It’s the beginning of my recovery.
Chapter 30
Jessie
When I get home, I stare at the calendar hung on my wall, counting and re-counting the weeks. The math always comes out the same.
It’s been nearly six weeks since I had sex with Nick and the condom broke.
It’s been eight weeks since the last time I got my period.
This is not good.
I put my hand on my abdomen, feeling for any signs of a bulge indicating there’s a baby growing inside me. I can’t say my belly isn’t bulging a bit, but I’ve been stress eating since Nick was shot so that part isn’t surprising. Also, Chrissy’s right—I’ve been a lot more irritable lately. Isn’t that a sign of pregnancy?
I need to take a pregnancy test.
Except the idea of being a teenage girl walking into a store and buying a pregnancy test is bad enough, but it’s much more scary to think of what will happen when this all becomes real. I’ll have to tell Nick, and we’ll have to figure out how to deal with this.
I need Nick. I need him now. I want him with me when I pee on that stick. Okay, he doesn’t have to be right there while I’m peeing because that’s gross, but I want him there when I see the results. The only problem is he won’t see me or even talk to me.
That’s it. I’m going over there.
Before I can overthink things, I head out of the apartment. Dad isn’t home, but I shiver at the idea of him finding out I’m pregnant. I won’t be able to live here, that’s for sure. He’d kick me out or else beat me to death.
Nick’s house is a ten minute walk from mine. I’ve only been over a handful of times because Nick usually walked me directly home, but I know the way very well. I know Bensonhurst just as well as I used to know Milwaukee. This place has become my home. I’ll miss it next year.
That is, if college happens at all.
Nick’s brownstone house is quiet when I get there. I know that Nick’s bedroom window is just above the garage, so I pick up a stone with the intention of throwing it at the window to get his attention. I nearly tossed it into the air when I realize what I’m doing. There’s no way Nick’s up there. If he can’t walk, he’d be on the ground floor for sure. Probably all the way around back.
I have no choice but to ring the doorbell.
Mrs. Moretti answers the door, looking just as tired as she did when I saw her all those weeks ago. She looks ten years older too. I realize how hard this must be on her. Unfortunately, I’m going to make things a lot harder. And I can tell she knows it by the way her eyes widen.
“Jessie,” she says.
“Hi, Mrs. Moretti.” I squeeze my fists together. “Is… could I talk to Nick?”
Mrs. Moretti glances behind her then back at me. “Nico is… he is… busy.”
Busy. Right.
“I really need to talk to him,” I say.
“It’s… important?”
Just a little. See, I might be pregnant with his baby. “Yes, it’s important.” I bite my lip. “Would you tell him that?”
She hesitates. Finally, she nods. “Just one moment.”
My heart is pounding in my chest as Mrs. Moretti disappears into the recesses of her house. I’m tempted to follow her. I’ll find Nick myself and there’s nothing he’ll be able to do about it.
When Mrs. Moretti returns, I know from her face what the answer is before she says it. “He says it’s not a good time,” she explains.
“I just need two minutes,” I say. “Please.”
“You have to understand, Jessie,” she says, “he is still recovering. He doesn’t want you to see him until he’s well again.”
“I don’t care if he can’t walk!” I blurt out. Mrs. Moretti is looking at me in surprise, but I can’t help myself. I step forward, yelling into the house, “Nick, I don’t care if you need a wheelchair!” My voice echoes through the hallways. “I don’t care, Nick! I! Don’t! Care!” I feel tears springing to my eyes as I call out, “Please, Nick! Please talk to me!”
The only response is silence.
Tears are streaming down my cheeks now. Mrs. Moretti’s eyes are filled with sympathy. She touches my shoulder gently. “It will be okay, Jessie,” she says. “I promise. He just needs a little more time.”
She wouldn’t say that if she knew my secret. But either way, I don’t have much of a choice. If Nick won’t talk to me, I have to leave.
Nick
I don’t care if you need a wheelchair! I don’t care!
Jessie’s voice is ringing in my head long after she’s gone. I wish I could believe her.
