools, local bars and pizzerias, high school basketball games, and big Sunday dinners. . . . An empathetic and honest account of an imperfect, believable family. . . . Fully realized characters that we genuinely care about.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—The Berkshire Eagle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An emotionally rich debut novel about family dynamics in the wake of tragedy. If Staten Island were Asbury Park, this former lawyer-turned-novelist could be its literary Springsteen. He was born and raised in the borough, which one of his characters calls 'the servants' quarters of the city,' and he has a deep affinity for the ethnic assimilations, class struggles, marital discontents and larger ambitions of those who share his roots. . . . Readers will get to know these characters and care about them to the very last page.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“This assured debut novel is an insightful psychological tale of family and of love and loss. . . . Joyce gets the quotidian details of this family’s life exactly right: the ever-present aromas of pasta and meatballs; the high-school athletic trophies still on display. He also pens a love letter to the forgotten borough of Staten Island, evoking its deep community ties with heartfelt emotion.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Joyce writes with sensitivity about his grief-stricken characters. . . . It’s clear that Joyce, a native of Staten Island, has deep affection for his characters and the pride they feel in their local rituals.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e–\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Eddie Joyce’s terrific first novel is so American that the story might as well have taken place at the base of the Statue of Liberty. His Amendola family and their beloved Staten Island may be flawed, but they represent what’s best and most necessary in the American character, what our tired and poor still yearn for.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eEmpire Falls\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Eddie Joyce's triumphant first novel rings like a bell: for Staten Island, for husbands and wives, for mothers and sons. This is a beautiful book, and Joyce's deep, complicated love for his characters makes them seem like they could amble off the page and into the nearest bar, where it would be a joy to sit beside them and have a cold beer.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Emma Straub, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Vacationers\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A warm and absorbing family saga from Staten Island—‘this forgotten place,’ as one character thinks of it, ‘this fifth of five boroughs.’ With its focus on one tightknit clan’s loves and hates and births and deaths and joys and sorrows, \u003ci\u003eSmall Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e recalls the work of Alice McDermott and Colum McCann. Eddie Joyce’s big-hearted generosity is apparent in every word. He cares deeply about his people, so we will too.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Stewart O’Nan, author of \u003ci\u003eWest of Sunset\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“\u003ci\u003eSmall Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e isn’t just the best Staten Island novel ever written; it’s also the best novel yet at capturing the human suffering that resulted from the 9\/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Joyce tells the story of all New York during that heartbroken, haunted period. His understanding of the role a hometown plays in the development of character rivals William Kennedy’s, and his gift for choosing resonant details and peeling back the layers of emotion in ordinary moments recalls Alice McDermott’s. A kaleidoscopic novel of a people in grief, \u003ci\u003eSmall Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e paints a winning portrait of the loyal, tribal souls of Staten Island. The high-spirited characters in this book have such a good time even when grieving that they may almost make you think about moving there if they aren’t careful.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Matthew Thomas, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eWe Are Not Ourselves\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“The Staten Island family whose voices tell this story in turns are so real I feel like I've been to their house and eaten their baked ziti. Yes, it's a 9\/11 novel, but maybe it's exactly the right kind of 9\/11 novel: earnest, unabashedly sentimental, real and not manipulatively tear-jerking. SI native Joyce knows what he's talking about, and how to talk about it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Emily Gould, \u003ci\u003ePaper\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003ci\u003eSmall Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e, a first novel that does not read like a first novel, tells the story of the Amendolas, a working-class, Staten Island family trying to remain a family in the wake of some terrible bad luck. It’s a very good book, with a texture of reality, a sense of place, and a genuine warmth and seriousness that is rare in contemporary fiction.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Keith Gessen, author of\u003ci\u003e All the Sad Young Literary Men\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“It’s been a long time since I’ve read a debut as good as Eddie Joyce’s \u003ci\u003eSmall Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e. His knack for inhabiting the lives of these vivid characters from New York City’s ‘forgotten borough’—getting inside their minds, capturing the crucial subtleties of each glance and glare and grasp—marks him as a writer to watch. This is the sort of debut William Trevor might have written had he been born a writer from The Rock, a wised-up kid dreaming of the glittering island waiting just across the water.