was very real and in the morgue.
She stopped. She’d lost him. She stood there, a long time,
breathing hard, feeling scores of people part and go around her on
either side. Just two steps beyond her, the seas closed again.
Forty-five minutes later, Becca was at Lenox Hill Hospital, sitting
beside her mother’s bed. Her mother, who was now in a near-coma,
was so drugged she didn’t recognize her daughter. Becca sat
there, holding her hand, not speaking about the stalker, but talking
about the speech she’d written for the governor on gun control,
something she wasn’t so certain about now. “In all five boroughs,
handgun laws are the same and are very strict. Do you know that
one gun store owner told me that ‘to buy a gun in New York City,
you have to stand in a corner on one leg and beg.'”
She paused a moment. For the first time in her life, she desperately
wanted a handgun. But there was just no way she could get
one in time to help. She’d need a permit, have to wait fifteen days
after she’d bought the gun, and then hang around for probably another
six months for them to do a background check on her. And
then stand on one leg and beg. She said to her silent mother, “I’ve
never before even thought about owning a gun, Mom, but who
knows? Crime is everywhere.” Yes, she wanted to buy a gun, but if
she did finally manage to get one, the stalker would have long since
killed her. She felt like a victim waiting to happen and there was
nothing she could do about it. No one would help her. She was all
she had, and in terms of getting a hold of a gun, she’d have to go to
the street. And the thought of going up to street guys and asking
them to sell her a gun scared her to her toes.
“It was a great speech, Mom. I had to let the governor straddle
the fence, no way around that, but I did have him say that he
didn’t want guns forbidden, just didn’t want them in the hands of
criminals. I did pros and cons on whether the proposed federal
one-handgun-a-month law will work. You know, the NRA’s opinions,
then the HCI’s–they’re Handgun Control, Inc.”
She kept talking, patting her mother’s hands, lightly stroking her
fingers over her forearm, careful not to hit any of the IV lines.
“So many of your friends have been here. All of them are very
worried. They all love you.”
Her mother was dying, she knew it as a god-awful fact, as something
that couldn’t be changed, but she just couldn’t accept it down
deep inside her where her mother had always been from her earliest
memories, always there for her, always. She thought of the years
ahead without her, but she simply couldn’t see it at all. Tears stung
her eyes and she sniffed them back. “Mom,” she said, and laid her
cheek against her mother’s arm. “I don’t want you to die, but I
know the cancer is bad and you couldn’t bear the pain if you stayed
with me.” There, she’d said the words aloud. She slowly raised her
head. “I love you, Mom. I love you more than you can imagine.
If you can somehow hear me, somehow understand, please know
that you have always been the most important person in my life.
Thank you for being my mother.” She had no more words. She sat
there another half hour, looking at her mother’s beloved face, so
full of life just a few weeks ago, a face made for myriad expressions,
each of which Becca knew. It was almost over, and there was simply
nothing she could do. She said then, “I’ll be back soon, Mom.
Please rest and don’t feel any pain. I love you.”
She knew that she should run, that this man, whoever he was,
would end up killing her and there was nothing she could do to
stop him. If she stayed here. Certainly the police weren’t going to
do anything. But no, she wasn’t about to leave her mother.