Voices from the Moon by Andre Dubus Page B

making them feel welcome, by giving them what at least felt like affection, and usually was, beneath the simple exchange of money for food. While she served their tables they talked to her, and often people calling for reservations asked for her station, and always people gave her good tips. She did not need the money, but its meaning gratified her.
    The kitchen closed at ten and the bar closed between twelve and one, so when she had cleared all her tables she sat with the other waitresses, at a table near the bar, and drank till closing time. She had always had a little to drink before dinner, when Greg came home, but only as a break from cooking and a greeting to her husband, and the drinks themselves were not important. But now, for the first time in her life, she knew the pleasure of finishing an intense period of fast hard work, and sitting down to drinks with the other workers; their talk was never serious, but gay and laughing, the sounds of release, and each cold drink, each cigarette, soothed her, from her tired feet and legs to her brain, till she felt as if she were talking and laughing from a hammock.
    At ten-thirty that night, she was at a table with three women when she glanced down the length of the long dining room, her eyes drawn to its door that opened to the front parking lot, and she saw Larry standing at it, watching her, and knew that was why she had looked and that whatever it was, it was bad. How many times had she felt the tingling heat of lactation in her breasts when he was a boy and no longer nursed but was crying in pain? She stood, and the women stopped talking and looked at her.
    “It’s my son,” she said. “I’ll see what he wants.”
    “Call him over,” one said, and Joan saw another motioning her to silence, and so she knew that what was in her heart had reached her face too. Richie. It’s Richie, seeing him dead under a bent bicycle. She was walking toward Larry and he came to her and they stood between the wall and the room of tables covered for tomorrow.
    “Is anything wrong?”
    “Yes. I need to talk.”
    “Is anything wrong. With somebody.”
    “No. No, everybody’s fine.”
    “Thank God. I thought something had happened.”
    “Something did. But everybody’s well.”
    “Good. Then let’s hear about it.”
    She saw Richie in his bed, with whatever he dreamed; now she knew the trouble was love and she felt the hammock again, lifting her, and she sank into its idle swing. She could hear about love from there, without a sigh or the tensing of a muscle. She led him to an empty table opposite the end of the bar, near the television turned to a Red Sox game but without sound, and two empty tables away from her friends, and she seated him with his back to the women, to protect his face.
    “Dad called me to the house last night.”
    “Don’t you want a drink?”
    “Yes. What’s that?”
    “Vodka and tonic.”
    “I’ll have one.”
    She stood, and he reached out a hand that fell short of hers, and said: “Wait. Let me—”
    “—Relax, and have a drink. I thought you’d come from the morgue.”
    She got the drinks from young handsome black-bearded Lee at the bar, and he shook his head at her money. Larry was smoking and staring at the silent ballgame. She sat and he lit her cigarette and said: “Dad and Brenda have been seeing each other. Now they’re getting married.”
    She leaned back in her chair, and studied his face.
    “Well,” she said, and she saw Greg, foolish and wild, and angry and sweet, both too much and not enough of him to live in the world, let alone with one woman; at least by the time he burned out Brenda he would be nearly dead. “What about you?”
    “I’m going fucking nuts. Excuse me. I’m going nuts.”
    “Don’t. At least he didn’t take her from you.”
    “Thanks, Mom.”
    “You left her or you lost her. That’s all. Nothing else matters.”
    “My father marrying her matters.”
    “Of course it does. It stinks.”
    “It’s