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Keith Dixon, author of\u003ci\u003e This Is How You Fall\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Art of Losing \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eEDDIE JOYCE\u003c\/b\u003e was born and raised on Staten Island. A graduate of Harvard University and Georgetown Law Center, he practiced law in Manhattan for ten years. When his twin daughters were born in 2009, he left the legal profession to stay home and help raise them while pursuing his dream of being a writer. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three daughters. Follow @eddiejjoyce on Twitter.\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eChapter 1\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSOMEONE WHO ISN’T BOBBY\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGail wakes with a pierced heart, same as every day. Her mouth is dry. She reaches for the glass of water on her nightstand, but it has warmed in the night. Next to her, Michael gently snores away last night’s fun.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe can never sleep in on Saturdays. Friday nights? She’s useless, like someone drugged her. They order a pie, usually pepperoni but plain last night for Lent. She eats two slices, drinks two glasses of Chianti, and is asleep on the couch by eight. Before he leaves for the Leaf, Michael drapes a blanket over her inert body. He wakes her when he gets home, no later than eleven these days. He helps her up the stairs, the beer on his breath gone stale with the walk home. She barely wakes, has just enough energy to get her tired bones beneath the covers. He says something nice, kisses her forehead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe’s always up with a start the next morning. She doesn’t need caffeine or an alarm clock; a shapeless guilt propels her into the day. Before she steps out of the shower, she’s already in full swing, making lists, mental notes. What needs to be done. Today, tomorrow, this week, this month. She’ll write it down later. She dresses in the stillness, sitting on the bed, the comforter muffling the energy required to slip on her socks. An occasional snort from Michael is the only reminder that she’s not the solitary soul in the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA quick look in the mirror. Not for vanity, not anymore, but for its older sister: dignity. She makes sure she’s not a total mess, that the clothes she slipped on in the dark don’t clash. Brown corduroys and a long-sleeve faded green T-shirt. Good enough.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHer energy is tested as soon as she leaves the bedroom. Bobby’s room is across the hall and as much as she’d like to, she cannot pass it without entering. It hasn’t changed since Bobby got married and moved out. He took most of his things, but the room looks the same. The bedroom of a grown child living at home. The bed is made, the window cracked open. A faded poster of Patrick Ewing, sweat drenched and intimidating, hangs above the bed. He is leaping to block a shot. She nods to him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePatrick, how are we this morning?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFine, Mrs. A., fine. Can’t seem to finish blocking this shot. Always inches away.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKeep at it, Patrick.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWill do, Mrs. A.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe sucks in a breath of air, closes her eyes, tries to remember what it was like to be in this room with her son. He was barely ever here. To sleep and that’s all. The older boys had to share a room, but Bobby got his own. She can’t remember how it worked out that way. One of those things. No explanation, no reason: a fact of the family conceived in temporary convenience and cemented by the simple passage of time. When one of the older boys objected—Peter, it would have been Peter—it was too late.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I don’t mind, Mom. He can have it. I’ll switch or Franky can move in with me.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEasy as a hammock, her Bobby boy. But they didn’t make the switch. The youngest gets the hand-me-down clothes, the half-broken toys, gets picked on and left behind, gets teased and tormented. He would at least have his own room, even if he didn’t want it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBesides, she didn’t want Peter to get his way. He was fourteen or fifteen. Cock of the walk. Already entitled, not in a rich-kid way but expectant. He worked hard, no sense denying it. He studied too, even though it came easy. He practiced—football, baseball—even though that came easy too. But he expected the world to open wide for him, knew that one day he would storm the castle and fuck the princess and drink all the wine, because he was smart and athletic and handsome and diligent.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd he wasn’t wrong, as it turned out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut he didn’t get the room. She remembers now: a list of reasons, a presentation at the kitchen table. A smug little smile at the end, satisfied at the brilliance of his own logic. The shock and hurt when she said no, without giving a reason. She wanted the little prick to taste some disappointment. Strange how you can hate your own kids at times.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe walks over to the short bookcase that sits below the window. A handful of basketball trophies rest on top of it. One has been knocked over by the breeze from the window. She picks it up, inspects the placard: MOST IMPROVED PLAYER, FARRELL JUNIOR VARSITY 1990–91. Bobby held this once, cherished it. She places it in an upright position, slides its marble base into the proper place among its compatriots.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA few years back, Michael broached the topic of maybe using the room for something else. Another guest bedroom or a home office or maybe a game room for the grandkids. She stared at him, blue eyes unblinking, until he simply ran out of words. He never raised the issue again.