Part 22: Home

She slept through the rest of the flight, waking only at the lurch of the plane as its wheels hit the tarmac. She sleepily made her way down to the waiting car, blinking at the brightness of the early afternoon sun, as Don held her by the arm to steady her.
"I must have been pretty tired," she muttered, and then yawned a huge yawn that nearly dislocated her jaw.
Don grinned a little and handed her something wrapped in white deli paper. "Have a bagel."
"Ooh, thanks. Where's the coffee?" She was then handed an insulated cup. "Hmm," she said as she ate."Good. Gonna haveta come here more often, for the service."
Don smiled, and then he answered his phone. He then looked at her and grinned a little more. "Yeah, she's awake and busy stuffing her face," he said into the phone.
"Hey! Who are you talking to?"
"Your mother. She said Mike's awake, and they've been talking. He's looking forward to seeing you."
The last of the bagel nearly choked her. "Can I talk to him?" she asked when she recovered.
"You will in a few minutes," Don said as he hung up. "We're nearly there."
Gaele pressed her feet hard against the floor as though she were driving. "Well, hurry up," she muttered under her breath.

The sight of Mike dozing in the hospital bed made her hesitate at the doorway.
Rahab promptly got up to meet her, and gave her a tentative hug. Gaele's eyes stayed on the bed.
Mike seemed to be white from the neck down. A body cast?
Mike's eyes opened and he grinned when he saw her. "It's about time you showed up," he said. " 'Was beginning to wonder if you really cared."
"Daddy, don't," Gaele managed to say as she approached him. "I just- I can't-"
"Hey, I was just kidding. C'mere and gimme one, will ya?"
"Well, I-" she hesitated as she leaned over him. "I'm afraid I'll-"
"Naah," Mike said cheerfully. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna break. At least not what's left." He then sniggered a little, and raised a hand to pull her closer in a firm hug. She saw the hand was in a cast, up to his elbow.
"Mike! Be careful," Rahab said in dismay.
Mike sighed. "Come on you guys, its not THAT bad. Not like I'm gonna fall apart, here. Really I'm fine."
"It's the pain killers," Rahab half whispered to Gaele. "I think they gave him so many that he's suffering from delusions."
"I am not! You're imagining things," Mike said in mock protest.
Gaele was now able to assess Mike more, now that she was standing over him. To her relief, she found he was not in a body cast, after all, but his entire left leg was encased in a thick, fiberglass wrap. His right hand was only bandaged, the skin around it stained yellow from Betadine. His face had the odd bruise and scrape, and there was a swelling under one eye, making him look like he was about to wink.
She then noticed Mike was watching her intently. "Hey, everything's going to be fine. I'm still in one piece! Really." His eyes were bright, but seemed slightly unfocused through the haze of medication. "Stop looking so worried, huh?"
"Okay, Daddy..." Gaele gently kissed the good side of his face, and smiled at him.
His easy grin came back. "Hey, you know what? I've been talking this over with your mother. I'm going to buy a sailboat. You know, one of those big schooners like you see at Cape Cod? Thought I'd get me one of those, and live on it. Would that be wild or what? And we could sail all over the world, and go anywhere we wanted, 'cause hey, the earth's mostly made of water, right? I've always liked being near the water. I mean sheeyut, you won't find me living in a place like Wyoming or anything, I just HAVE to be near the ocean, you know? I mean, Wyoming is a kewl place and all, but, well , you know how it is. Riahna is like that, too. She loves the water. I bet she'd love it if we lived on a boat..."
Rahab looked up, then. "Oh!  I'd better go check on Riahna, she might have awakened and will be wondering where I am... I'd hate to see her panic... " She got up and left before Gaele could respond.
"Aah, your mother... she worries, " Mike said lightly. "So, what do you think? I might even move out to Provincetown or somewhere around there. Then I won't be so far from your school."
"Daddy, I'm graduating, now."
"Ah, yeah. Right. I knew that. My heads a little foggy, is all. But uh, you said something about maybe moving to Hartford or something."
"Groton, if my internship works out, it might be a good start."
"That's good. Hey, didn't Donnie come with you? Where'd he go?" Mike raised his head a little to look around.
"He probably went to make a phone call or something," Gaele sighed, as she settled back into the recliner by his bed. "Story of his life." She noticed Mike was staring blankly at his leg. "What's the matter?"
"Oh," Mike said as he lay his head back, and grinned up at her. "I was just checking to see it it was still there. They said it was, and all, but you never know, sometimes doctors lie to you so that you don't freak or anything. It feels kinda boingy and buzzy-tingly. Not like a proper leg a' tall." He heaved a heavy sigh. "Sure am tired of lying here... wish I could get up and go see my Ri-Ri, but all I can do right now is snooze and watch the tube and talk to anything with ears.  I hope I'm not boring you or anything."
Gaele smiled at him. "Hey, at least you aren't calling me by MY baby name. Daddy, I'm just glad to hear your voice. Don't worry about it, you can talk to me all you want."
"Man, how'd I get so lucky? Got two stellar babes like you and Riahna, and all... got all this great stuff going for me in my life, you know?" His smile faded. "I just thought... you know... it was like... all I could see was ocean. And like, a whole lot of empty sky... and I thought, this is what it's like, going to the edge of the earth... and falling off..." He stared at nothing for a few seconds, and then blinked up at her. "I can't remember a thing. I wake up here, and there's your mother sitting there, chewing on her nails, and talking on the phone, and I asked her, 'What, did I fall down the stairs or something?' I thought I'd been dreaming. Wish I HAD only been dreaming, though..."
"I wish you had, too," Gaele said sadly.
"Ah well..." Mike relaxed, and stared passively at the ceiling.  "Now I have to lie here and wait for  the rest of me to catch up with my head... hmm..." His eyes rolled and the lids closed.
When Gaele saw that he had fallen asleep, she went out into the hallway. There she met up with Don.
"I was wondering where  you'd gotten yourself to."
Don went in to look at Mike for a few moments, and then withdrew, pulling the door nearly closed. "It's okay, I can come back later to talk with him, and give poor Rahab a break. Between him and Riahna, she's running herself ragged. I guess we can spell her for a bit, eh?"
"Yeah, I was just going to see Ri."
"Oh, right. She's over in the new wing. Got her room number here..." Don held up some folded printouts. He looked back at Mike's door, and then guided Gaele down the hallway, a hand on her shoulder. "I had a chat with the orthopedic surgeon who treated your father. She talked a bit about his leg."
"And?"
"Well," he said as he held the elevator door open for her. "It apparently got trapped between the left fender, the engine block and the firewall when they suddenly met up with the steering column, so that  the resulting metal shards sliced through the muscle tissue and fragmented the bone, sort of like what happens when you step on bamboo stalks. Nobody'd ever seen anything like it. He came into the ER with car parts embedded in his thigh."
"Ouch..." Gaele grimaced from sympathy pain.
"Yeah." Don then paused a moment as the elevator moved to the upper floor. "Took them hours to clean out and patch up..."
Gaele leaned her forehead against the steel interior of the elevator, after they entered it.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, its just... I kinda felt sick to my stomach for a sec. Poor Daddy..."
Don pushed the floor number button. "Yeah.  It's rough. Life is like that, sometimes."

