Gloria Mendoza lay bent across the gleaming countertop of the kitchen, her eyes squinted in concentration as she read instructions in an ancient math textbook that she had found in the library. Opened up to the beginning of the chapter on Fractions, Gloria finished looking over the examples before deciding to try a problem herself.
She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a box of smarties she'd bought off commissary. Now instead of a midday treat they'd become counters for her own self-imposed homework. She divided the candies into groups based upon colour and then picked up the pencil and the pad of paper she'd been scribbling on.
"Alright, Miss. Mendoza," she murmured to herself. "What percentage of the smarties are purple? Ummmmmm…." she pondered, biting down on her tongue as she gazed down at the counter.
"What are you doing?" a thick Russian accent asked from behind her. Gloria hadn't heard anybody else come in. Breakfast was done being served and the place was cleaned up to Red's exact specifications. The rest of the kitchen staff had left to do whatever they wanted until lunch and Gloria was taking advantage of having a little space to herself, not that she was currently enjoying herself.
"Fractions," Gloria replied, not bothering to turn around or lift her gaze from the problem staring her in the face. She sighed loudly, looking between the book and the smarties before shaking her head. "I need a drink of water," she announced, well aware of Red's eyes still following her. She didn't bother asking what Red was doing back so early after saying she was headed out to work in the garden until lunch.
"Care to explain?" Red asked, walking closer to the counter to look down at the old school textbook somebody had donated to the prison to replenish the library after their bed bug infestation.
"Does it look like I know what I'm doing?" Gloria asked her incredulously, motioning to the still blank pad of paper. She took a long swing of water from her cup and then wiped the dampness from her lips.
"I meant why you're doing this in the first place," Red clarified. "You hardly seem like you're enjoying yourself and if you're finally getting into books, I've got plenty more entertaining than a dated old math textbook. You want to borrow one?"
Gloria rolled her eyes but was unable to displace the small smile that appeared on her face. "I'm re-teaching myself Fractions so that I can help Benny with his homework when he visits next Saturday," she explained. She shot the book a dirty look. "Or I'm trying to anyway," she sighed. "I don't remember anything I learned in school."
"Well, they're always changing around curriculum," Red sympathized, thumbing through the pages. "Although I'm a little surprised they're only covering this now. I always considered American schools to be behind what we were learning at his age in Russia, but this is quite..."
"Easy, woman," Gloria interrupted her. "If it will make you less critical of American schools, Benny's actually only working on fifth grade math. He's a lazy student, although not having a mother at home to keep him on top of his homework might have something to do with that."
"Understandable," Red murmured softly. "Well, if it will make you feel any better Vasily had difficulty with mathematics too and I sat up with him every evening after supper going through the problems with him and it was all I could do to keep from whacking the textbook into his thick skull. He takes after his father, I suppose, Yuri and Maxim were natural students," she rolled her eyes at the memory, while Gloria giggled.
"Anyway, I used to tell him it didn't matter how quick he learned so long as he never stopped," she continued. "He caught on eventually. Benny will too."
"Yeah," Gloria sighed. "Julio's a good student. He'd help his brother if he'd let him help, but Benny has no interest."
"How do you get him to focus with you then?" Red asked.
"Threats, mainly," Gloria laughed.
"Spoken like a true mother," Red replied, returning the smile.
"Okay, please tell me that you have something more edible to feed me instead of more of that lumpy porridge you handed out at breakfast!" Nicky said loudly, stomping into the kitchen in her heavy work boots. "Because I've got some sort of a test to take today and I need some brain food...ooh smarties!" she exclaimed in delight, plucking a cheerful yellow one from one of Gloria's piles.
"Red, doing something about her," Gloria said, crossing her arms disapprovingly across her chest as she glared at Nicky. "She's eating my homework!"
"Homework?" Nicky questioned, turning back around the stare down at the math textbook lying open faced on the counter. "Are you studying for the test for the new job, Gloria? I thought the two of you were starting to enjoy working together. You certainly seem joined at the hip enough lately. I have a feeling Norma is starting to feel a little neglected, Ma."
