Audrey Hepburn's Pearls: Part II

Chapter 108.1: 1968, Georgina

Chapter 108.1: 1968, Georgina

There was no time for reference when we got in, just the dim light of the morning coming over waves I could only hear. The salt air hit me as a blast when Frankie opened the door, and I waited silently to be helped. By now I had tired, but too much slow sadness was winding its way above my head, drowning me without water. Too much to move.

Frankie must have taken this as being tired, and I let him. I was spent. There was no more. As he helped me out of the car, I offered no hand. Just limp as a rag doll, pretending to be asleep.

I heard him thank the driver, exchange some cash. Felt the rolling of the wheelchair, heard the rumbling of yet more dollies. We were on an elevator, we were going along a carpeted floor. I was being tipped over the lip of a doorway onto some tile and then more carpet, this time very plush for it was hard to make much headway in the chair, perhaps like grass could be. Or the sand on the beach.

Already in my nightgown, Frankie simply picked me up and laid me down, lifted the covers around my chin, wrapped me in the blankets. I felt him sit on the bed some time later, then shuffle under the covers, too.

There was pain, the yearning to pee. Too much. But there was too much grief in my heart. There were no words to say.

Morning came, then afternoon. The smell of breakfast, eggs and toast. I didn't rouse though I was awake. Frankie had turned on the television, very low. There was the sound of some sort of babble. I heard the opening for Days of Our Lives. Finally I made a noise, and Frankie was there just like a character on the soap opera he seemed to be watching. Predictable, yet comforting. And yet...

I wanted to tell him I didn't need his help. I wanted to do it all on my own, get up, go to the bathroom, get ready. But...get ready for what? Sighing, I flopped down on the bed, not wanting any of this. Not wanting to face this. Remembering Paulie's kind face last night and not wanting any of it, not wanting it to be true and not having the capacity to believe it anyway.

"Let's get you up." Frankie's gentle voice. Like always.

I couldn't do anything. I was a blob, in a prone pose inside of myself to these new ideas. And yet they weren't new. I knew. I'd known deep in my body that something was wrong, thinking back, when Paulie had given me the gun. But no. My heart descended into muddy dread. No. There was more. Always had been more. Why didn't I see it? I was so-

Pain flashing. A ripping noise from my throat, too loud in the stillness of the room. Only images flickering one after the other on the television screen for movement. I groaned in the chair, my head leaned back as the reality of it tried to edge into my brain. Trying to tell me the truth, which I'd known all along but there was no courage to face it. It wasn't about me. It was more than that...

"Let's go. I'll help you. What do you want for lunch? I ordered eggs Benedict, but you were asleep so didn't- I wanted you to sleep, because- well..." Frankie was hesitating. What was he saying?

He wheeled me into the bathroom without a word after this, the tile easier to roll on. He helped me to the toilet with the aid of the walker, and I hated it. When he left the bathroom, I sat there for a long time, loathing but feeling hollow. No energy. Looking down at Sasha's nightgown, it reminded me of all of them and I couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand to be here, too much reality trying to come in. I'd been living in a non-reality, and now... I didn't want to leave the non-reality. I didn't want to realize, commit.

I realized I had to get Frankie to get me off the toilet and I couldn't bear it. I didn't want to move, face any of it. I didn't want to be here in this bathroom, the bathtub right there that I didn't know. It was all too unfamiliar, and then the unwanted memory flooded in, as if the entire bathroom were flooding.