Riahna was wide awake, and busy with the TV channel remote, as she watched the monitor above her head in open mouthed fascination.
"Hi," Gaele said, as she approached the side of her bed.
"Hi," Riahna replied, matching Gaele's tone as she continued to watch the changing scenarios on the television set.
"So, how are  you doing?"
"Doing."
"Uhm, okay."
"Okay..." Riahna stared intently up at the TV screen, and then turned to gaze into Gaele's eyes. "My father is DEAD," she said in an ominous tone.
"No he's NOT, not by a long shot," Gaele retorted, then caught herself. "Uh, who told you that, anyway?"
Riahna looked surprised. "Nobody," she said in a smaller voice. "I made it up."
Gaele sighed. Why did Riahna have to be so... wierd? She pressed her fingers against her forehead a moment, then looked at Riahna again. What is wrong with me, she thought as she watched Riahna watch TV. Sometimes I just forget she's autistic... "Ri, do you know how daddy is?"
"No. I just made that up."
"No, I mean, didn't you KNOW that Daddy is going to be okay?"
"No."
Gaele frowned. "Oh, come on, Ri. Didn't mom explain to you-"
"My father is BROKEN," Riahna said suddenly, though she decided to address the foot of her bed, instead.
"Well- yeah, he IS kinda broken, but he will heal."
Riahna raised her eyebrows as she looked at her feet. Then she nodded. "My father is broken," she said again. "But my father WILL HEAL."
"Yeah, that's the ticket, uh- yeah, that is correct. Daddy will be all better soon. And... how about you, Ri? Where's your friend Raph?"
Riahna happily hugged her knees and watched TV as though she hadn't heard.
Don poked his head around the doorway of the room. "Hi?"
"Hi," Gaele said, absently waving at him.
"Hi," Riahna said to the TV. "My father is DEAD."
Don raised a brow at Riahna. "No, he is not dead,  Riahna, your father is going to be fine."
"Who told you that," Gaele asked Riahna again.
"Nobody, I made it up." Riahna waited a few seconds, then looked at Gaele and giggled.
Don leaned over to Gaele. "Seems to me she's just doing that for a reaction," he whispered.
"I don't need to do THAT for any REACTIONS," Gaele snarled suddenly, not caring how badly it sounded. "I'm  TIRED, I can't THINK straight, and nobody is making excuses for ME, are they?" She got up and stalked out of the room, and down the hallway to the exit stairs.