"What new job?" Red asked, choosing to ignore everything else Nicky had said, though a slight flush had pinkened her cheeks.
"You haven't heard?" Nicky said in surprise. "They're hiring people to do some mysterious job that we have to take a test for. Everyone is applying. It pays one dollar an hour."
"A test?" Gloria questioned.
"Yeah," Nicky nodded. "I don't know if it's on math though. But I figured I'd check it out anyway. Get out of work for the day."
"Sounds good to me," Red replied. "Anything that will get you transferred away from Electrical would be alright by me. But Gloria's not applying," she added confidently. She snuck a glance at Gloria from beneath her lashes. "Are you?"
"No," Gloria shook her head. "I think we've got a pretty good thing going on here. Besides, if I left you'd probably miss me."
"Probably," Nicky teased. She tapped her finger against the book again. "So, if you're not trying to study for the test, why are you torturing yourself?"
"Funny thing," Gloria said dryly. "You know when kids are mouthy and like to ask their teacher what the point of learning something is? Well I was that kid, and apparently the answer is to have some kids and send them to school. That's karma, well played."
"It's not that hard," Nicky told her. Flipping through the pages some more. "You want to find a percentage? Count up the colour you want and put it over the total number of smarties. Then we can break it down."
"Come again?" Gloria blinked.
"You want me to show you?" Nicky offered, as she casually popped another smartie into her mouth. "I've got nothing else to do. Lorna's busy cutting out magazine clippings for her vision board what-not, and that's an activity I generally want to avoid."
"Keep swiping them and there won't be anything to work with," Gloria complained, walking closer and effectively blocking Nicky's hand as she tried to reach for another.
"Show me how to do this and if you do a good job, I'll share," she promised.
"I can have half?" Nicky asked, her eyes lighting up happily at the offer.
"Except the purple ones," Gloria replied. "They're my favourite."
"Alright, deal," Nicky shrugged, reaching for the pencil. "I used to sleep through math class nearly every day, although fortunately for you, buying drugs and measuring price against the quantity requires some level of mathematical skill that I acquired later in life."
"I don't want to hear that kind of talk, Nicky," Red scolded, brushing her hand lightly against the back of Nicky's head in disapproval.
"Sorry, Ma," Nicky chuckled, rubbing the back of her head where she'd been smacked. "Just trying to look for the silver lining from my sordid past."
"Help me get Benny through math this semester and I think you've found it," Gloria murmured, bending back down eagerly over the textbook just as the familiar crackle from the intercom filled the air and they all paused.
"Reznikov, report to Counsellor Healy's office," came the page.
"Healy?" Gloria said in surprise, turning back around to give Red a sly smile. "You sure see an awful lot of him. Is there an angle in this place you're not playing?"
"Watch and learn, Gloria," Nicky rolled her eyes. "I've learned not to ask-some things are better left unsaid. Although, personally, I'm not too concerned about Healy these days."
"And why is that?" Gloria asked vaguely.
"Oh, I don't know," Nicky said playfully, sneaking a glance over at Red. "Different reasons I suppose."
"I don't know what this could be about," Red said, pursing her lips as she took a step back towards the exit.
"Well, let us know once you're done," Nicky replied. "We'll still be here...something tells me this lesson might take awhile."
XXX
"You wanted to see me?" Red asked, letting herself into Healy's office after rapping on the door twice with her fist.
Healy nodded, beckoning her closer with his hand. "Have a seat," he mouthed to her. The phone was pressed to his ear and he was frowning at whatever the speaker on the other end was saying. Red slowly shut the door behind her and then walked over to take the chair she had occupied so many times before. Red folded her hands in her lap and looked down to examine the polish on her fingernails while she waited for Healy to finish his conversation. Two of her nails were chipped and in need of another coat.
