More Than Words-Chapter 4
When Jeff showed up at her door, begging for money, she swore that she would not help him, not this time. Especially since he brought a murderer right to her door! Especially since, instead of showing up to celebrate their son's birthday, he decided to gamble away money he didn't have. Was she surprised? No. She would have been more shocked if he had shown up. Was she pissed? Of course. She couldn't stand Jeff Taylor as a person (and she hated herself for falling for his charms years ago) and the **only** reason she helped him was their son. Chris loved his father, and life was hard enough for the boy that she felt compelled to help the worthless jerk even though she couldn't afford it and her common sense screamed at her for ignoring it.
And Jeff knew this, and used it at every opportunity, which did nothing to improve how she felt about him. And really, she could blame no one but herself because she didn't have the courage to tell Chris the truth about his father.
Her life was a mess, and she didn't know how to fix it, and now one of Meyer Lansky's toughs knew where she lived, which meant Lansky knew where she lived, which meant her son's life was in danger. Hers, too, but she was concerned for Chris, not herself. So she asked Lansky's man if Lansky would be willing to work something out payment wise. Not because she wanted to help Jeff...but because she wanted to keep armed men away from her door.
After she sent Jeff and the other guy off with the small bit of cash she could spare, she sat and tried to figure out how much she could spare if Lansky took her up on the offer. She came up with about one dollar and fourteen cents a week. Which would probably take her six or seven years if her math was right, which it might not be, since she had no education and only knew very basic arithmetic. There wasn't much she could do until she heard one way or the other from Lansky, so she tried to go about her life and not worry about it.
When she found twelve dollars and a scrap of paper under her door that night, she wondered where it had come from, wished she could read because she was sure the paper explained everything...well, one side of it; the other was written like a list and she thought one of the words looked like 'milk' but she wasn't sure.
For the next three days, she would get the feeling every now and then that someone was watching her. She assumed it was Lansky, trying to figure out if she could pay him. He would discover that she couldn't, tell Jeff to either pay up or have a dead son; of course Jeff wouldn't be able to so Chris would be dead and she...
She tried not to dwell on it but the more she tried to think of something else the faster her mind would go to images of the man with the mask brutally killing her son. She wasn't able to sleep without that nightmare running through her mind, so she gave up trying, which didn't help matters at all.
Needless to say, her nerves where high strung by the fourth day after Jeff showed up. So as she and Chris walked home that evening, and she spotted the masked man waiting in front of the building, she almost lost it. She wanted to turn and run, but the man had already spotted them and was making his way towards them, his long legs covering the pavement in a way Gwen envied. She couldn't outrun him, so she shoved Chris behind her protectively and hoped there was enough of her to stop bullets from getting to Chris. Probably not, she knew, but the man would get to her son only over her cold, dead body.
Richard knew Gwen and Chris would be home a bit after six, so he got to the building a bit early and waited outside. He felt it more appropriate than going to her door, perhaps even a bit more polite or reassuring to her. He didn't know, really; but the thought of knocking on her door made him uncomfortable.
He saw them approaching and walked towards them, chagrined when her eyes widened in fright and she shoved the boy behind her. He wanted to tell her that she was certainly not an impediment if he had really wanted to hurt the boy, but that really wasn't going to help matters.
He stopped a few feet from her, hands clasped in front of himself, trying not to loom over her and failing miserably because she didn't even reach his shoulders. At least she was actually looking up at him this time, even if it was defiantly glaring at his mask eye.
"Don't come any closer!" she told him.
"I wouldn't have stopped if, mm. I planned on...getting closer."
"Stay away! What do you want from me?"
"Meyer said he...would like to. Meet with you, mm. Tomorrow." He paused to work moisture in to his mouth. Chris was trying to peer around his mother, and she was trying to keep him out of Richard's line of sight. The boy managed a moment where he could see Richard clearly; he was fascinated and gave a bright smile and waved. Richard gave a tentative smile that faded quickly when Gwen once more shoved the boy behind her and glared at Richard with all the viciousness of a mother bear.
"What time? Where?" she asked, wanting to get this over with so she could get Chris to safety.
"Eight. I will pick...you up, mm. At seven thirty."
She gave a small nod, her eyes quickly darting to the left where Chris was once more peeking at Richard around her arm. "I'll meet you at the corner of Thirty-seventh and Whitaker." That was near to where she dropped Chris off while she was at work; Richard understood she wouldn't want to bring the boy, and since she didn't know that he knew where she left the boy, he did nothing but give a small nod and wish them both a good evening before he walked to the car and drove away.