When she got outside, she broke into a run, but the farther she ran, the more enraged she felt. It was boiling up inside her, and she could no longer stop it. She ran downhill, away from the hospital, and along a residential street that emptied onto a larger avenue, leading to the fishing piers, where most of the tourist traps lay. Panting, she slowed to a walk on the street that paralleled the wharf, a place that at one time was host to a row of busy canneries. Now they had been replaced by hotels, curio shops, restaurants, nightclubs, and bars. It was too early for most of the clubs to be open, but one had its doors ajar under a hand painted wooden sign that said "Doc's", and blues music was playing tentatively from its dark interior.
A young man with dark hair combed back from his forehead in a European style and wearing a white cook's apron was sweeping the concrete walk in front. "Hi," he said, looking up at her with an easy grin. "You looking for your dad?"
"Huh?"
"Your dad. If you're looking for him, you've found the right place."
"I... have?"
The young man grinned more broadly and pointed with his thumb at the doorway behind him. "You can go on in to see him if you want. Right through those doors."
Caution honed by her training did not allow her to just take his word for it. Seeing that he'd gone back to his sweeping, she carefully nudged the doors open wider, to have a good look around the interior before going in. At the back of the barroom filled with cafe style tables and chairs, was a stage, where a group of  four musicians were playing, and pausing at times to discuss some point in the music score, or to replay a section. A fifth, wearing a long dark overcoat that hung open so that it draped onto the floor, was sitting in a chair that was tilted back so that he could rest his feet on the small table in front of him. He was inspecting a gleaming saxophone in his lap.
"You gonna do this today, or what," one of the musicians was saying, as he worked out some chords on his guitar.
"Gimme a minute, willya? Gotta loose pad here."
"You gotta replace it then, dude."
"I ain't gotta replace it, It just needs some messin' with."
"You gotta replace it, or it won't sound right."
"It ain't busted, just loose."
"Send Julio down to Alvarado to get you another one, man! We ain't got all day!"
"Yeah, man! And get yourself some more fingers while you're at it."
"IT AIN'T BUSTED, you sorry-ass bunch of tone deaf, hairy mosh pit rejects," the saxophone player snapped. "And I got more talent with SIX fingers than you all will EVER have with ten, so SHUT yer collective mouth."
"Raph?" she said tentatively, "That you?"
The sniggering musicians went silent when they noticed Gaele.
Raphael stood up."What the hell are YOU doin' here?"
"Just happened to be passing by. Can you really play that thing?"
"You're supposed to be up at the hospital, aren't ya?"
"Aren't YOU?"
Raphael glared at her, then went back to adjusting something on his instrument.
"What about Riahna?"
"What ABOUT her?"
"Gee, Raph, I thought you cared." Gaele folded her arms.
One of the musicians, a bass player who had an uncanny resemblance to an Afghan hound, spoke up. "I didn't know you had a daughter, man!"
The other musicians sniggered again. Raphael ignored them. Then, apparently whatever he was trying to fix seemed to go into its proper place, because he righted his chair with a sigh, and winked at Gaele as he licked the reed on his mouthpiece. He played a few experimental notes.
"That'll do it," he said to the other three on the stage.
Gaele sat at a cafe table and listened to them practice.  They all sounded pretty good together, she mused.
Later, when they were finished with the session, Raphael came over to her table, and straddled the chair as he took a sip from a tall glass. "So. What brings you into this dive, anyway?"
"I sort of ran away from home. In a sense."
"Oh, okay." He wiped the foam from his lip on his coat sleeve.
Gaele sniggered. "Why do they think I'm your daughter? What did you tell them, anyway?"
"Nothing. You know how goofy humans are, they think we all look alike, or something. Hey, you want one of these? They're pretty good."
"Is that beer? Yechh."
"Just as well, they're kinda expensive, anyway."
"All the more for you, then."
"Heh. Yeah."

