Small Mercies

by Dennis Lehane

G’bless. They could add it to the list that includes It is what it is and Whatta ya gonna do. Phrases that provide comfort by removing the speaker’s power. Phrases that say it’s all up to someone else, you’re blameless.

“Little Peg!” Big Peg screams without warning, and twenty seconds later, her eldest daughter, a girl who’s always managed to be twitchy and listless at the same time, comes through the doorway, going, “What’s up?”

Bess is a two-toned 1959 Ford Country Sedan. Its rear end sags like an old dog’s ass, rust and winter road salt have eaten away the rims of the wheel wells and the lower third of the paint job, the roof rack is long since gone (no one recalls where or when), both taillights are cracked (but operational), and the tailpipe hangs on with nothing more than Hail Marys and fraying butcher’s twine. About the only thing you can say for Bess anymore is that she was a great car to transport the two kids around in, she has a 352 V8 under the hood that turns her into a rocket on the highway, and the radio works. Bess once sported two different shades of green—“April” and “Sherwood”—but at this point, both shades are so blanched you’d have to take Mary Pat’s word for it.

For a kid from Southie, he speaks like some rich people she’s run into over the years—like his words and God’s come from the same well, while your words come from a place off the map that no one can hear or see.

He’s a rock, Kenny. Always has been. First one to give support, last one to ask for it.

No kids, no pets, no struggle. Donna Shea hit the trifecta. All she has to worry about now are canceled nail appointments and any unexplained lumps on her chest.

Bobby is struck by the notion that something both irretrievably broken and wholly unbreakable lives at the core of this woman. And those two qualities cannot coexist. A broken person can’t be unbreakable. An unbreakable person can’t be broken. And yet here sits Mary Pat Fennessy, broken but unbreakable. The paradox scares the shit out of Bobby. He’s met people over the course of his life who he truly believes existed as the ancient shamans did, with one foot in each world: this one and the one beyond. When you meet these people, it’s best to give them breadth the length of a football field, or else they may suck you right into that next world with them when they go.

She smashes her fist down on his shattered leg. The scream he lets out is like something from the animal kingdom, the screech of prey being eaten alive in the high grass. He topples to the dirt floor. Lies there with his mouth open, eyes wide with shock.