Not that I think she’s lying. I’m sure she thinks she’s telling the truth. But she doesn’t even know the half of it. She doesn’t know that I’m lying in my goddamn bed, glaring resentfully at that piece of shit wheelchair that I asked Ma never to leave in my room. She doesn’t recognize the reality of the fact that I can’t get up myself. I can’t sit up. I can’t roll over.
And despite those two steps I did with Patty yesterday, I can’t walk.
No. Jessie will not see me like this. Not till I’m better.
Ma comes into my room after I hear the door slam shut. She has that crease between her brows and I know I’m about to get a lecture. I brace myself for it.
But instead, she just checks the bag of piss hanging off my bed. She sighs and says, “I’ll change this in an hour.”
“You know why I can’t see her,” I say.
Ma shrugs. “You said you didn’t want to see her, so I sent her away.”
“Right, but…” I take a deep breath. “You think I should have seen her.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you were thinking it.”
Ma raises her eyebrows at me. “Why do you say that?”
“Look, I walked the other day,” I say. “This is a temporary thing. I’m going to get better.”
“Whatever you say, Nico,” Ma says.
Then she walks out. I have more to say, but she’s gone and I have no way to follow her. Also, I wanted to tell her to take the goddamn wheelchair with her. I have no intention of getting out of bed today and I don’t want to look at it. I will only use that chair to get to Dr. Duncan’s sessions three times a week. That’s it.
I know Jessie is upset. But what can I do? It’s worse if she sees me this way. She doesn’t know it, but I do.
Chapter 31
Jessie
I’ve got to buy a pregnancy test.
The ones at the local drugstore were like ten bucks for a pack of two and I don’t have that kind of money. Chrissy’s been through this before and I remember her saying the dollar store has pregnancy tests. For a dollar, I could get one stick to pee on.
It’s so unfair. Chrissy’s had sex with like a million guys and never got knocked up. I have sex once and I get pregnant. I have the worst luck.
Of course, if Nick never got shot, he’d be here with me. He’d be holding my hand as I walk into Family Dollar on my way home from school and he’d help me find the pregnancy tests. We’d both be terrified, but we’d also be making jokes to keep each other from getting nervous. And I’d know that no matter what, Nick would take care of me. He’s always been there for me, even if he wasn’t my boyfriend.
Instead, I’m alone as I step into the dollar store, my legs trembling like leaves.
I can’t find the pregnancy tests right away. I’m stumbling through cheap plastic cups and dishes, then get to an aisle filled with red, white, and blue decorations for July 4th celebrations. Finally, I get to an aisle with cheap-looking toiletries. The pregnancy tests are in short supply—only two are left in stock. Fortunately, I only need one. I don’t foresee myself having sex again any time in the near future.
Now I have to buy this thing.
It’s the eternal dilemma—if you’re going into a store to buy something embarrassing, you can’t just buy that one thing. You have to buy like three other things as a buffer so it’s not obvious that you’re here
just to find out if you’re knocked up. But like I said, I’m broke. So the best I can do is grab a tube of lipstick and a gold chain that looks like it will turn my skin green.
I can barely look at the cashier as she rings up my purchases. I hazard a glance as I’m handing over my three dollars and change, and I can see the disapproval in her eyes. Yes, I’m a teenage girl purchasing a pregnancy test. So the hell what?
I wish Nick were here.
Once I have the test in my possession, things get tricky. I might be able to hide a pregnancy test for a while, but if my father discovers a positive test in the garbage bin, I’m toast. At first, I figure I’ll just wrap it up in toilet paper and throw it away in a public garbage pail a few blocks away. But then I realize I probably should keep it. I might need to show it to Nick.
Mom is in the kitchen when I get home. I clutch my purse to my chest, hoping she doesn’t have X-ray vision to see what’s inside. She comes out at the sound of the door with a smile on her face. “Hi, Jess,” she says. “How was school?”
