by Saurav Dutt
“Well I got plenty used to that” Andie shot back “..the alone part that is, especially the alone part.”
“Y’know” John cut in as he plucked away at the edges of his salad “this is a great meal you’ve prepared Andie, is that meat loaf I see over there?”
“Andie’s a great cook” Ben chimed in, filling his mouth with lettuce and cucumber as he noticed that she hadn’t yet taken her eyes off her mother.
“What happened to you?” Andie demanded, refusing to break her gaze “I mean, like really….what the hell happened to you? I sorta feel I should ask first off what I should even call you….perhaps it’s too late in the game to start calling you ‘Mom’ again…”
“You can call me what you want….Gina is fine. I can only tell you what I remember” Gina shrugged “I feel better now, but..”
“But you can only remember so much, right?” Andie interrupted “I guess that’s pretty convenient for you..”
“You remind me a lot of your father” Gina paused, her eyes focusing on the salad on her plate, glancing up momentarily at John.
“So you remember him then? Guess he’s a lot easier to remember than your daughter” Andie scoffed.
“Uh huh” came the resigned reply “kinda hard to forget about somebody like that I think you’d agree.”
She turned her attention to the walls around her, the small paintings hanging opposite the dinner table and the drinks cabinet nearest to the sideboard. Her eyes studied the photo frames carefully, pausing at one that showed Andie, Sean and Peter standing together. Their hands were interlocked, their smiles beaming and the photograph immediately filled her with a sense of elation.
“Why isn’t’ he here? Your husband?” she nodded towards the picture.
“She’s divorcing him” Ben interrupted, pouring himself a glass of wine, his jaw clenched, stopping himself from continuing.
“Ben” Andie interjected “I can speak for myself thank you very much.”
“Why do you still have pictures of him around?” Ben scowled as he shook his head, pausing as he noticed he was being stared at “so your name’s Gina, right?” he added with a wistful grin as he helped himself to the piping hot sautéed potatoes positioned nearest to him.
“Gina” she smiled to herself “might sound stupid to you but with all the names the FBI gave me, it’s kind of hard to remember which is which.”
“The funny thing is” John interrupted “is that I woulda never made you on the street, I mean all those conversations we had, I never once realised who it was-must have been that goddamn mink coat of yours; not to mention the hair job, and whatever else.”
“So..” Andie leaned forward with a smirk “you managed to come here to Manhattan looking for me with a suitcase full of laundered money..or whatever…and you thought roaming around on the streets and getting high was going to help you find your only daughter?”
“I didn’t think of it like that” Gina replied, pushing the plate gently away as she collected her thoughts “I didn’t mean any of this. I had to go somewhere safe..or safer…I just thought this was the only place to turn to…I knew where you were all the time, what was happening.. I could find out these things, they would tell me..but all I could do was acknowledge it..not act on it…and this time I had the chance.. I had the bags, I had Pollard..all I had were thoughts and places I remembered and pictures in my head, pictures like that one over there with you and your father.”
Andie’s eyes followed hers, stopping herself when she realised which picture she was referring to. “And what do you see when you see that picture?” Andie scowled “Do you remember-or perhaps you conveniently don’t-when that was taken? It was my twelfth birthday-you forgot that on the actual day...well I remember it like yesterday, you went shopping-for me apparently-except you were gone all day and when you got back you and him went at each other’s throats like rabid dogs…that picture was taken by a maid who reminded you both your only daughter was celebrating her twelfth birthday…the minute the picture was taken, you continued trying to tear each other’s hair out..and then you were gone for three days after that…it must be very convenient for you to forget things like that.”
“Andie, I know this is far from-” John cut in before Andie shot him a look of disgust. “I don’t think this concerns you” she snapped “everybody waltzes in here, placing this woman into my life, expecting me to just baby-sit her after everything that’s happened..and you and all this police, all this goddamn drama..I mean look at her, I can’t even look her in the damn face and get a straight answer for anything..I don’t even know where to start with her…”
“I apologise…” Gina softly murmured, playing with her food abjectly “..for anything I did to hurt you; if I’m ill now I deserve it, I hurt myself…and I wish I could change the way I acted, I really do…I guess it’s easy for you to think this is a good excuse for me to pretend that I don’t know everything that happened, everything I did to you.”
“I don’t see the use anymore..” Andie shook her head, fighting back a tear as she sunk back into her seat.
“Of what?” John interrupted as Andie let out a sigh. “Of…” Andie paused “…feeling anything…for her”
“I’m not hungry” Gina replied, rising slowly from the table “John, please help me upstairs..”
“Mom..” Andie swallowed hard “it’s not personal..I just can’t do this, not like this, not now.”
“I’m sorry” Gina answered “I just don’t know what else to say to you..”
“I don’t want to hear sorry” Andie replied “please anything but that, anything but sorry.”
“You saw your dad” Gina smiled, glancing over to the photograph again as she clung tightly onto John’s waist as she rose to her feet “how is he?”
“He’s fine, I guess” Andie replied “the same as I remember him…and like you, he’s sorry as well, or so he says…everybody is sorry, nobody really understands why or what the word means though, do they?”