"Yuri, I'm going to hand the phone over to your mom now," Healy said gently, and Red's head jerked up immediately at the mention of her son's name. An icy chill crawled down her spine and goosebumps prickled on her arms. She blinked across the desk at Healy in confusion, as he shook his head in answer to the unspoken question that died on her parted lips before it could be asked.
"Talk to him," Healy said quietly, by way of explanation. Red hesitated before accepting the receiver to the telephone that Healy was holding out for her to take. She couldn't fathom a scenario where Healy conversing with her son would make sense. They were both real to her but neither existed to the other. They were from different realms that made up her life. It didn't seem like anything positive could come from those two worlds colliding. In fact, she was already pretty convinced that something was very wrong for this to be happening.
"Hello," Red said softly into the phone, taking a deep breath as she adjusted it against her ear. "Yuri? Is everything okay, honey?"
"Mama," Yuri breathed into the phone, his voice shaky and weak. The sort of tone that would concern any mother. Red straightened her back as she stiffened in her chair, pressing the receiver even tighter to her ear as though that could invoke more closeness between herself and her boy.
"What's wrong?" Red asked him urgently. "Where are you?" Her free hand whipped up, grabbing a fistful of fiery hair and tugging anxiously. She didn't even notice as Healy wheeled his chair around the side of the desk until he was seated beside her.
"I'm at the hospital, Ma," Yuri replied faintly. "I've been here all night. But I had to wait until office hours-it took forever for me to get through, to find someone who would let me to talk to you. I've been trying to reach you for hours."
"Why are you at the hospital?" Red asked worriedly. "Are you hurt? Are you sick? Is it your brothers? Are they okay? Or the kids? Did something-"
"Ma, Ma, stop," Yuri interrupted her, and Red immediately fell silent. "It's Papa."
"Papa?" Red said, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Is it his Colitis again? Because I don't know how many times I have to tell him that he can't eat anything with-"
"Ma!" Yuri exclaimed, his voice strengthening at his unmistakable exasperation at her. "Do you want to stop for two seconds and let me explain?"
Red blinked at her son's tone but didn't contradict him. "Okay," she said curtly. Her toes curled inside her crocks as she waited for him to continue. Her chest was heaving and her rambling had only been attempting to distract from the feeling that she had a pile of bricks in her stomach.
"Tell me what's happened, honey," she said, forcing herself to sound calm.
"Pop," Yuri said, sniffling as Red bit down on her bottom lip so she wouldn't be tempted to speak. She looked up and caught Healy's eye, noticing for the first time the closeness between him. He had moved closer to be by her side, to inevitably support her from the devastating blow she was apparently about to be dealt.
"We were all out to dinner last night," Yuri said heavily. "At one of our favourite restaurants. He seemed fine. Maybe a little more uncomfortable than was typical but we didn't think anything of it. He was holding Alexei and then he asked Ivanna if she wanted to share a sundae with him for dessert."
Red's foot tapped against the floor in urgency. She rolled her eyes at her son's rambling, needing him to cut to the chase and stop prolonging this awful suspense. Yet even in this moment she felt a rise of bitterness in her throat at the image of Dmitri sharing ice cream with their granddaughter while she was forced to consume prison slop to no end. Perhaps he'd choked on the cherry and needed surgery to remove it. Red's hand released her hair and slid down her face and back to her lap.
"He got up to use the bathroom before we left and we were all still at the table when we heard someone screaming," Yuri continued, and from the way his voice cracked Red could tell he was crying.
"He'd collapsed, a waitress was saying he was having a heart attack but that wasn't it," Yuri said helplessly. "They called an ambulance and we were all on the ground with him. He was unconscious. They brought him to the hospital."
"Has he woken up yet?" Red asked desperately, knowing this story wasn't over but suddenly in no hurry to hear the ending. "Can I talk to him? Ask him if he wants to-"
"Galina-" Healy said, breaking his silence as he reached up a hand and rested it on her shoulder.