The bruises on my face have long faded, but my mother has a fresh one below her right eye. I feel a rush of sympathy for my mom. I can leave, but she can’t. She’s stuck with that asshole because she doesn’t have a job or any skills.
Maybe someday I can get her out of here too.
“Great,” I say in a voice I hope she doesn’t notice is overly high and shaky.
“Do you want to help me get dinner ready for Daddy?” she asks hopefully.
I clutch my purse tighter, hoping she doesn’t notice how much I’m shaking. “I should do my homework.”
“Homework?” She raises her eyebrows. “So late in the year? You’re graduating in a few days!”
I shrug helplessly.
When I finally escape to the bathroom with my purse, I’m shaking uncontrollably. I pull out the box and my hands are trembling so badly that I can barely get it open. There’s a set of instructions inside and I have to take a few breaths before I can calm down enough to read it.
Pee on the stick “mid-stream.” Wait two minutes. One line means not pregnant. Two lines mean I’m screwed.
I pull down my pants, trying to wrap my head around exactly how I’m going to time peeing on the stick mid-stream. And that’s when I see it.
Blood.
It’s everywhere. Soaking my underwear and even staining my pants. It’s a good thing I’m wearing black jeans, or else everyone would have been laughing at me on the street. This hasn’t happened to me in ages and ordinarily I’d be furious that I stained all my clothing. But now all I feel is relief. I’m bleeding. I’m gushing.
I’m not pregnant.
Chapter 32: Spring, 1998
Nick
From the former den that has now become my bedroom, I can hear just about everything happening on the first floor of the house.
My parents are cleaning up because Nonna is coming over. After I got shot, Ma stopped inviting family over for the weekly dinners, but then my grandfather died a few months ago. I was really sad that Nonno was gone, but it was a brutal argument over my not going to his funeral. I’m still not walking good enough that I could go in anything other than a wheelchair. And there was no way I was showing up in front of my million relatives sitting in a wheelchair.
Pop yelled and threatened me, but I wouldn’t budge on it. I stayed home in bed while everyone paid their final respects to Nonno.
After that, we started having Nonna over every week for dinner again. Just Nonna usually and sometimes Tony. Even though I hate it when we got company, I like seeing my grandmother. I love her, and it scares me to think someday she’ll be gone like my grandfather.
The doorbell rings and I know it’s Nonna. She always comes in to see me, so I prepare myself. I’m lying mostly flat on my hospital bed, a pillow stuck under my ass because a few months ago I got a sore that meant lotsa doctors’ appointments and generally scared the shit out of me. We got a special pressure relief mattress, and also I learned to roll myself over and relieve pressure every once in a while. But since Nonna is coming in, I pull out the pillow and press the button that lifts the head of the bed. Ma helped dress me this morning in my usual outfit of shorts and a T-shirt. She put socks on my feet, but no shoes. I only wear shoes three times a week, when I leave the house for my Dr. Duncan appointments.
Rolling over quickly sets off a muscle spasm in my right leg. My leg jumps on its own free will and only relaxes when I grab it with my hands and hold it steady. The first time I got a muscle spasm like that, I was psyched. I thought that was my strength coming back. Turns out it’s a normal thing when your muscles aren’t connected to your brain anymore.
“Ciao, Nico, mio caro,” Nonna says when she walks into the room. Since my grandfather died, Nonna stopped dyeing her hair. Now she has dark gray roots growing out with the ends still black. Outside, she wears a scarf on her head so nobody notices, but whenever I see it, it makes me feel sad. It’s like she gave up.
“Ciao, Nonna,” I say.
Nonna comes over to me and kisses my face. She cups my cheek for a few seconds, looking down at me. Her face has become so wrinkled lately. I wonder how old she is. I wonder if even she knows how old she is.
Eh, she probably knows.
“Will you come out to join us for dinner tonight, Nico?” she asks me in Italian.