“John said he’s dying? Cancer?” Gina asked as she met her daughter’s eyes.
“That’s right” Andie nodded.
“Good…” Gina paused as a smile came to her face “that son of a bitch deserves to die and rot in hell..”
As John raised an eyebrow, Ben cleared his throat with only Andie remaining nonplussed, and for a moment she felt the cold hard stare of the woman she loved, resented and even feared and it unnerved her.
“I can remember..” Gina began “…how he made me feel, what he did to me..I can remember that much…I’d like to say he had a hand in the way you were made to feel, but I know it can’t be all his fault…I wish this could have been different….you know, I just want to tell you this Andie…you have a lovely, lovely son.”
“You mean your grandson” Andie scoffed “I suppose you forgot all about him too, what with all the moving here and there courtesy of the state and all…I wish you could have understood….I needed you more than the US District Attorney ever did…your daughter needed a mother..”
The phone rang. John stared at Andie, but her gaze remained transfixed upon her mother.
“Shall I get that?” Ben sighed, standing up from the table as he threw back the last drops of his drink.
“No, I will” Andie retorted, waving him off as she marched towards the phone. “Yes?” she demanded, snatching the phone up from the receiver. All she could hear was the sound of heavy breathing, and the mumbled spluttering of failing sentences as the words struggled to escape Sean’s mouth. “So you really weren’t kiddin’….” he remarked incredulously.
“What?” Andie shook her head, feeling her pulse quicken “what are you talking about? What do you want?”
“You didn’t get my message?” Sean asked.
“No, what message-what is it?” Andie sighed.
“I called about three hours ago” Sean frowned “I’ve been in the drunk tank at the lock up, got into a stupid bar fight. I should have been out of here hours ago-but nobo
dy was answering my bail, I left a message on the machine, where the hell have you been?”
“You get yourself locked up for drinking on some stupid bender, and now it’s somehow my problem?” Andie spat “we’re not living together anymore Sean, this is nothing to do with me, I’m not your babysitter.”
“You mean Peter didn’t tell you what happened the other day either?” Sean interrupted.
“Peter? What’s he got to do with it?” Andie snapped, the urgency in her voice rising as she snarled the telephone cord around her fingers and marched towards the door. She looked up the staircase and noticed Peter crouched at the top, glaring down at her.
“I see..” she listened patiently as she motioned for him to come down “well, I’m sure he’s been taking notes in how to act like a drunkard.”
Peter wandered into the drawing room, looking up coyly at the adults, a smile rising to his face as he saw the woman standing beside John. She smiled back at him, her warm expression beckoning him towards her.
“I don’t have anything to say to you” Andie sighed “if they’re not gonna book you then consider yourself lucky this time…and think about the fact that this is gonna look real real good on your record when it comes to Petey’s visitation rights….yeah that’s right I’m gonna bring it up, you bet ya Sean …I’m glad to see I made the right decision leaving Long Island… nothing’s changed, you haven’t changed…..yeah that’s great, call me names…yeah thanks, great…you too…”
She disconnected the phone, her hands trembling as she stifled the urge to throw the receiver across the room.
She looked up to see Peter balanced on her mother’s lap, her having sat back down, a beaming smile across both their faces. Andie stifled her rage as she noticed her mother’s hands tucked into Peter’s, rocking them back and forth as she muttered a barely decipherable lullaby into his ears.
“Who was that?” John asked.
“What are you doing?” Andie demanded, ignoring John as she moved closer toward her son.
“I’m playing..” Peter grinned, cackling in joy as he felt her fingers scurry across his back and elbows.
“Peter, were you with your father in some bar?” Andie asked, moving quickly towards the table, scooping him out of her mother’s arms as she placed him on the ground.
“Yeah…but..” Peter frowned, staring down at his feet.
“…He took you to a bar, while you were supposed to be in school…that’s what he just told me” Andie snapped.
“Yeah…but..” Peter protested as Andie jerked him by the arm towards the doorway “-but nothing” she interrupted “..I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this, what were you thinking?”
“Mom, he wanted to talk to me…he was upset, he just said he’d be a minute or two Mom..” Peter frowned.
“..I don’t care” Andie snapped “you should have told me, you shouldn’t have been in a place like that-I always told you that if there was an emergency, I would let the school know-don’t you know what he could have done with you? Where he could have taken you? This is exactly the sort of thing I was worried about..how many times did I tell you this?” Andie continued, her voice strained as she fought back tears.
“Ease up on the boy…he heard you the first time” came a voice from the corner of the room. The tone was firm, resolute and as Andie looked up, she remembered it all too well, the same tone coupled with the icy stare that her mother had addressed her with on so many occasions when she was younger.
“What did you say to me?” Andie breathed in.
“I said, that you don’t need to talk to the boy like that..there’s a perfect explanation for everything..he wouldn’t lie to you…he’s a good boy, he’s my grandson..” Gina smiled at him adoringly.