Gwen didn't entirely relax once he was gone; she didn't know if she would ever really be at ease now that mobsters knew where she lived. But at least her heart retreated from her throat and her nerves weren't quite as taut. She shooed Chris upstairs, and thought about blocking the door with a chair; but that wouldn't stop anyone who really wanted to get in and it would lead to Chris asking questions she didn't want to answer. Bad enough that he was rapid-firing questions about the man in the mask!
"Who is he, Mom?" Chris signed when they were inside.
"Someone your father knows," she replied.
"I couldn't read his lips. His mask made it hard. Why does he wear it?"
"Well, I think he might have been a soldier, and fought in the war, and got hurt pretty bad."
Chris gave a small nod of understanding. "Did he come to talk about Dad?"
Gwen hesitated, then signed "Sort of, but not really."
"That's not an answer."
A small smile tugged at Gwen's lips; Chris didn't like evasive answers, always wanted to know the why and how come of everything. Gwen wasn't entirely sure what to tell him right now; the boy knew she didn't particularly care for his father, but she had never told him what kind of man Jeff was, or the trouble he got himself in to. She had sworn she would never speak bad about Jeff to Chris, so she was kind of stuck at this point.
"Something came up a few nights ago," she finally signed. "Your father needs a little help, so I'm going to see if there's something I can do."
"Does it have to do with the boxer?"
"What boxer?"
"The one Dad helped the other night. That's why he couldn't make my birthday dinner. He was helping a guy learn to box...I think he's pretty good since he really did a good job beating Dad!"
Gwen wanted to roll her eyes but refrained.
"Why do you want to help Dad?" Chris asked, clearly puzzled. "You don't like him."
"Because he's your dad, and that counts for something."
"But he never helps you with anything."
*Noticed that, did you?* Gwen thought. But what she said was "We're two different people. We do things our own ways." Chris' face took on a thoughtful look, and he didn't 'say' anything for a while. Gwen went about making dinner, and was in the middle of cutting the few small potatoes she had when Chris tugged on her sleeve to get her attention.
"Don't good people help other people?" he asked with a mix of youthful innocence and cynical awareness burgeoning in his eyes. Gwen put down the knife and signed "Life isn't quite that simple, dear. I wish it was."
"Mrs. M. helps us, and you always say she's good people," he replied. "And churches help people all the time, and churches are good, right?" Gwen didn't have time to respond to that, since Chris' fingers were flying through his thoughts almost too fast for her to read. "And you said I was good because I helped Frankie when those boys cornered him. And you're good because you help dad all the time. But he never helps us; does that mean he's not a good person?"
Gwen set the knife down and led Chris over to the table.
"That's a difficult question for me to answer honestly," she admitted. "I don't want to say bad things about him to you..."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want how I feel about him to influence how you feel about him. What's between me and him shouldn't affect what's between you and him."
"He makes you mad a lot."
"He does," she admitted. Chris couldn't hear or speak, but he saw what went on, and he wasn't a stupid boy, even if he was uneducated.
Chris brought his hands up, then lowered them again, having second thoughts about what he had been about to say. Gwen waited patiently, knowing the conversation wasn't finished; she didn't necessarily wanted to finish it, though. Truths might come out that she would rather hold on to longer, but her son was more mature in many ways than a ten year old should be; but in many ways he was so young. Gwen wanted him to have the best life he could have, but she felt like she was failing him in that. There wasn't enough food, the apartment was barely a step up from sleeping in an alley, his clothes were more patch than actual fabric. She couldn't afford to send him to a school that could handle his special needs, and the neighborhood school wasn't capable of teaching him. Chris was pretty good at reading lips, and he was capable of making himself understood in simple circumstances through slow, exaggerated pantomiming, but the only people he could 'talk' to were her, Jeff, and Mrs. Mazetti, the woman who watched Chris while Gwen was at work. There was so much she wanted for her son, but each and every one seemed as impossible as making him be able to hear.
Whatever else Chris had on his mind, he kept to himself. He pulled his legs up onto the chair, rested his chin on his knees, and drifted in to deep thought. Gwen ruffled his hair affectionately before she stood up and resumed dinner. Chris remained thoughtful throughout the evening; as she tucked him in for the night, Gwen finally dared to ask what was on his mind.
"A bunch of things," he replied. "I started thinking one thing, then I had another thought, and that made me think of something else." He shrugged. "But none of it really made sense."
"Anything you want to talk about?" Chris shook his head and snuggled under the thin blanket. "Well, you know where I am if you change your mind," she told him before she leaned down to kiss him good night. "I love you." She adjusted the cover around his shoulders, blew out the candle stub that lit the room, and went back to the kitchen, spending another night washing other people's laundry and experiencing the feeling once more of being watched.
