My finger was ticking along the highest point of the bookshelf that I could reach.

"Will you be okay here? You won't leave? I made a sandwich for you. It's ham and mustard, in the refrigerator. Please don't cook. Promise me you won't cook? You promise?" The worry in Cha Cha's voice had been palpable. She'd had to go to work, teach a class, "just one" as she'd said. It would take an hour and a half, two hours with the traffic. I'd assured her over and over that I wouldn't harm myself when she was gone. I wouldn't wander into the street, wouldn't burn the apartment down. I knew she had more faith in me than this, but she was worried. I understood that.

So I told her I would read a book until she came back, eat the sandwich. I liked ham. I'd be fine. Still, she'd left miserably, not wanting to leave me alone. But she knew I wouldn't go to the dance studio with her. Just the thought of it, all of those unfamiliar people. Those unfamiliar faces that might be familiar faces. And that was what I was worried about.

I jumped as my fluffy friend bumped into my shins. Baby Doll. What was she doing?

"Hey," I said, not looking down at her. She bumped into me again. My fingers ticked along an interesting section. Large, thick paperbacks. Their spines told me they were well thumbed. "Goo...Guerra y Paz...Paz..." I rolled over in my mouth, reading the title of one of them. My eyes went down with the letters on one of the thick spines. "Leon Tolstoi...Tol...Tolstoy?!" Shock fell over my body. My finger ticked to the top of the next book, my eyes read. "Los...Hermanos...Kara- Karama... Baby Doll, help me, what is this word? You know Spanish?" Baby Doll just bumped my leg again. Despite not being able to read that word, my eyes traveled down the spine feeling a little guilty for not being able to complete it. A little ashamed. "Fiodor...what is that? Fiodor... Dos...toi...evski... Dostoevsky?!"

Sasha. Sasha loved Dostoevsky.

My breath wouldn't complete. My finger ticked to the next one. But mercifully...

"Hey, Baby Doll. Look, it's in English now. The Brothers Karamazov?" My eyes returned to the book with the word I couldn't read. Clarity dawned on me. "Karamazof? Karamazov? Hey, Baby Doll, do you think that's the same word?" No bumps this time. Maybe I bored her. I stared at the spines, so close together, one in Spanish and one in English.

Suddenly the memory of Christmas bled into my vision.

Sasha taught me. Cha Cha's Spanish voice.

Sasha. These books. Sasha loved these books. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy. Sasha... I started to breathe hard. Did Sasha show Cha Cha these books? I couldn't think. My eyes swam over the bookshelf.

A leather spine. More leather spines. On the top shelf. These were marked with numbers. With my brain swimming, I stared at them and felt my body falling away.

My eyes squinted, feeling like I was in a memory, not in reality at all too suddenly.

"Baby Doll," I said, not being able to comprehend what I beheld.

Above my head was a full shelf of books I half recognized, but how...why? My eyes widened, trying to read the numbers on their spines.

1953-1956, 1960-1968, 1969-1974, 1975-1981, 1982-1987, 1988-1991

The numbers were written in a metallic highlighter. But the forms of the numbers.

It took me a few minutes, but then. Oh...

I found myself in the kitchen before I knew it. Much faster than I thought my could could take me now. It was progress, or it was a freak of nature because those numbers... I was trying to yank a kitchen chair to myself, but it seemed to be glued to the floor. Everything in the apartment seemed to be glued to the floor. Why was that?

The chair. I needed the chair, because-

1960-1968, 1969-1974

Those numbers. That was Paulie's handwriting. Those numbers.

1975-1981, 1982-1987

Those numbers...were years.

1988-1991

Paulie.

Cha Cha found me sobbing into the kitchen table an hour later. I couldn't take it, those numbers. I knew what they had to be. They were photo albums. Photos. I needed to see those photos. Paulie. If that was his handwriting, did that mean those were his? Did they contain pictures of him...what happened to him? And that book, with the 1988-1991. That book. I needed to see that book.

