Stronger Than Ever
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Chapter Three: Who Is He?
Jesse's POV
Danny still didn't believe it wasn't his fault when the doctor came out and told me I could see Becky. I didn't care though, because I got to see my poor, precious, sweet Becky. I also asked him how he dealt with the wait of knowing exactly how his wife was the day my dear sister Pam had died. But that was before the doctor came and told us how Becky was.
When I got into her room, I cringed at what I saw. Becky was laying unconcious, her face pale, with an oxygen thingy (I never knew what those were called) under her nose, and she was hooked up to other scary-looking machines. Just when I thought she wasn't going to wake up while I was in there, I heard a weak, pain-stricken voice call my name. I turned around and sure enough, Becky was staring up at me.
"Oh, sweetheart, I was so sure I'd lost you," I said.
"It's okay, I'm here now. But I don't know what happened," said Becky. She sounded so weak, I just wanted to pour energy right into her.
"Becky, sweetheart, you were involved in a shooting. Actually, you're the shooted."
"Oh. Did they get the guy who did it?" she asked.
"No. He got awaywhile you were being loaded into the ambulance," I said. Becky sighed.
"Is the baby okay?" she asked.
"The baby is fine, lucky for us."
"When am I getting outta here?"
"In about two weeks."
"Oh."
We were silent for awhile, and then I said:
"Do you want to see everyone else?"
"Okay," is all I got for a reply.
It took awhile for everyone to see Becky. I took them in from youngest to oldest. But I took Nicky and Alex in at the same time. The doctor told me that Becky needed to rest and that I should go home with the rest of the family.
We got home, ate dinner, we watched a little TV, but we turned it off after awhile because the channel was ona movie where everyone shoots at each other, and no one wanted to just change the channel. So we turned the TV off.
After a couple of hours, the phone rang. I'm pretty sure Stephanie answered, because it was her who yelled, "DAD! PHONE!" up the stairs. I just sat there on my perch on the couch in the living room reading an Elvis merchandise magazine for a few minutes until Danny came downstairs.
"They want me to go look at a police line-up tomorrow morning. The police think they could have possibly caught the guy," he said.
"I'm going with you, and then I'm going to see Becky," I responded.
"Okay. I understand you probably would just like to know who did this to Becky," he said.
"Something like that." I actually wanted to know who he was just so if I ever saw him on the streets if and when he got out of jail, I could beat the hell out of him. I hate him. I don't even know who he is, but I hate him.
The next morning, Danny and I went to the police station. It was Saturday, and Michelle and Stephanie volunteered to watch Nicky and Alex, because Joey wanted to go ice-skating with Danny's sister, Wendy. They're dating.We got there at about 9 in the morning.
"Okay, Danny, just relax and think real hard about what this guy looked like," said a man who introduced himself as Detective Tyler.
Here comes another ramble, I thought. Turns out I was right. "Well, okay, I'll try. But it could be kind of hard because he was wearing a black ski mask that was really dirty, andyou couldn't get that out yourself. No, you'd have to take it to a dry cleaners. Twice even," said Danny, "and even then you'd still have to throw it in with one of your own loads, with a lot of fabric softener-"
"Danny!" I interrupted. "Just identify the guy, huh?" I wasn't even surprised his ramble was about cleaning. There is no better way to put it then by saying that Danny is a neat-freak.
"Well, Danny, do you remember anything else about him? It doesn't just have to be his face," said Detective Tyler.
"Well, I think he had a tatoo on his arm," said Danny. "I saw it when he reached out to take my money."
"Good, Danny. Good," said Detective Tyler.
So then Detective Tyler asked for the lineup to hold out their arms. They did, and Danny and I scanned their arms. "Danny," I said. "Number four has a tatoo on his arm."
"He does. And I remember those eyes now. They were totally black. You can't even tell the colored part from the pupils," he said. "That's him. Number for is the guy."
"Good," said Detective Tyler. "That will be all. You can leave now if you'd like. But eventually, this case will have to go to court. I'll call you with further details."
"Thank you," I said. I trusted him. He was a nice guy, after all.
After we left, we went to go tell Becky the news.
"So you mean they caught the guy, and Danny identified him?" asked Becky. She looked so much better, and I felt better, and I'm guesseing she felt better too.
"Yep," I said. "But we will have to go to court."
"Do we have to?" asked Becky, in a whining voice that made her sound like she was a little kid.
"Yes," I said, with a chuckle, "we have to."
"Darn it," she said, folding her arms, and pouting like a little kid.
Danny and I laughed, and I lightly hugged her, so I wouldn't mess any of those wires up. They were scary-looking things, and last night Nicky and Alex didn't think it was even her.I had to explain that those machines were keeping Mommy alive.
"Well," said Becky, "at least that guy is locked up."
"Yeah," I said. "Now, we just have to focus on your recovery."
Just then the nurse came in pushing a cart full of teddy bears and cards that say "get well" on them and chocolates and all sorts of things. "Looks like you've got quite a fan club, Rebecca," she said.
"Whoa," I said, "do you have like 70 million other boyfriends and husbands and fiances that I don't know about?"
"No."
"Well look, this one's from Mr. Strowbridge at the station," said Danny, " and this oneis fromLouise, our camera-woman. This teddy bear comes eqipped with chocolate from Kimmy Gibbler.We should just throw that one out and say you ate it first, and pretendyou lost the teddy bear."
Kimmy Gibbler is our next-door-neighbor, and Danny's daughter D.J.'s best friend. She is loud and annoying. There's not much more tosay about her.D.J. is the only one who can tolerate her.
Eventually,Danny and I went home to find that Joey had fallenon the ice and got cuts all over his face, and he had sprained his ankle. It was actually kind of funny, watching himgo from the living room to the kitchen clinging to Wendy's shoulder, limping all the way. You could tell he needed ice, bad.
A/N: Well, that's all for now. Hope you like it!
