Mairin felt better after the talk with Michael, but she still had an occasional day that she almost could not handle. One mid-winter morning she could hardly get out of bed. Oh, lord, she thought. It’s going to be a bad day. I’d like to just stay here in bed, quiet, thinking. Come on, she encouraged herself. Just accept it. A bad day is a bad day. There’s no reason for it, there’s no rhyme. Don’t try to figure it out. It’ll go away. Just get up and go to work. But she wanted to cry, to mourn, to get away from people.

She got up, got dressed, and sat down at the breakfast table. She poured a glass of orange juice and just sat there.

"What’s the matter, Mair?" asked Bea, who was looking at the fashion section of the paper, but, as always, was especially sensitive to anyone in her ambit.

"Oh nothing," said Mairin. "Just a down day. I just accept them. One really bad thing about a day like this is that I just don’t feel like working with people. Can you hear me now? One of my clients calls: 'I need a ride to go to the doctor.’ 'Well,’ I say, ‘call a cab, call your neighbor, check your son, but just don’t bother me no way.'

"Or someone calls who’s newly blind. ‘Big deal,' I say. ‘Lots of people go blind. What do you want me to do about it?’ I just hate problems on days like this."

"Why don’t you stay home, take a holiday? We could go shopping, have lunch out."

"Thanks, Bea, but no, I have to learn to function when I don’t feel like it."

"I don’t see you ever letting down. What do you mean ‘learn to function’?"

"Oh, just keep going. Eternal vigilance, etc. Never let down."

Mairin drove to work fighting tears. Everything's wrong. Nothing’s wrong. Goddamn slow driver. Get the hell out of the way. Dumb shit. What's the matter with me?

The office was no better. Three new files on the desk. All the addresses were in the worst parts of town. Oh hell, she thought. That’s just what I want to do. Climb into the car and go driving down around East 30th and Central. Great place. Oh, shit, I wish I had a social worker to call--lay all my problems on someone else. Someone to find me a place to live, help me do my grocery shopping, help me sing the blues. Crap.

She had only one appointment scheduled, and it was after lunch. She huddled in the office doing paperwork, case dictations, letters, etc., until lunch. She went into the cafeteria, looked at the food, went back up to the office via the candy machine. She was two cases short for evidence class that night. She got out the casebook and began to read.

She read until it was time for the appointment. She was taking Mr. and Mrs. Brush to the sheltered shop. She met them in the rehab wing. Mrs. Brush seemed apprehensive; Mr. Brush seemed tired. Mairin chattered on the car ride over. Then they sat in the supervisor’s office while he explained what jobs were currently possibilities.

"Dr. Smith says you have had a great deal of evaluation at the agency and that you’re ready for a try at work."

"I guess so," said Mr. Brush.

"What would you like to do?"

"I don’t know,"

"How about helping to package dishcloths?"

They went out into the plant. Mairin had done the job once herself in a training session, with a blindfold on. Fold the cloths over, bring corners to corners. Reach out to the left for a piece of cardboard to firm up the packaging. Put the cloths and the cardboard into a plastic package lying to the right. Tough the first few times. Then possible. Then fun. Then boring.

Forty-five minutes later, Mairin was ready to pull hair. Mr. Brush was still having problems bringing corners to corners. Mairin watched Charles Griffin with wonder. As unit supervisor, he had worked with hundreds of blind employees. He was careful. He was reserved. He was encouraging. Lord, she thought, how does be do it?

"If you can bring him back for afternoons the next two weeks, Mrs. Brush, we’ll work on it."

"I will," she said.

"I will," thought Mairin, driving home for dinner. "I will." Yes, what else could she do? She could go home and sit there with him in one chair and her in another. No choice but to bring him back. I would, too.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Harry came back into chambers after the day’s cases. He sat back in his chair, putting his feet up on the desk. This was a favorite time of day for him. The courthouse was emptying. The crowds that had come and gone all day had thinned out. Harry was a political judge in the old-fashioned sense. He had been in party politics all his life. He loved it, loved the gossip, the jockeying for position. Now, as a judge, he could basically watch it, and, as a senior party man, advise the younger men. The races for judge didn’t come often, and he never worried much.

