Through the Bookstore Window

by Bill Petrocelli

  When she woke up in the hospital, Gina was holding her hand, stroking her fingers slowly, focusing on each one of them. There was a tube taped to her arm with a bag of some sort hanging on a pole near the bed. Gina told her later that a container of blood had been attached to her arm and pumped into her while she was sedated. The doctors had done a good job, Gina said. They saved her from all the complications she could have faced as a result of the forced abortion. The word “abortion” cut through her like a knife, but after a while it had become mingled with all of the other awful thoughts she was trying to deal with. She didn’t know what the doctors had done, but she was sure that it was Gina’s long, slow massage of her fingers that made the difference. The feeling worked its way up from her hand into the rest her body. “You’re going to be okay,” Gina kept repeating. After a while, she began to believe it.

  She still wasn’t sure what had happened. From the time she sent the text message, until she came out of the fog in the hospital with Gina sitting next to her, reality and hallucinations had become one big jumble. She remembered a struggle in the parking lot. When she had tried to pull away from them, she was in so much pain that she had collapsed. As she was losing consciousness, she thought she heard her mother’s voice yelling at them to let her go. But was her mother really there? She remembered trying to ask Gina that question when she was in the ambulance. But there were so many things going on at that moment—with people sticking things into her body and shouting commands—she wasn’t sure that Gina had heard her. She was beginning to think she might never see her mother again. But at some point Gina had answered her: yes, her mother was there.

  She learned the rest of it later. She thought she remembered something that sounded like gunshots, but she was only semiconscious. It could have been anything. But piece by piece, as she lay there in her hospital bed, she found out what had happened. The shots were real. They had hit their victims, and both were dead. It wasn’t until she was out of danger from her injuries that Gina finally told her everything that had happened. She explained it as gently as she could, but there was no way to make it any easier. The two men were dead, and her mother was being held for murder.

  She kept reliving what happened. She couldn’t erase it from her mind. There always seemed to be one more part to it—one more awful piece—that she hadn’t dealt with. Several times she broke down crying, and Gina would just sit down next to her and hold her. She started to blame herself for everything, but Gina put a stop to that in a hurry.

  “Don’t think like that,” she said. “You did nothing wrong.”

  And in the midst of that, she made a decision. She had to go see her mother as soon as she could. Gina thought she should wait a few more days and not rush it. She’d only been home a short time. But she wanted to do it as soon as possible. Gina relented. Then she poured a pot of tea and brought it into the living room, making it clear that she had something she wanted to tell her. As she sat on the couch, Gina pulled up a chair so they could talk face-to-face.

  “Alexi, your mother’s very depressed. She may dig herself out of it, but I can’t be sure. We’re doing everything we can to help her.”

  She guessed something like that might be happening. She wanted to know everything Gina was telling her, but it was painful to hear.

  Gina said that Sylvia had been trying to talk with her, hoping to get her cooperation. If she would just work with the lawyers, they might be able to develop a good defense—or at least get the charges reduced to something they could live with. But they weren’t getting any cooperation.

  Gina shook her head slowly, like she was having difficulty explaining it. “She just keeps saying she wants to take whatever punishment they give her.”

  That last statement brought on the tears.

  “I thought about not telling you any of that, because I knew it would be too painful. But if you’re going to talk to your mother, you need to know it. Maybe it would help if she could just see you.”

  Gina stared at her for a few more seconds.

  “I know I told you not to blame yourself for any of this, but the truth is I’ve gone through a lot of that myself. I probably could have done things differently.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  As she rushed to console Gina, Gina forced a slight smile.

  “You have a home with me as long as you want it. You know that. But I never intended this to be permanent. In my heart, I always hoped that it would work out for you to be with your mother. I just hope someday we can make that happen.”

  www

  By the time they got to the visiting area at the end of the hall, she was starting to shake. Sylvia gave her a reassuring squeeze on the arm as the policewoman opened the large metal door. Sylvia said she would be just outside if they needed anything, but she would try to leave the two of them alone as much as possible. She appreciated that, but she knew her meeting with her mother wasn’t going to be all that private. The two of them would be separated by a thick glass wall.

  Her mother’s appearance shocked her. Gina had warned her that she would look different, but it was still a surprise to see how much she’d changed.

  “Hi, Mom. Are you all right?”

  Her mother didn’t seem to know why she was in that room. She hadn’t focused on the glass wall until she heard a voice. Then she looked over and started crying.

  “Oh, Alexi, are you okay? I knew you were in the hospital, and I was worried sick about you. But my lawyer, Sylvia, says they took good care of you. Are you really okay?”

  “I’m fine, Mom.”

  Her mother was still standing at the back of the room. She seemed reluctant to get any closer to the glass.