I glance over at the wheelchair that is always in my room these days. It wasn’t realistic for me to say I’d only use it for the sessions with Dr. Duncan. I probably get in it at least once a day at some point. I haven’t been able to walk at home yet, so it’s a necessity if I want to leave my bed for anything. I got sick of being sponge-bathed, so I allowed Pop to put in a shower chair. I have zero privacy when I’m bathing—Ma has to help undress me, transfer me into the shower, then she even helps me wash my lower body. I hate it, but it’s better than feeling like a slick of grease.
Pop also bought me a computer. I think this was his idea to get me out of bed more, and it’s worked. The computer is in the living room, so I gotta get out of bed and into my wheelchair to go use it. But I’m so goddamn sick of TV at this point, I really look forward to my computer time.
As for meals, I still have them all in bed. I spend almost all my waking hours in bed. It makes my parents crazy, but that’s just how it’s gonna be till I’m walking more.
“Not tonight, Nonna,” I say, as if there was a chance I might consider it next week.
“We will miss you,” she tells me.
No doubt. I can hear every word of the conversations they have out in the dining room, and it often involves me.
Tonight is no exception. I can smell the chicken parmigiana that my mother made wafting from the other room—best chicken parmigiana in Brooklyn—and I feel a twinge of jealousy. Ma served me the same meal about fifteen minutes ago, but it somehow didn’t taste or smell as good as what’s out there. The food is lying half-eaten, abandoned on the rolling table I keep next to my bed.
“Does Nico ever come out for meals?” Nonna asks. Even though I’m fluent, Italian is harder for me to understand through a wall than English is. But she always talks loud, so I can make it out.
“Never,” Pop says. “He eats every goddamn meal in his bed. I said to Teresa we should stop bringing him food. That’d make him change his mind.”
“I can’t do that,” Ma says. “He’s already gotten so skinny. I’m afraid he’d die.”
“He’s not gonna die,” Pop says. “He’s just being stubborn.”
I turn my head away from the wall. Every night it’s a fight over whether I’ll come out for dinner. Pop comes in and yells at me that I can’t spend my life in bed. If they refused to bring me food anymore, would I give in? I don’t know. I don’t even have any appetite anymore.
“He looks so pale,” Nonna says. “Does he go outside?”
“Almost never,” Pop says. “Just to those waste of time Dr. Duncan appointments or to other doctors.”
I wince. Even though Po
p was the one who originally found Dr. Duncan, he’s now come to the opinion that the man is a fraud. I hear about it nearly every day.
“So… that is not working?” Nonna asks. “He is not walking?”
Pop snorts. “You know what they got him doing? It’s a joke. He spends half an hour dragging his legs around the room until he nearly collapses.”
Pop isn’t being fair. I’ve walked twenty feet with Patty. Twenty goddamn feet. With no help. I use a walker and the braces, but still. I can walk again. It’s a big deal. But my parents act like it’s pointless. Not practical, Pop says.
“I’m not gonna pay for it anymore,” Pop says. “It’s a waste.”
“Angelo, don’t say that,” Ma says. “It makes him happy to do it.”
I hear my father sigh heavily. I sigh too—with relief. If they took Dr. Duncan and Patty away from me, I don’t know what I’d do. I’m so close to being able to walk in the house. Patty says she just wants me to get a little bit better.
And then this goddamn wheelchair won’t have to be in my room anymore.
When that happens, I’m gonna call Jessie. First thing. She’s in college now and I’m sure she’s meeting lots of new people. Whenever I think of other guys trying to hit on her, I feel like punching the wall. I know if I don’t call her soon, she’s going to move on. It’s evitable.
“Maybe you get him a job with you, Angelo?” Nonna suggests. “That will motivate him.”
“With me?” Pop seems startled by the idea. “He can’t work, Ma—look at him! No, I got Tony out here doing work for me now. He’s doing good. He really turned himself around since this happened.”
His words are like a punch in the gut. I always dreamed about being out there working for Pop—it was mine. Now Tony’s the one doing it. Tony’s going to end up taking over the business. My whole future is shit. Tony’s going to get everything I ever wanted, all because I tried to save his life.
The Girl I Didn't Marry Page 14