Audrey Hepburn's Pearls: Part I

Chapter 70.1: 1968, Georgina

Chapter 70.1: 1968, Georgina

The next time I woke up the room was silent, except for that forever chirping like a bird. The bird. It was my heart monitor, beeping away. The idea of any change in that rhythm sent shivers down my body, the idea of what it was for.

After a few minutes, I became aware of another presence in the room which seemed empty.

I turned my head, and silence. Everything became silent and I only became aware of that person. Because that person. 

He looked so beautiful, sitting alone in the hospital chair. His elegant piano hands were clasped in a ball set on his knees. His wheat colored hair was unkempt, as if it hadn't been cared for in days. His sea blue-green eyes were downcast to the floor, as if in deep thought. His skin was paler than I had known it.

Frankie. 

But in the elation to see him, guilt washed over me. It made me close my eyes, pretend I was still sleeping, hope he didn't see me. Because the memory of what Paulie had told me. What Frankie had thought.

In our later conversation over a meal of apple sauce, Paulie feeding me from my laid position, he'd told me what Frankie had thought when he'd found me. And I couldn't bear it. 

For in Frankie's mind he'd thought I'd met the same fate as Miracle. He'd thought somebody, in all likelihood from his own family, had come into my apartment as Eddie had and stabbed me to death such were my seemingly indiscriminate wounds. The mutiliation of what was beneath, to him it looked like a crime against my womanhood. 

"He completely lost his brains. He could not make a coherent sentence, Georgina. Do you know what that feels like? Do you? How could you do this to him? How could you not even tell him you were going to...what the hell is going through your head? What the hell is going on?" Paulie had accused me while so casually feeding me with the spoon. His voice had been low, almost a cat's hiss in attacking but so gentle were his movements. It made me confused, made me not know how to even think at the moment.

Frankie right now. What did he know? Had Paulie told him what I had said about Luciano? I hadn't said much, hadn't said the full story. Could I tell the full story? Would Frankie understand? How could I? As Paulie said, how could I?

But my body shuddered inside as warmth touched my cheek. A steady small weight, pressing. The warmth grew, a thin line to my mouth. It was so soft. So familiar, gentle. The weight trail drifted up to the edge of my eye, stayed there. And like a beautiful blessing, warmth wrapped the side of my face and I knew what it was. 

Frankie was caressing the side of my face tenderly, loving me in my sleep.

With just the sound of the bird-like heart monitor, there was nothing else in the world except his warm hand on my cheek. It stayed there, never moving in these few seconds of peace. 

With this I knew he loved me. Of course he did. He was worried about me, and by staying asleep I was causing him yet more unneccessary pain. How selfish I was. How bad. What he'd been through, thinking those terrible things. Those awful, terrible things.

When my eyes opened for the second time, he was standing over me. His face was soft, his eyes deep pools of worry. His lips were parted, as if there was such horrible pain inside of him he could not keep his mouth closed. The crease between his blonde eyebrows suggested this, but his eyes confirmed it. 

But as soon as I saw him, he dissolved and was upon me, wrapping his arms around me and laid his face on my chest which was bound to the bed by some sort of belt but he didn't care. His body jumped up and down as he sobbed his tears into me in quiet, unable to say a word. He was completely helpless, and knowing I had made him this way tore apart my soul.