He was solid, not a particularly bold or brilliant judge, but capable. His decisions were usually good because he was basically a fair person.

Frank, his bailiff, sat in the big chair across the desk. Frank, in his late fifties, enjoyed his job as bailiff, another political job. He and Harry had been cronies for years. They talked of the day’s happenings, the gossip that every office, every profession, has. But Harry’s conversation was trailing off tonight. He’d make part of a remark, then look off into space. Frank knew, from years of association, how to finish the sentences, but more, he knew that Harry had something on his mind. He also knew that, in good time, Harry would get to it.

"I’m worried about Mairin," Harry said.

Mairin was a great favorite of Frank’s. After she had begun living with Bea and Harry, she would drop in at the court once in a while. Frank’s mental picture of Mairin was sun. She shone. She would come in, and the mood she brought was open and warm, like the sun. Once she had brought Frank a candy apple. He had said, "Oh, I can’t eat that," but Mairin, noting Frank’s girth, had said "I bet you can." And he had. He remembered especially one day the last summer, when she had come in, completely enthused about a mini-park that had been built downtown.

It had brightly-colored concrete climbing shapes. She had tried to get Harry and Frank to promise to go see it. He thought it was unusual for someone to get so excited about a few splashes of color. "Did you climb on the concrete?" he asked. "Sure," she said, a bit sheepishly.

She had, and she’d felt a little self-conscious in the noonday crowd; but the shapes had beckoned.

"Mairin is very depressed," Harry was saying.

Frank just looked at him. "How could Mairin be depressed?"

"How do you think?" Harry’s tone was a bit acid. "This damned blind woman case with Michael Morgan. I want her out of that. She has a friend, Linda. She’s a psychologist. Mairin asked her for some anti-depressants, and Linda gave them to her. She made Mairin promise to go see a doctor to get some of her own. Mairin hasn’t gone yet. Linda called me." Harry was moody.

"What are you going to do?"

"Talk to her, if I can," said Harry.

By the time Harry got home that night, he had decided to confront Mairin. He watched Bea, calm and serene, fixing the supper. "Hon," he said, "what do you think about Mairin?"

"What about Mairin?"

"She’s depressed, damn it."

"Of course she is. This is too much for her. Look at what she does. She gets up in the morning and goes to work. She works a full day. She goes to class three or four nights a week. She studies all weekend. Then she spends time on Sandra’s case. No wonder she feels pressured. She is pressured. Our girls never had anything like this. I don’t know how she does it. I am worried about her."

Harry told Bea about the conversation with Linda. "I’m just going to hit her with it," he said. "There’s no use going around in circles. She doesn’t have class tonight. She’ll be here for supper."

"Harry. . . " Bea stopped shredding cabbage. "Be gentle with her. She needs all kinds of tender, loving care right now."

"And she won’t even let us give it to her."

The door opened and Mairin came in. "Hi" she called and hung her things in the closet. "What a day," she said and sank into one of the kitchen chairs.

"You haven’t had an easy day in a long time, have you?"

"No, I guess not."

"Linda called me."

"Oh."

They were all silent, though Bea kept on preparing dinner. Harry finally spoke. "Do you think you need some more of the anti-depressants?"

"No," she said. "It’s been a rough few weeks, but I’ll make it."

"Sandra’s case?"

"You were right. I don’t have time for it. I’ve told Michael that."

"Michael?"

Mairin sighed. "We don’t have time for each other, either." She didn’t think that she could say another word without bursting into tears.

"Good," said Harry.

Bea came to her and hugged her. "Go get ready for dinner, hon."

When she’d left, Harry said, "That’s a load off my mind. I just hope she meant it."

"Is there a doubt in your mind?" asked Bea. And Bea, who never swore, added, "She sounded damned determined."