  “Can you come up near the window, Mom, where I can see you better?”

  “Oh, Alexi. I look frightful. I don’t want you to see me this way.”

  “I just want to see you. I don’t care what you look like.”

  “But it’s not right for you to have to come into a place like this.” She turned her head away for a second. “This isn’t at all what I wanted for you.”

  “I don’t mind. Really, I just want to see you.”

  Her mother was quiet for a moment before saying anything.

  “Davey Fallon told me about Gina, and he said she’s been taking good care of you.”

  “She has, Mom.”

  Her mother just shook her head slowly. For the moment, all of the emotion seemed to have been drained from her. “That’s good, Alexi, because I’m going to be in here for a long time.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  But her mother continued with the same thought. “I killed two people, and that’s a terrible thing. They may never let me out. So I don’t think you should plan to come here very often to see me.”

  “No, Mom, no.” She was getting more and more upset about the way the conversation was going. “You’ve got one of the best law firms in town working on the case.”

  Her mother shrugged.

  “You can’t just roll over and die. They have a plan for helping you, but you have to cooperate. Sylvia says that they have a strong case for something called ‘temporary insanity’—maybe even a claim for self-defense.”

  Her mother gave a sad little laugh. “Is that what they’re saying?”

  “Yes. There are all kinds of things they can do to help you, if you’ll only let them.”

  Her mother was silent for a few moments. And when she began again, she was off on another line of thought.

  “I failed you, Alexi.”

  Those dark days at the church sprang into her head, but she had concluded that it wasn’t her mother’s fault. She was asking too much of her. She should have found a way—any way at all—to let her know what was happening.

  “You didn’t fail me, Mom. Don’t say that!”

  “Yes I did, sweetheart. I should ha
ve seen what was going on.”

  “You didn’t see it, because I didn’t tell you.”

  “But you said yourself I should have seen it.” She paused for a second. “I’ve read your journals. There were signs, and I missed them all.”

  “I didn’t come right out and tell you. I don’t know why—maybe the reason was that I didn’t want to hurt you… I don’t know, it could be you were doing the same thing. Maybe you just blocked out the signs, because you knew how much it would hurt me if it were true.”

  Her mother shook her head and attempted a smile.

  “Do you realize what you’re saying? You’re telling me I ignored the real story in order protect the fantasy one. Someday when you’re a mother you’ll realize that’s not good enough.”

  The logic of the conversation was getting all twisted. She had to break through it somehow.

  “Mom, forget all that. I need you. I need you right now!”

  The tears were coming now, and she didn’t do anything to stop them. She leaned up against the window with her mouth against the microphone, as she kept repeating, “I need you.”

  Her fingers were spread against the glass as she started to pound against the window. She stopped when she thought she might get in trouble with the guards. Instead, she just leaned into the glass and wept.

  After a few seconds, she realized her mother was leaning up against the window on the other side. She had placed her hands against the glass and spread out her fingers, matching them one to one against her own. Her mother was leaning into the mouthpiece, and she was weeping along with her.

  Gina

  I had one pillow fluffed atop the other, and the reading lamp that I’d purchased at a secondhand shop on Market Street was angled just right. I had on a new nightgown, which was a treat I gave myself after the bandage on my shoulder was removed. The scar on my shoulder was still tender at times, but my new nightie had a full top that covered it up. I was in my favorite reading position, and I was ready to dive into a group of advance reading copies of books lying on the covers next to me.

  All of the books were soon to be published, and I’d promised the sales rep that I’d write a comment for some of them. I planned to leave them for Alexi when she got back. At the moment, she was staying with Sylvia while they worked on her mother’s bail motion. I wasn’t sure when exactly she’d return, but that might depend on how the hearing went. Since Alexi had a pretty broad interpretation of young adult fiction, I wasn’t going to object if she delved into something that publishers might think was beyond her age level. After what she’d been through, she could read anything she wanted.

  There was a light tap on my bedroom door, and I told him to come in. It had to be Davey, because he was the only other person in the apartment.

  “I saw your light. I thought you wouldn’t mind if I stuck my head in for a minute.”

  He stood there, looking a bit unsteady. I told him to sit down.

  “You can throw that stuff off the chair or just sit down on the end of the bed, if you like.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll just ease myself down here.” He sat down at the foot of the bed, and I moved my feet over to accommodate him.

  The pajamas were his own, but the robe was one that I picked up at a shop on Gough Street when I realized he was about to be released from the cardiac care unit and had no other place to go. He still wasn’t able to button the pajamas, because the bandage underneath was so big that the cloth wouldn’t stretch. That’s what happens when you have open-heart surgery—you get a bandage that stretches from the top of your sternum all the way down to your stomach.

  “Are you feeling okay? I know you’ve been eating better.”