"No, Ma, you can't talk to him," Yuri exclaimed, sounding angrier than he wanted to. "He's still unconscious. He has a giant tube shoved down his throat and is being kept alive by machines. He's not going to wake up."
"What?" Red whispered as all the remaining colour drained from her face. "Yuri, no... you must be mistaken. Have you spoken to the doctor directly?"
She couldn't comprehend something being seriously wrong with her now ex-husband. Dmitri had always been claiming to be affected by one affliction or another. He'd dramatize being sick, take time off work when she knew she'd have powered through in the same condition. She'd never paid much attention to his steady relentless complaining of his various ailments. He'd always exaggerated, in her opinion. Despite being braced for the worse sort of news when Healy had passed her the phone, Red was suddenly unable to accept it.
"Of course, I have Ma," Yuri snapped. "What do you think? That I want this to be true. The doctor told us to take our time saying goodbye and let him know when we were ready to pull the plug. That's it, that's all! There's no hope."
"Oh, baby," Red choked out. Her blue eyes, pooling with unshed tears looked up at Healy as though begging him to contradict what her son was saying, but Healy only squeezed her shoulder more tightly and said nothing. He had heard it all before she had come in. When Yuri's call had been transferred to him, the boy desperate to plead his case to anyone who might let him speak to his mother.
"What do I do, Ma?" Yuri asked helplessly.
"Well, there's nothing that you can do," Red replied, swallowing a lump of bile in her throat and trying to remain calm. She needed to be composed and strong for her son right now. It was why he had called her.
"What exactly happened to him?" She asked, trying to understand the full picture. "You said not a heart attack?"
"It was a stomach aneurysm," Yuri explained sadly.
"Are your brothers there?" Red asked softly.
"Yeah, they're right here," Yuri replied. "Anna and Lida, they took the kids home and we came straight to the hospital to be with Pop."
"I wish I was there with you," Red said heavily. She'd give anything to be with her children right now. To hold their hands and support them as they said goodbye to their father. It was what a mother was supposed to do, and what she had been unable to do for them all these years.
"So, do I, Ma," Yuri sniffled. "You have no idea how much I could use you right now."
"I'm sorry," Red whispered, feeling every bit of guilt that she deserved. This was another failing. Perhaps her worst transgression yet. She couldn't be with her sons while their father died.
"Being sorry doesn't change a thing," Yuri told her coolly. "It doesn't make up for you going to prison and not being here. You even divorced him-which means you can't even be the one to authorize pulling the plug. I'm the one who has to do that instead. You couldn't even spare me that, Ma."
"Yuri," Red said pleadingly. "You can't-I didn't know…"
"You didn't know he was going to die?" Yuri asked in a shaky voice. "None of us knew. All I know is that now I have to sign the authorization to my father's death while my mother sits in prison and wastes even more time. That's what I'm sorry about, Ma. And I didn't ask for any of it."
"Do your brothers..." Red sniffled. "Do they want to speak with me before…"
"No," Yuri told her shortly. "They told me before I called you that they didn't want to talk. I only thought you should know before it happened."
"Thank you for telling me," Red told him, as a single tear escaped from her eye and trickled down her cheek. "I don't even know what to say…"
"There's nothing you can say," Yuri replied. He took a deep breath and then exhaled heavily, the air vibrating against the phone and into his mother's ear. "I'm going to go now, okay? I want to go back in the room to be with Papa."
"Yes," Red agreed. "Okay, darling. I'll call you tonight. Is that okay?"
"Sure," Yuri replied. "But don't be upset if I can't answer. We'll talk some other time."
"Alright," said Red. "I love you, Yuri. Tell your brothers that I love them."
"Goodnight, Ma," came the reply. In a second there was a click on the line, telling her that her son had disconnected the call.
Red leaned forward in her chair to replace the telephone back in its cradle, effectively pulling away from Healy's hand as she did. His fingers slipped off the fabric of her white chef's jacket, where he had lain them in a bid to comfort her, which she neither desired nor would allow right now.