Raphael played remarkably that night.  So did the rest of the band. And it seemed they had quite a reputation, judging from the way people packed into the place as the night went on. Nobody seemed to make an issue of what Raph looked like, either- then again- maybe they didn't notice, since the place was so dimly lit, and he stood  mostly in the back, still wearing his coat, and a hat. Gaele couldn't help but feel admiration for him, it was an unexpected element about him that fascinated her to no end. A musician, of all things...

"You never did tell me why you are down here," Gaele said as she watched him drink his last beer at closing time.
"I have a hard time being around invalids."
"That's not exactly supportive, is it?"
Raphael stared at her in annoyance. "I ain't as callous as people think. I just don't like to play sympathy games. Anything wrong with that?"
"Well no, there isn't. Not in my book, anyway. But... what about Riahna?"
"She was ignoring me, so I left. What more could I do? I had better things to do with my time. Besides, I had this gig to play. I said I'd do it a while back, and wasn't about to let 'em down."
Gaele toyed with a drink coaster.
"Look, I tried to be nice to her, okay? But I can only do so much, know what I'm saying?"
"So, what your saying is... your interest in her has waned."
"What do you mean?" he asked tensely.
"What do I mean? What do YOU mean?"
He closed his eyes. "Gahh, I can't do this, Gaele. I'm not up to head games tonight, okay? Can you talk a little more straightforward?"
"I'm not playing head games. I thought YOU were."
"I'm not."
"Okay..."
"I thought you KNEW that I never did anything with Riahna. She just took a strong liking to me, and I thought I'd just go along with it." He drained his tankard, then set it down. "She acts like an eight year old kid most of the time. I felt like I was hanging around with someone who saw me as nothing more than a big toy. I didn't feel right, just not into that kind of thing, know what I'm sayin'?"
"Yeah." Gaele felt a surge of relief. "But it did look kind of odd."
"And so your ma walks around hating my guts, thinking I'm some kind of pervert, uh?"
"No, she doesn't."
Raphael made a sharp, sibilant sound through his teeth. "Yeah, right. Doesn't matter, anyway. I don't worry about what she thinks."
"You don't?"
The man who'd been sweeping the walk earlier waved to them. "Hey, it's after two o'clock already. I'd like to get home soon."
"We were just leaving," Raph said back, as he got up. He turned to look at Gaele. "You call Don or anybody to tell them where you are?"
Gaele shrugged. "No, so what?"
"They might be wondering what happened to you."
"Let 'em wonder," she muttered as she let him to push the door open for her.
"That's hardly something a responsible person would say, huh?"
She shrugged again. "I'm tired of being responsible. Hey, want to go down to the pier? The moon's out."
"I'm tired."
"Come on, Mr. Walkabout, its a block away. I'm SURE you can handle it."
"Shyeah, okay. Five minutes. Then we get you home, or wherever you are supposed to be. Deal?"
"Deal."