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSome days she thinks he was right. The room doesn’t conjure anything, doesn’t evoke any particular memories. It simply reminds her of Bobby’s absence and she hardly needs a room to do that. It has inflicted pain, this room, on a few mornings, when she’s walked in to find someone lying in his bed and, for a moment, experienced a flicker of obscene hope, quickly extinguished when she realizes it’s Franky and he’s slipped in here, drunk and melancholy, while they were sleeping, spreading one sadness over another. She closes the door on those days and lets Franky sleep. When he sneaks away in the morning, hung over and embarrassed, she washes the sheets and remakes the bed and feels Bobby slip a little further away.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMostly, it’s a distraction. A pause—maybe five minutes, maybe an hour—keeping her from her day. Like today. So it’s time to wish Mr. Ewing good luck and get on with it. She makes the sign of the cross and leaves the room.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen she’s down the stairs, a tornado doing all the little household things that have gone undone during the week, all the things she should have done the night before. Everywhere she goes, the house staggers back to life: the washing machine swigs, the dishwasher soaks, the coffeemaker sputters and spits. The lighting of bulbs marks her path through the house. Bathroom, hallway, stairwell, kitchen, living room, front porch. The wooden floors groan up at her as she goes; the bones in her ankles and feet respond with unsettling clicks. The trash is removed, the paper is brought in.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVoices from the radio slip back into the kitchen, oblivious to the fact that they’ve been silenced these sleeping hours. A mundane news station. Nothing political, nothing angry. Just the traffic, the weather, the happenings of the five boroughs, New Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island, Westchester. Something that makes her feel like she’s part of a community. A large, rambling, fractious community, but a community all the same.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere was a stabbing in Yonkers, a fatal drunk-driving accident in Garden City, downed power lines in Massapequa. There are feel-good stories: an anonymous donation to a food pantry in Mount Vernon, a rescued dog in Canarsie, a kidney donated by a stranger to a sick child in Flushing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow awful. How wonderful. How frustrating. The traffic, always bad somewhere, even at this hour, even on a Saturday. The newscaster lists the times like a hostess at a restaurant assessing the wait for a table. Fifteen minutes at the Holland inbound. Twenty outbound. Thirty minutes at the Lincoln outbound. Forty-five inbound. An hour at the GW Bridge, in either direction.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMost mornings, she barely pays attention. It’s something to move things along, keep her company. The voices on the radio float to Gail wherever she is in the house. They grow lower, disappear, reappear, are drowned out by the dryer, grow stronger, disappear again. Her ears perk only if the radio mentions something local.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn accident on the West Shore Expressway. Another bias attack down in Port Richmond. A kid from Prince’s Bay wounded in Afghanistan. When this happens, which isn’t often, she stops her bustling and listens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn this morning, there’s nothing happening. The borough is silent.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe’s in the kitchen now, inspecting the fridge. It always seems emptier than it should be, but whenever she fills it, she ends up throwing away half the food. They don’t have three ravenous teenage boys eating around the clock anymore. The fridge is like the house: emptier than it used to be. Nothing can change that.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe looks into the cupboard to make sure she has Alyssa and little Bobby’s favorite cereals. She’s holding a box of Honey Nut Cheerios when a report catches her attention: a home invasion the night before, in someplace called Moriches out on Long Island. Two men broke into the home of an elderly couple. The man was a World War II veteran, eighty-three years old. They beat him senseless. He’s in a coma, but they interview his wife, whose fear is palpable, can be felt through the airwaves. One man has been apprehended, but the other is on the loose.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGail hopes a cop—an angry, hungover cop—finds him in a cold, low place, shoots him in the stomach, and leaves him to rot under a pile of wet leaves. She can see the cop plain as day, walking silently, his gun drawn, chilled breath spilling out before him. A spike in the back of his head from too much whiskey the night before. Anger for this and for something else. A score that was never settled. Chance to make things right. The assailant unaware, some low-life junkie starting to come down. The cop’s almost there.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGood Christ, where do these thoughts come from?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoriches. She’s never been there, never even heard of it. But now it has a feel, now she will remember it. Moriches, where elderly World War II veterans are beaten to snot and renegade cops administer street justice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe likes the woman, the wife of the veteran. Her voice, her manner: they belong to a different time. Gail tries to focus on her. A pity what happened. How scared she must be. Moriches. When Tina gets here, she’ll ask her to look it up on the computer, point out where it is. She wants to know where it is, to see it placed on a map.