The Charm Bracelet (29 page)

When I was told that there was nothing more they could do for me and hospice might be the best thing, I was angry. I was frustrated, too, and almost cleaned out our checking account donating money to breast cancer foundations.

It's why Dr Chang bought me the little cancer ribbon charm. She really is sweet, though young.
She sits on the board of one of the foundations – they told her we were donating a large sum. She didn't get all emotional on me, thank God, even though I know it's what her own mother died of. She simply sent me something she knew I'd love. A little pink ribbon charm for my bracelet. A symbol of the now that was happening to me.

She was the one who agreed to let me come home to our apartment, and let Maria and Jeff do my checks. When she had me settled in the first week, I complained about the morphine, the way it made me always so sleepy and gave me strange dreams, and how it ruined my appetite. What I hate the most is being apart from my husband though.

I move on to the next charm. It's … the carousel horse! One of my favourites. Jeff gave it to me after Greg turned three. We had just taken him to Coney Island and Jeff sat on a horse with him, the two of them leaning out as far as they could to try and catch the brass ring. Afterwards we walked on the boardwalk and ate Nathan’s hot dogs … I am missing it acutely now, so I let go of the charm.

I feel in a dreamlike state
all the time now. Jeff and Greg come in and out of the room and try to talk to me, but their voices are mostly a fog.

I am not afraid of dying
.When I was first diagnosed, I wa
s
it haunted me all the time. I wasn't ready, I was afraid for what was on the other side, but now I just don't think about it.

It's like sleep to me now. Someday soon, I will slip into unconscious sleep and I won't wake up, that's all. No big deal. Except I have to leave all earthly pleasures behind, and earthly people. That's the hard part. Is there anything more to say? Or do? How many times can I tell my family that I love them before they let me go? I feel Jeff holding onto me with every bit of force he can. I know he prays constantly for a miracle. But he's just keeping me here, not letting me go.

I think of my parents and how they died young. They had worked hard, seven days a week and holidays, at that deli. My father had been so proud of it when he had finally purchased it. They had seemed bewildered but pleased when I married Jeff. It had just been the three of us for so long. I knew there was always sadness at my leaving behind my mother’s smiles. Jeff and I had offered to have them live with us but they had refused, instead opting to keep the small rooms above the deli as they had for years. They died soon after I left, Father of a heart attack and Mother of … they were never quite sure what: loneliness? I had tried to get her to sell the deli after Father died, and again she had refused. When it was all over, I didn't go back down there for a few years, not until after Greg was born. The change in the old neighbourhood was so shocking to me that I made a promise to myself that I would be faithful to the places in New York that I knew and loved. I wouldn't neglect them and I would go and visit them on a regular basis.

It became like a game when Greg got into photography, fun to look through the lens and try and catch the small, subtle changes. A building going up over a period of months, the signs on a
movie marquee changing.

Oh how I love this city, how I have always loved it. I wonder if this will be my last winter here, or if I might be able to keep our yearly appointment, the promise we made.

Greg was on a mission. After waking up late that morning he’d got a text from Karen telling him that she’d be stopping by to pick up some of her things.

As he result, he’d decided to head over to
Park Avenue; he didn’t want to be there when she came back. He understood that he would have to face her eventually, and even have an adult conversation with her, considering they would have to figure out what to do with many of their shared possessions in the townhouse.

He replied saying that she should feel free to let herself in, and that he wouldn’t be here.

Greg wondered briefly where Karen was going to live or where she was going to stay until she was able to figure out something more permanent. And then he realised that he didn’t care. She could hole up at the Plaza with ‘Jack’ for the rest of her life. At this point, Karen and her affairs were no longer his business.

Still, he couldn’t believe that his entire world had changed in barely forty-eight hours. Karen had been such a big part of his life and now she was gone – just like that. And all because of money, it seemed. Because she was afraid he wouldn't be able to support them in the way she had been accustomed too.

Greg tried to put himself in Karen’s shoes and think of how he would feel if she had suddenly changed careers, suddenly announced she wanted to join the Peace Corps or something. Unlikely, he thought, smiling. Even so, he knew for sure he’d have supported her, had always supported her in anything she’d done.

Is this what he had to be on the look-out for now? he wondered. Women who were only interested in him for his money? Although, he reminded himself, there wasn’t much of that any more.

Another fresh start, he thought ruefully, as he closed his front door behind him and took the bike out onto to the street. Sometimes you needed to be careful what you wished for.

He arrived quickly, and said hello to the building’s doorman, Conor, a veritable fixture of the building itself. Going up in the elevator, he let himself in to the penthouse and found his father in the kitchen with Maria.

‘Good morning guys.’

‘Oh Greg, I’m just so sorry to hear about … ’ Maria said, approaching him and giving him a hug. He accepted the embrace, somewhat uncomfortably. Even though he knew her well, it was still slightly embarrassing having other people know that you had been dumped. Especially after such a dramatic and public proposal.

‘It’s OK Maria, thanks. I’ll be fine.’

She looked up at him, a mischievous smile on her face. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I could arrange to have her taken care of? Us Puerto Ricans, we don’t mess around, and I have a cousin who—’

Greg laughed for the first time since Christmas Day. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think that will be necessary.’

‘Well, don’t say I never offered to do anything for you.’

Greg turned his attention to his father. ‘I thought I’d come over – Karen’s coming round for some of her things later and I didn’t want to be there.’ He reached into his pocket. ‘And I brought Nonna’s ring back,’ he said sadly. ‘I guess I’ll put it back in Mom’s jewellery box.’