At the end of the Coast Guard pier, the rocks piled into a breakwater materialized into a large crowd of sea lions. Most were quiet, but some were wrestling each other for a better space, barking and grumbling loudly at each other.
"I kind of envy them," Gaele said.
"Why is that?"
"'Cause they have somebody."
"What do you mean?"
She turned to face him, close enough to smell the beer on his breath. It was oddly pleasant. Everything about him seemed oddly pleasant. "'Cause... they have somebody... and we don't."
"That's just the way it is, ain't it?"
"Doesn't have to be, Raph."
"What 're you sayin'?"
She stared at him, but it was too dark to see his face clearly.
"What are you saying," he asked again, quietly.
"Never mind." She walked away from him and went to look down at the black ocean swelling against the concrete jetty, the lights of the harbor distorted in its reflection.
"Hey, come back here. You aren't going to feed me a line like that and  just walk away." He followed her. "What did you mean by that, Gaele?"
She shrugged at him.
"Hey, I said NO head games."
"Okay, no games." She reached out and held his face to kiss him.
"Hey!"
She giggled at his suspicious tone. "Hey what?" She laid an arm across his shoulders.
This time he was ready for her, and gently pushed her back. "Okay... that's enough, now."
"Why?"
"Because. I'm not comfortable with this setup at all," he said, taking another step back from her.
"Oh, fine, then. BE that way." She glared out over the water again, and then started walking shoreward.
"Where are you going?"
"Away."
"Get back here, and stop acting like a baby."
She stopped and turned toward him. "I am almost twenty two years old, and I am NOT a baby!"
"I didn't say you WERE, I said you were ACTING like one! Now get your butt back over here."
"NO."
He started to advance toward her, but she turned and sprinted toward the street. She ran a couple of blocks till she reached a quiet parking lot, and slowed when she saw a man get out of his car to use the ATM machine at the far end of the lot. She sidestepped into the shadows to wait till he left.
"You can't hide from me," Raphael said behind her.
"Wasn't trying to hide from you."
"Good, because it wouldn't have worked, anyway."
"Leave me alone."
"Oh, okay. First you talk me into going on a walk with you, then you throw yourself at me, and now you want me to leave you alone. That's real TYPICAL."
In the silence, she could hear him grinding his teeth in frustration.
"Look, Gaele, I TOLD you I was not into playing games tonight, didn't I? I don't need this bullcrap. I've had ENOUGH. I dunno what the hell your problem is, but don't expect me to babysit you, okay? Understand?"
She was blinking back the tears as he spoke.
"Ah, come on, don't start THAT now."
"Everybody runs away from me.What is it that I'm doing wrong?" She suppressed a sob. "Why does everyone reject me? Am I THAT ugly and horrible?"
"What?" He looked confused. "What are you talking about?"
"Nobody WANTS me, not even you."
"What is that supposed to mean," he demanded.
"Oh, for heaven's sake Raph, get a CLUE."
"Sorry, they were fresh out," he shot back. "You're gonna have to give me one."
Gaele saw that the man at the bank machine had driven away, so she started to walk across the parking lot.
"Question," Raph said as he followed her. "I ask, and you answer. Deal?"
"Deal," she murmered.
"Okay. " He kicked a stray pebble across the tarmac. "You usually start your dates like this?"
"No."
"That's good, 'cause I was beginning to wonder about you. That's really no way for a lady to behave, you know?"
"YOU should talk." Gaele turned to give him a glare.
"I should talk?"
"Oh, you KNOW what I mean."
She had walked on several paces before she realized he was no longer there.
"Hey, where did you go?"
No response.
Great, she fumed. Now he's gone and abandoned me out here. What a jerk. They're all jerks, ALL of them. All they seem to want is One Thing, and then when you act interested, they freak and run away. Lot of talk and hot air, is all... her pace slowed and came to a halt as the realization dawned on her. Omigod. If only she'd listened...
She ran back to Doc's.
Julio was locking the doors. "He just left. Came back for his sax and went home."
"Where's that," Gael asked breathlessly.
He looked at her curiously, then grinned. "I could give you a ride over there, if you want."
"Oh, would you? Thanks SO much."
"No problem."