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGail hasn’t been to most places she hears of on the radio, but each summons a feeling. She likes some names: Lynbrook, Mamaroneck, Dobbs Ferry. She doesn’t like others: Sayville, Passaic, Scarsdale. She was shocked when Michael told her that Scarsdale was a well-heeled town. The name sounded tough, like a run-down mining town. A scar in the earth, scars on the faces. She never would have guessed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e* * *\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen there’s nothing left to do, when nothing else can be tidied or straightened, she sits at the table and waits for Tina and the kids. She spreads the \u003ci\u003eAdvance\u003c\/i\u003e across the table and sifts through it. This is more intimate than the radio, deserves more focus. A community of millions siphoned down to a few hundred thousand.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBetween articles, she looks out the large bay window at the front of the kitchen. The morning is gray, the sun up but stuck behind a fleet of low-lying clouds. The other houses on the block are dark. The street is still. The whole neighborhood sleeping off the week.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe block hasn’t changed much in the forty years they’ve called it home. Fewer trees. Less open space. A handful of new houses that don’t quite fit in. Otherwise, Wirra Lane has largely escaped the overdevelopment that has plagued the rest of the Island.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA blank moment in the mind. Her thoughts drift to Franky. She hopes he’s holding down his latest job, hopes he’s still on the wagon. She hasn’t seen him in a few weeks. Hasn’t heard from him in a few weeks, come to think of it. Maybe he’s met someone. God, she hopes he’s met someone. The right girl would make him tow the line. The right girl would make him straighten out his act.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOf course, the right girl would be too smart to get involved with him at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt wasn’t always that way. There was a time, not so long ago, when Franky was half a lady’s man. Handsome in a roguish way. A glint of trouble in his eyes, sure, but charming. She was sitting at this table one morning, dawn coming on, when a car pulled up. Franky and Bobby were both living at home, taking summer classes at CSI and wearing out their elbows at every bar on Forest Avenue. They’d been out the night before. Gail had heard them come in, after four, stumbling down the hallway into their bedrooms.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt least, she thought she’d heard them—the two of them—but it wasn’t like she’d done a bed check. She couldn’t fall back to sleep, so after an hour of trying, she wandered downstairs to get a start on the day. And here was a car, pulling to a stop quietly, and there was Franky in the passenger seat, leaning over to make out with the girl who was driving. He got out of the car and closed the door softly, was walking up the path to the front steps when the girl—black hair in a ponytail, toned, long legs in jean shorts—got out of the car and chased him down, holding a slip of paper. He turned back, gave her another long kiss, and tucked the paper into his pocket. He waved as she drove off, then walked into the house, happy and oblivious, looking like a man who’d just gotten laid, which was probably the case. He didn’t notice Gail sitting in the dark.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Was that Kerry Cole?” she asked, hoping to startle him. Gail recognized her from the \u003ci\u003eAdvance\u003c\/i\u003e. She’d been a soccer star on the Island a few years back, had gotten a full ride to Notre Dame, must have been home for the summer. He sat down across from Gail, a smirk on his face.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“T’was, Mother, t’was,” he said, in a fake Irish accent. “A fine girl.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe retrieved the slip of paper from his pocket, spread it on the table. Gail saw the name Kerry, a telephone number below it. Bobby would have been embarrassed and Peter annoyed, but Franky was nonplussed. Proud, if anything. And Gail felt a strange pride too. She could see a girl like Kerry Cole falling for Peter. But Franky? Who was taking his sweet time getting through community college? Whose great ambition was tomorrow night? Whose ideal reading was two pages of box scores in the \u003ci\u003ePost\u003c\/i\u003e?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet there she was, chasing Franky down to hand over her number. Making out with him in the front yard like it was her last day on earth. As a mother to three boys—three men now—Gail had gotten used to a certain amount of locker room banter over the years. Still, it was an odd thing to be happy that your son had maybe screwed above his station. But she was happy. And proud.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Slumming for the summer?” she asked, regretting it immediately. She meant it in a teasing way, but with Franky, she had a way of being cruel without always intending to. He didn’t flinch though.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What can I say, Mother? There’s no accounting for taste.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe smiled. He wasn’t drunk, wasn’t even tipsy. He was glowing with the unlikelihood of his conquest. He was past the age where Gail could give him a talk about precautions, about being careful. And God help her, she could think of worse things than Franky knocking up a sweet, smart girl like Kerry Cole.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“You should call her, Francis,” she said, trying not to sound too insistent.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I’m starving,” he responded.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe fried up some bacon and scrambled some eggs, sat there with him while he ate it. The smirk on his face creased into a smile.