Audrey Hepburn's Pearls: Part I

Chapter 86.1: 1995, Georgina

Chapter 86.1: 1995, Georgina

Unbearable. Why must the world be tolerant of such images? No, I can not take them...

Frankie, she'll be here soon. I always scream at the end. Whenever I see your death, I scream at the end. But this time... They always get unbearable towards that time of the year... But I've told you this enough times. I've screamed in the night and told you, until I didn't sleep in the night anymore. I just didn't want to wake up and for it to be real again. But instead, I wake up to the worst reality.

But nothing is worse than this nightmare. That particular reality...

Would you believe if I told you? Would you believe... I never thought it was a possibility, but after what you told me a month, or was it two months, before it happened for real... This could have happened. It could have been anybody. I was so scared. So wound up. Who knows if I would have taken your advice? And in this dream...I did.

Frankie, remember when you told me? You told me, "shoot them through the door." You said...if I felt threatened, to shoot through the door.

So I did... I heard an unfamiliar knock. Then it kept repeating. I was so scared. Terrified. I got up from bed. You remember the one, the awful one that Paulie had. I got up, and before I knew it, my hand slid behind the mirror ever so slowly, waiting for the knock again, almost to be assured that this was the right thing to do.

When the knock came again, I gripped the gun with all of my strength and tore it away from its bonds. It was already loaded. Paulie had made sure of that, to make things easier for me since I was injured. 

As the knock came again, I inched towards the door. I pressed against it, dared look through the two-way peephole.

And there. Frankie, I swear. It was him, with his back turned to me. He was...Eddie was right there. He was shorter than you, differently styled hair. He was in a tuxedo for whatever reason. I distinctly remember he was checking his watch. With his back turned to me.

I never would have done it if he hadn't had his back turned to me.

But I swear to you, Frankie. I can not tell you...how many times I've wanted to kill that man over these years. All these many years. This torment, this torture. This torment he put us through. What he did to you and your father...

I wanted to kill him. Even in a dream.

So I rose the pistol to the door. I lined up the shot. I closed my eyes.

I pulled the trigger.

Everything was silence. The entire world was silence. Such relief, I can not tell you. I was smiling, the way you like. Smiling, as I looked through the peephole to see if he was finally dead.

But, Frankie, what I saw.

I never imagined to see you there...on the floor, turned on the same back I had shot. Dressed in your wedding black and whites, coming back to me on that night. Coming to me, so close to our dream.

I never dreamed. But I should have trusted you more. I should have trusted that you'd make our dream come true.

But instead. Oh, but instead... I didn't kill you with a gun. But I killed you anyway. And I can't forgive myself.

Avi always told me, starting after two years which is a reasonable grieving period I suppose, that I should start to think about getting over you. That I should work on it, get better. But he doesn't know. I never told him. I never told anybody at all, because of the guilt.