“Of all the things I’m about to take from you..” Andie shook her head “..the last thing are lessons in how to speak to my son…one of the things I swore to myself that I would do if I ever saw you again was to walk right up to you and break your jaw for everything you did to me…don’t you tempt me, don’t you dare tempt me…”
“Listen Andie…” Ben cut in “…maybe we should just talk about this in the morning or something; you’re both on edge, this is something best left when…y’know…cooler heads can prevail or something y’know..?”
“I think I understand” Andie smiled as she stared at John “I think you and her..you’re both trying to pull the wool over my eyes, if she thinks she’s gonna worm her way into this family through my son, she’s got another thing comin’ I tell you…I’m not gonna stand for that you hear me..”
“The boy just wants somebody to talk to him…he needs his father…he needs someone there for him” came the studied reply as Gina moved gingerly forward to face Andie who grabbed Peter by the scruff of the collar. “You’re going to bed right now” Andie growled as she began to march towards the door, only to stop in her tracks as she turned around to point an accusing finger towards John “I have just that last bit of compassion left in me that I let her stay in my house to get better…she can stay here until she feels well enough, but after that if you love her so much she can be your headache…I’m not ready to deal with this right now...how dare you bring this to my door, and just…just expect me to accept it, to like it..”
Andie turned towards her mother, fighting the urge to sob “Why did you pick now to do this…” she quietly wept, her bottom lip quivering as she felt the tears run down her cheeks “…after all this time, like this…all the lies, leaving me..don’t anyone of you understand, there is no fixing this…it’s broken…it’s been broken for as long as I can remember…there is nothing left to do or say..”
She turned away, jerking Peter towards her as she ran up the stairs as fast as she could. She felt her heart beating as she ran into her room, falling onto the bed as she squeezed her son against her. Holding him as tightly as she could, she felt him trembling as she began to sob uncontrollably. “Mom…” Peter gasped as he began to cry with her “..is that really her, is that really Grandma…?”
“Yes …” Andie sobbed as she clung onto him “I guess it really is…”
“How do you know it’s really her?” he asked as he held tightly onto her.
“I know…” she shut her eyes “…nobody else could do this, nobody else.”
She lay there momentarily, brushing Peter’s hair when she heard footsteps in the corridor. She could hear two voices muttering, John and that of her mother, realising they were retreating to the guest room.
Rising slowly from the bed, she wrapped the mattress over Peter and kissed him on the forehead. As she carefully pushed the door open she could hear the stifled sobs from the guest room across the hallway. As she slinked forward she heard John’s voice through the wall.
“You knew this would take time, all these things kinda take time..” he sighed.
“What do you do” Gina replied, her rasping voice discernible through the door which was left slightly ajar “when you know you feel sorry for something you did, feeling so ugly with yourself for causing so much hurt…and you don’t know why…don’t know why someone is angry at you, why you broke somebody’s heart, why they hate you so much….”
“She doesn’t hate you” John cut in as Andie moved slightly closer, hanging on every word “she’s probably as frustrated as you but for different reasons-you’re both lighting a candle, hoping it lights… then wishing you could burn it down.”
“I’m tired…” Gina muttered as John helped her into bed “..can you bring my food up please. I know she doesn’t want me here.”
“No problem about the food” John replied “and you’re wrong about that, I can tell you one thing-you’ve been hit around the head too much to know what’s what, so get some rest and stop thinking about everything.”
“Will you stay?” she pleaded “you said you would”
“I’ll be back in the morning” John answered “but you can’t get rid of me that easily honey, remember I don’t got a job to go to r
ight now..”
“Just sit here a while” Gina sighed as Andie heard the sound of John shuffling onto the bed. She wanted to enter the room, not knowing what she would say or do once inside, but she found herself backing away for a reason she didn’t understand.
* **
John had been waiting for over fifteen minutes and was ready to walk out. As restless as he was, he couldn’t light the cigarette in Durning’s office. He fidgeted with the lapels of his crumpled suit, trying his best to avoid eye contact with his colleagues outside the room. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was now a quarter to two in the afternoon; as he was about to leave he noticed Durning’s portly figure stumble into the office; still looking every bit as clumsy as he remembered him.
“You weren’t thinking about leaving were you?” he quipped as he motioned for John to sit “anywhere you got to go?”
“No” John glared at him “it’s not like I have a job to go back to.”
Durning shut the door, slumped into his seat, eyeing John carefully as he undid his collar and cleared his throat. “You been off the sauce, right John?” he asked as he opened a drawer and slipped out several sheaths of paper.
“It’s not been easy” John sighed “but you know me, if I have a dozen whiskies one day, then I’ll make up for it with a quart of orange juice the next.”
“Quite something this whole Gina Rossi saga…” Durning mused as he thumbed through the papers, glancing up at John, surveying his dishevelled appearance, struggling to meet his gaze.
“She’s getting better by the day actually” John nodded “remembering things here and there; she’s a lot better now she’s off the street and the junk.”
“Still at the uh…..the daughter’s?” Durning queried as he sat back in his seat, pursing his lips.
“You’re still finding it all a bit puzzling, eh..?” John frowned.
“What exactly do I find puzzling?”