She got out of the car in front of a commercial building in a neighborhood that was apparently long forgotten by the City Beautification Project. There was an alleyway that led to a small courtyard, that had a leprous looking metal gate in front of it. She hesitated.
"This one?" She pointed at the gate.
"It's the last door, the one with the light on. Just go on over and knock."
The hinges wheezed as the gate swung inward. "Uh, if it isn't too much trouble, could you wait?"
"In THIS neighborhood? You've got to be kidding." He gave her an apologetic wave, and drove off.
Men. What jerks.
She knocked tentatively on the door, watching flakes of white paint flutter loose from it.
"Who?"
"Raph, that you?"
He yanked the door open, and stood staring disapprovingly at her, hands on hips. "What do you want NOW?"
"I came to apologize," Gaele said quietly. "Can I come in?"
He stood wordlessly aside so she could enter.
The place was tiny, probably no bigger than her walk-in closet back home. It was also very sparsely furnished; a futon with a blanket thrown across it in the far corner, a card table and two folding chairs by the window, and a small refrigerator next to the front door. Books were stacked along the back wall next to the bed. There was little room for anything else.
"Hm, very nice," Gaele said, picking a book up off the table. "Who's your decorator? Hey, what's this, D. H. Lawrence?"
He snatched the book out of her hand. "You're trying to get me into trouble, aren't you?"
"No, I'm not," she countered. "I came to apologize."
"So apologize, and then let's go find you a telephone."
"Raph, I was wrong... I acted very badly back there... "
"I agree."
"I was too self centered to even consider your feelings at all. I'm really sorry, okay?"
"Okay. Are you finished?"
She sighed. "Yeah. Can I sit down? I'm worn out."
"Yeah, sure."
She sat and leaned her elbows on the table, so that she could rest her head in her hands. She heard him set the book back down on the table and open the refrigerator. There was the clink of glass bottles gently bumping each other on the door shelf.
"You want something to drink?"
She looked up to see him looking at her expectantly, holding up a bottle.
"Depends on what it is."
"It's uh, Cactus City Sarseparilla. Not bad stuff, really."
"Okay then."
He looked through a paper grocery bag next to the refrigerator and pulled out a large can of sardines and a loaf of cheap white bread. "Hungry?"
"Sure, why not? I've nothing against sardines... and white bread."
"It's all I've got at the moment. I only got paid tonight. Didn't have time to run to the supermarket."
"You shop at supermarkets?"
"I was trying to be funny."
"Oh. Okay. Ah, you wouldn't happen to have a glass, would you? For this drink?"
"Sure... think I've got one around here somewhere." He rummaged through a cardboard box. "Somebody gave me this stuff, I thought I saw some dishes in here or something- wait, got one, but it looks like it needs to be washed out. Here, let me..." Half talking to himself, he went into the bathroom to wash the glass in the sink.
She waited for him to hand it to her, but realized he'd paused in his activity.
"Hello?"
"Yeah, uh..." he turned in her direction, looking distracted. "I dunno why you think you look ugly, I don't think you look ugly."
"Okay..." she said, still waiting for the glass.
"I think you look very beautiful."
"Thanks, I guess."
"Hey, I mean it. And don't think I'm the only one who thinks that. I saw you had attracted  some attention in the place- the right kind," he added quickly as she started to make a face.
"If you say so."
"You look a lot like your mother."
"Really? Most people say I look like Daddy." She smirked.
"Heh, yeah, and you sure act like him, too. But I do see a lot of your mother in you."
She nodded, as she poured her soda and waited for him to finish opening the sardine tin.
"You don't really hate her, do you?"
"'Course not," he said as he pulled out two sardines and laid them on two slices of bread and handed her one. "Here, just fold it over and eat it like a burrito, works good that way."
"The art of fine dining without dishes, I see," she said. "So, why did you leave her?"
He stopped in mid-chew.
"I mean no offense, Raph, I just always wanted to know, that's all."
"Why do you want to know?"
"Just want to get to know you better, that's why."
"Why," he asked again.
"Because I like you."
He stared at her, his expression blank.
"Really, I do. Honest."
"Okay," he said and sighed heavily."I left her because she left me. We weren't getting along too well, and, uh..." He inspected what was left of his sandwich. "She had Seth."
"Ah."
"I thought you knew all about that."
"Just wanted to hear your side of the story, Raph."
He nodded. "I appreciate that." He slowly pulled the crusts off his bread and ate them.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not." He stood up and put the empty bottles by the door. "Now that I think about it, I'm glad she divorced me. She's happier than she was when she was with me. I wasn't easy to live with. And uh, I dunno, but..." He fingered the pages of the book on the table, then dropped it on the nearest stack. "I gave her the option of getting back with your father, back when we first found out you were gonna be born. But she wanted to stay with me. You must have known about that too, huh?"
"Not really... if I did, I don't remember."
He drummed his fingers on the back of his chair, and then sat again. His eyes seemed focused on something on the table top. "I did some stupid things. Not that I want to get into them, they are over and done with. But... I'll say this. Sometimes when you are in pain, and you get confused, you make some really bad decisions. Things you'd never think of doing, otherwise. Know what I'm sayin'?"
"I'm not sure," she said, feeling a vague uneasiness.
"Sure you do. You know what I mean. Like the way you behaved tonight."
"Oh, that. Well-"
"Well, nothing. You aren't acting anything like you were last time I saw you."
"Neither are you."
"I was putting on an act. I do that when I'm nervous."
"So was I," she said.
He grinned a little at her.

Time seemed to stand still in that cramped, dingey apartment that now smelled of sardines, and she felt she wanted to stay there forever, and never wanted to leave that presence. She would, at that suspended  moment, have easily traded her life of opulence and safety, for the feelings of cameraderie that the moment evoked in her, as they ate and drank and then talked until daybreak.

Gaele 23

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