‘For a while at least – until you need it again,’ his father added kindly, but Greg figured it would be some time before he’d be looking to use the ring again, if ever.

‘Has the charm bracelet turned up yet?’ he asked, the mention of the jewellery box reminding him about it.

‘No, we’ve searched high and low for it by now, haven’t we, Maria?’ Jeff confirmed.

‘Well, I might as well take a look around myself while I’m
in there.’

His mother’s plush walk-in closet was one of those places that lived in the dreams of most women, but for his lucky mother, was a reality.

Reaching out to touch the delicate fabrics, Greg couldn’t help but reflect on the memories associated with each piece of clothing.

The pretty floral dress she had worn at his college graduation, and the deep red silk two-piece she’d had on that night at Gennaro’s gallery when his photograph of the Flatiron had been on display. Or the time she had sat reading a book out on the veranda in this pale violet cardigan. Greg felt in its pocket and pulled out some crinkled-up Kleenex, seemingly nothing but a scrap of trash, but he knew that his mother had probably used it to dry her eyes after reading a particularly heart-wrenching passage in a novel. He held the crumpled tissue in his hand and felt a lump form in his throat.

Placing the cardigan back on the hanger, he threw the tissue away in a nearby wastepaper basket.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘I know you didn’t lose it, Mom. I know you
wouldn’t
lose it. This bracelet was your whole life – hell, it had your whole life on it. So what on earth did you do with it?’

He thought back to the last time he’d seen her wear it. Karen mentioned that it had been at the
hospital benefit on New Year’s Eve last year and that was true but …

Then, looking again at her closet, he remembered something.

The red suit … Greg got up and crossed to the wardrobe, holding the delicate silk jacket up in front of him. His eyes moved to the sleeves. Yes, it had been June and warm outside when his mother had worn this at the gallery.

That was the last time he’d given her a charm, the horseshoe charm to commemorate the occasion. So she’d definitely been wearing the bracelet that night.

He reached into the pockets of the jacket, wondering if maybe she’d taken it off for some reason and left it in there?

And as he did, a sudden thought struck him – a new and much more recent memory concerning Gennaro’s gallery came to mind. It was last week, when he’d called in to the gallery, and collided with that woman on her way out.

When Greg had inquired if the woman was an interested buyer, Gennaro had told him something about her trying to find out something about a bracelet, because one of the charms had led her to his gallery.

Greg felt his spirits lift. Somehow his mother must have lost the bracelet and this woman, whoever she was, had found it and was trying to give it back.

But then why didn’t Gennaro recognise it as Cristina’s – especially with the
corno
– made by his very own fathe
r
attached?

Then Greg thought back to that night, when his mother had attempted to show Gennaro the Italian
corno
she’d bought in Florence all those years ago, but he’d been interrupted by Sofia. So Gennaro wouldn’t have recognised the bracelet, because Cristina never got the chance to show it to him.

Thinking back to that day at the gallery, and the woman with the striking auburn hair, pretty face and bright green eyes, Greg knew he was onto something. But if she did happen to be in possession of his mother’s bracelet, how on earth was he supposed to track her down now?

He tried again to think back to what little his friend had said about her. Didn’t Gennaro mention something about asking her out? In which case he must have a phone number for her.

Greg felt heartened. For once his friend’s Romeo tendencies would come in handy

‘Don’t worry Mom,’ he said with conviction. ‘I’ll get it back ….’

He put his mother’s silk jacket back where he’d found it and went back outside. Then he quickly grabbed his coat and put it on.

‘Where’s the fire?’ Jeff asked in confusion.             

Greg quickly explained his train of thought. ‘I think that somehow Mom lost the bracelet a while back, and that someone has found it and is searching for us, just like we’ve been searching for the bracelet. And I think I met that very same person the other day. At Gennaro’s gallery.’

Jeff’s face lit up. ‘Problem solved, fantastic.’

‘It not that simple unfortunately.’ Greg shook his head. ‘I don’t know her name, but I am going to find out.’

‘But Greg, I don’t understand. How would Cristina’s charm bracelet end up with some random stranger? How would it even get outside the house?’ Maria asked in confusion.

‘That I don’t know, Maria, but if I happened to bump into this woman at the gallery, I wonder how she came to end up there?’

‘She must have tracked down the origin of the Italian
corno
and somehow traced it back to Gennaro via his father’s place in Florence,’ Jeff stated simply. ‘What are the chances? I always said that bracelet was like the story of this family’s life, laid out for all to see.’

Greg nodded. ‘Well, Gennaro will know who this mystery woman is and he’ll be able to tell me where to find her. And with luck we’ll have Mom’s bracelet back in no time.’

Holly was taking the decorations down off the Christmas tree. It was just too darned big to remain in their apartment (and for she and Danny to live comfortably alongside it) any longer.

She wrapped the various balls and baubles in tissue paper while Danny half-heartedly unwound tinsel from the branches. In order for the tree to be picked up kerbside, it had to be completely bare, otherwise City Sanitation wouldn’t take it.

‘Mom, my arm hurts,’ he complained, not nearly as interested in the tree as when they were dressing it before Christmas

‘Oh poor baby … funny how it doesn’t hurt so much when you’re playing Nintendo,’ Holly teased. ‘Go on then,’ she told him, ruffling his hair as he bounded off.

Dry needles became entangled in her clothes as she struggled to remove the now bare tree from its stand.

After some exertion, it finally came loose, and as it did something shot out from the branches and nearly hit Holly in the eye. She shrieked and stood back, thinking for a moment it was a mouse or some other creature that had taken up residence in the tree.