  He nodded. “I’m getting better. I’m pretty sure of that.”

  “Good.”

  He sat there for a second with a thoughtful look on his face. “I hear you’ve been looking for a new guitar for Alexi.”

  “Yeah. My old one has a bullet hole where the fret board used to attach to the sound box.”

  He nodded as I explained what happened.

  “Well, you don’t have to buy her a new one. There’s a wonderful old guitar sitting in my closet in Indianapolis. It’s a classic model. I’d like Alexi to have it.”

  “That’s very nice of you.”

  Davey shrugged. “I can’t let it sit there forever. It’s not doing anyone any good where it is.”

  He stared down at his feet. “It was Jimmy’s guitar. His sister gave it to me.” He looked over for a brief moment. “I told you about Jimmy, didn’t I?”

  “A little bit. I’d like to hear more, when you’re up to it.”

  He nodded his head a little, but he was back to staring down at his feet. I wasn’t sure where the conversation was going.

  “I never really thanked you for being there with me when I was going into surgery.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. One of my unwritten rules of life is that no one should ever go into a hospital without having someone there to look out for things.”

  “I know you were going through a lot.” He looked up as he said it.

  “Everyone was going through a lot at the time. But at least you were in the same hospital as Alexi. It wasn’t much extra trouble for me to go up a few floors to see you.”

  He tried to laugh a little. “It’s just something I won’t ever forget.”

  He sat there for a second, gathering his thoughts. He was back to staring down at the floor.

  “I was pretty scared. It made all the difference in the world that you held my hand when I was being wheeled into surgery.”

  He gave a little smile, but it wasn’t directed at me—he was still looking at the floor. “You have very reassuring fingers.”

  I smiled at him, but he wasn’t yet watching.

  “Did you have any trouble getting in there with me?”

  “No. I told them I was your wife.”

  “You did?” That got him to turn around and look up. “It might have been more believable if you had said you were my daughter.”

  I shrugged. “No one checked. I guess I must have looked the part.”

  Since I had his attention, I had one more thing to tell him. “Speaking of daughters, I had a nice conversation with Mandy.”

  “You talked to my daughter? How did you even know about her?”

  “I was posing as your wife, remember? The nurse handed me your wallet and everything else. I looked through your address book for names and numbers that I might have to contact, and I found her listing. Since you were having open-heart surgery, I thought she ought to know about it. So I called her.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “I haven’t talked with Mandy in about eight years.”

  “She said it was more like ten.” I gave him a smile to keep his attention. “But she’s planning to call you tomorrow.”

  He was still skeptical. “Why after all this time does she want to talk to me?”

  “Maybe it’s because I told her how heroic you were in trying to rescue Alexi and how you’ve been through a lot of things and come through them pretty well.”

  I had to give him my biggest smile after that.

  “You’re going to be a grandfather, did you know that? Mandy’s having a little boy—due in about two weeks.”

  “I heard about that.”

  “I got the feeling she would like to talk to you about it.”

  He smiled for a moment, but it faded. There was still something bothering him, but I didn’t know what it was.

  “Did she tell you why she picked tomorrow to call me?”

  “No.”

  “It’s because it’s my birthday. I’m going to be seventy.”

  I took a quick look at the clock. “It will be midnight in about twenty minutes. We’ll have to celebrate.”

  He shook his h
ead. “I don’t need to celebrate. I just need to get through it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “My life has been so empty in recent years that I vowed that I wouldn’t let it drag out past my seventieth birthday.”

  He was looking me straight in the eye now.

  “The gun I always carried around? It wasn’t really for protection. It was for me. I always knew that I would turn it on myself—maybe sooner than today, but today for sure.”

  I reached over to grab his hand. Our fingers intertwined for a few moments.

  “I guess it’s a good thing that your pistol is locked up in an evidence locker somewhere down at the Hall of Justice.”

  “I guess so.”

  But I realized that wasn’t enough.

  “What I really meant to say is that even if that pistol were sitting right here in front of us, we’d be strong enough to beat it. I think we would look right down the barrel and say, ‘That’s over. We’re moving forward.’”

  Davey squeezed my hand a little tighter.

  “Thank you.” There was a tear in his eye.

  He made a move to get up. “I’ve bothered you enough for one night. It’s time to get back to bed.”

  “Why don’t you just stay right where you are? Just turn around a little and lean back. I’ll throw one of the covers over you.”

  “Are you sure it’s okay?”

  “I’m sure. Here, let me get the books out of the way.”

  He stretched out, trying to get comfortable, as I reached over to turn out the light.

  “Is that you down there?”

  “Yeah, am I too close to you?”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “Well then, try to get some rest.”

  “Okay. Good night.”

  I squeezed his hand a little. “Good night.”