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Fine girl. My ass.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe had to spit the eggs out into a napkin because he was laughing so hard. She said it to him for the next few weeks, their own private joke. He could be so easy sometimes. He had his moments.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe never called, despite Gail’s nudges. Gail didn’t see Kerry Cole again until her wedding was announced in the \u003ci\u003eAdvance\u003c\/i\u003e some years later. By that point, Gail had endured a host of mornings with Franky: mornings where he needed to be helped out of a cab, mornings where she found him passed out on the front lawn, mornings when he didn’t come home at all, and, of course, the morning when he called and told them in a slurred ramble that he’d been arrested.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere were even a few other mornings where he got dropped off by a girl. None of the girls was Kerry Cole, but he didn’t lack for companionship. He still had a certain appeal, still had his looks. Sitting on a bar stool—a drunken, ruined memorial to his dead brother—Franky probably did well with a certain brand of barfly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSome women love reclamation projects.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e* * *\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn the counter, the coffeemaker ceases its pleasant babble. She makes a pot for Michael; she prefers the Starbucks that Tina brings with the bagels. Michael complains.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It’s too expensive, it tastes burnt.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGail doesn’t care. She likes the taste. She’d rather have one good cup of coffee than four crappy ones. Michael is a big tipper, would give his last dollar to a friend, but he’s cheap in ways that perplex Gail.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot cheap. Frugal. Saves his money on coffee so he can leave five-dollar tips for surly bartenders. Doesn’t make sense to Gail, but that’s all right. Not everything about your husband should make sense. Took her years to realize that. If she were teaching a class to prospective brides, that would be her first piece of advice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDon’t expect everything he does to make sense.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMichael is out of bed. The weight of the house has shifted with him. She knows what he’s doing now, as sure as if she were in the room with him. A stiff walk to the bathroom, followed by a hasty flip of the seat and a long, contented piss. Regimes have fallen during Michael’s Saturday morning pisses. She can tell how many beers he had the night before by the length of his piss: ten seconds for each bottle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGail hears the shower start. Short piss. Michael must have been a good boy last night.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe reshuffling of the house’s order—another body in the mix, another consciousness released from slumber—always startles her. It’s like a second waking, equally abrupt but more demanding. The day has been on tracks, sliding toward its start, and now it has arrived. Soon the house, enormous in its emptiness, will shrink with the day to accommodate Michael, Tina, the kids. Gail always misses the stillness as it recedes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe morning has caught up with her. Time to get down to business. She grabs a pad of paper and a pen. She thinks for a moment, tries to conjure the date.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMarch 12th.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe ides of March are nearly upon us. She stopped teaching last year, but this would usually be the week her eighth-grade honors class started \u003ci\u003eJulius Caesar\u003c\/i\u003e. She tried to time it right, have them read the ides of March line on the ides of March. The little things matter when you’re teaching. You’ll do anything to keep them interested, keep them reading. Over the years, a few parents complained that Shakespeare was too advanced for eighth graders, even smart ones. But Gail always thought it was perfect for middle schoolers. It dealt with friendship, betrayal, conspiracies, honor: all the same things they were starting to struggle with in their own lives. Besides, kids needed to be pushed, not coddled.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBusy time of year. St. Patrick’s Day. The start of the NCAA tournament. The Cody’s pool. Bobby’s favorite week of the year. Her blue-eyed boy with the Italian last name and the map of Ireland on his face, wearing his fisherman’s cable-knit sweater, the one Gail bought for him in Galway, to every goddamn St. Patrick’s Day parade in the tristate area: Manhattan, Hoboken, Bay Ridge, and, of course, Forest Avenue. The sweater slowly accumulating brownish stains from spilled Guinness. Watching basketball for days on end. He used to say it was like they took everything good and crammed it into one week, except for Thanksgiving and the night before Thanksgiving.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat about Christmas? she would ask.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOverrated, he’d pronounce. Other than your food, Mom. Overrated.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWait till you have kids, she’d think. Wait until you watch them fly down the stairs on Christmas morning.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe writes “to do” next to the date and makes a few short dashes on the left side of the page, the assignments to\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304997146853,"sku":"NP9780143107873","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780143107873.jpg?v=1767736789","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/small-mercies-isbn-9780143107873","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}