"My son told you?" she asked quietly.
"Yes," Healy confirmed. "He was desperate to convince me to let him speak to you. He didn't know-that of course I would have."
"I think talking to me only made him feel worse," Red said hoarsely. She was sitting on the edge of the seat, as far away from him as she could be. Her eyes were averted down to the ground as she slid her foot back and forth across the carpet.
"I don't think you said anything wrong," Healy told her sincerely.
"It's not what I say," Red scoffed. "It's what I've done, all the ways that I've hurt and broken my family. All these years I can't give back to them."
Healy gazed at her, while Red stared determinedly at the floor. He had never heard her sound quite so unforgiving of herself or desperate. The shock of Dmitri's predicament seemed to be drawing her out, the woman with a life and a family beyond Litchfield. She so often seemed at home on the inside, with the family, friends, and past times that she'd built to fulfill her. She was comfortable in here-sometimes as her counsellor and friend Healy worried she was a little too at ease here, and too far removed from the Galina Reznikov that existed in the real world. But right now, he could see her clearly. The Galina who had three sons she was yearning to be with, and whatever the complications that had led to the demise of her and her husband's marriage, he could see the grief painted across her face.
"Dmitri isn't suffering," he offered, knowing there were no words that could make this situation better but hoping that at least could relieve some strain. "And your sons, they have each other. I'm sorry you can't be there to say goodbye…"
"That's not what's bothering me," Red bristled at the implication of what he said. "I'm his ex-wife, I don't need to say goodbye to him." She brought her index finger up to her mouth, tracing the outline of her lips as she recalled the last time she had seen her husband, the very last time they had spoken. It had ended so badly, she'd been so angry-and rightly so, she had reckoned at the time. However, now it all seemed so shallow and reckless on her part. Now he was going to die thinking that she hated him.
"I don't hate him," she spoke aloud, wanting Healy to hear because she couldn't say the words to Dmitri himself. It wasn't a profession of love for the man she had been with since her early twenties, but it was as much as her pride would allow.
"I know you don't," Healy replied calmly. "Dmitri knows that too."
"I don't see how," Red said bitterly. "I've hardly left him room for doubt."
"He knows," Healy repeated firmly. He watched as she sighed, falling back into the chair and weakening. He reached across her for the phone on the desk and pushed it closer to the edge.
"Why don't you call them back?' he suggested. "Maybe Yuri would hold the phone to his ear? Maybe Dmitri can hear. I'll leave the room, you can be alone-"
"I'm not doing that!" Red exclaimed, before pushing the phone roughly away with her hand. Healy watched her closely, as Red seemed to choke on a sob as her eyes glanced up to fall on the clock that hung on the wall.
"I wonder how much time is left," she said tiredly. "My son has to make that decision. What an awful burden to give to your child." She hiccupped again, a lump building in her throat as more tears sprang to life and the depths of her sorrows seemed to be invoked.
"Galina, I'm so sorry," Healy said gently, and he tried once again to offer her the hand she had shrugged off before.
"Don't," Red almost cried. She stood up quickly, the chair leg rocking up in her urgency to pull away from him.
"I didn't mean anything by…" Healy's voice trailed off, at once sensing his mistake.
"That's not it," Red shook her head. "I can't be there for my sons and that's my fault. My errors and it's unforgivable. I don't deserve any sympathy for that."
"I think you've been punished enough," Healy replied. "You're being too hard on yourself-"
"You don't know me," Red stammered out. The back of her hand reached up to brush off the few stray tears that had escaped from her eyes and then she was turning away, leaving. Healy let her go while his mind whirled to contradict her words. He knew her well. They'd known one another for several years, their acknowledged special relationship surpassing the confines of this prison and the information in her file about the crimes she'd been charged with. Healy knew who she was, so he should have known better then to suppose she would respond to such a situation anyway different. He just wished she'd have let him be there for her.