She kept her head down, eyes to the floor, as she walked toward the back room. Looking up, she would have seen things around the bar, details that all, in one way or another, reminded her of Frank.
The Miller High Life neon sign that lit up only as often as not, and whenever it failed Frank would curse and immediately call the distributor to complain and demand a replacement which never came. The round table that was mismatched from the others, having been bought by Frank at an estate auction on a Saturday morning to replace the table that had been broken the night before during the only bar brawl in the history of Kiernan’s. The ceiling light with the cracked glass shade, the framed poster of Dick Butkus, the back wall painted a depressing maroon, and so much else that had some association with Frank, gone now for three years.
Her memories had become overpowering, and she suddenly wanted to be gone from the bar, partly to at last eat dinner after all but skipping lunch—pickles and a hardboiled egg were barely a meal—but, more than anything else, to be away. Three years had yet to give her any distance, any acceptance or peace.
She wanted to be away. She would be back soon enough, before noon on Christmas Day, when Kiernan’s would reopen for a handful of men who had already had enough for their families. They would say or do nothing of consequence, but instead stare at the TV—usually, in what was forever a mystery to her, the New York Knicks—complain about politicians, tell the same dirty jokes for the twentieth or thirtieth time.
She had almost reached the back room before she stopped, the empty glass she left behind now bothering her, though she would have plenty of time to wash it in the morning. She turned and walked back across the room, grabbed the glass as she passed and slipped behind the bar. She washed, rinsed and dried the glass, then returned it to the back bar and the neat formation of identical glasses that rested there.
Though she tried to keep her head down, not looking, from the corner of her eye she saw the taped-up postcards and photographs that fringed the edge of the mirror. Postcards mailed by regulars from California and Florida, reading Wish you were here, oh who am I kidding, I came here because you’re not here. She could laugh off the postcards but could only view the photographs with bittersweet feelings. The photos were mostly of family, sisters and brothers of hers but also some of Frank’s, and nieces and nephews—school portraits, blurry snapshots of football games and crowded birthday parties. Photos of nieces and nephews, but no photos of the sons and daughters that Maggie and Frank never had.
She rushed from the room, grabbed her coat from the hook next to the alley door, and exited, locking up behind herself. The cold air immediately revived her, jarring her back from the past. Far too cold for a walk to the diner—as much as she would have otherwise enjoyed the exercise—she instead stepped down from the concrete stoop and toward the dingy white Ford Taurus that she hoped, prayed, would start.