I couldn't get this chair to move. I tried every muscle in my body. I tried so hard. It wouldn't move! If I couldn't stand on this chair to reach those books...!

"Dios mio, Georgina? Georgina, are you okay? Are you okay?!"

The door slammed and I heard her yellow purse drop to the floor. It made me jump, scared. I couldn't answer her, just lost in my thoughts, about Paulie. The things I'd heard.

"Georgina, what's wrong?! Do you feel sick? Did something happen?!" Cha Cha's warm hands were on my shoulders now. She started to rub my back.

I opened my mouth but my words wouldn't come out. Nothing at all. I wanted to tell her about the chair. How nothing moved in her apartment. How I couldn't get to those books and how frustrated, worthless that made me feel. Those books up there. They were so precious to me, now the most important things in the world because what if they contained the answers I'd always wondered about?

I wanted to know what Paulie had done in 1974, 1981. I wanted to know what he looked like in 1991. Ruiz had told me...that Paulie had gotten AIDS in 1989. Told me he still looked so beautiful. I wanted to see. Because maybe if I saw him, then...but then what? What was this feeling? Would I feel somehow connected to him, like I had been there? What did I want from these books?

Even if I saw him, it couldn't replace the fact that I hadn't been there for him. That I hadn't been able to be with him in 1991. Couldn't be with him the day he died.

I couldn't breathe.

"Breathe, sweetie. Breathe. I'm going to get your medication. Okay, you stay here. I'm going to get it from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I'll be right back, I promise."

"No."

"I'll be right back."

"No."

But she didn't hear me.

One pill later I was on the couch, relocated to a softer location. I felt like a looney tunes. This guilt. The medication. I didn't want the medication. It was even worse, because Cha Cha was the one giving it to me. She knew.

"How are you feeling? Are you okay?" she asked in a hushed way. The concern was brimming in her voice, non-accusing. She held my orange juice still, prepared if I needed a sip. It made me conflicted, how much she cared.

I shook my head, not wanting to look at her.

"Maybe you'll feel it soon. I hope it works."

I didn't want to say anything. I knew I was being irrational, and I was sorry. But I didn't know if I should be sorry about how I felt.

Paulie.

"The book," I said, not looking at her.

"Book? Do you want me to read you something? Would it calm you down?"

I shook my head. I knew I wasn't being clear. But what could I say? So instead I pointed. I pointed at the top shelf. Her eyes met my finger's direction, and the comprehension that dawned in her eyes. She went silent, grave.

She didn't have to say anything. I knew she knew.

"I forgot about those," she sighed. "Ambrose had them. Paulie...sort of left them to him. Well...that's not entirely true."

I didn't know what she was talking about at all. She read my face about it. She sighed again.

"Those were Kitty's books. I told you about him? Did I tell you he was Paulie's life partner?" Her eyes were so sad. I honestly could not remember if she had. All I could think about were those books. She nodded, seeming to think to herself. Then she looked at me full on, making sure to look into the middle of my eyes, meeting my gaze. "Promise me you'll be okay, and we can look through Kitty's books."

I'd do anything she'd ask me to if it meant I could look through those books. If she told me to jump off a cliff after the last page was turned, I would. That was my feeling right now. Every blood cell in my body was surging forward, needing to see those pages. I nodded to her desperately.

There was no ignoring the heavy sadness in her eyes, however. They almost made me want to turn back, but this need...

"Which one did you want to see?" she asked, getting up and putting the orange juice on the coffee table. The juice. I took the juice in my shaking hand and put it on the floor. There was no way that juice would get knocked over and...not like when Ruiz knocked over that tea in my apartment. Cha Cha didn't notice. She peered up and extended her arms and like magic she started to bring down those books with ease.

Spread on the table, one book on top of the other haphazardly, I couldn't breathe again. Which one should I look at first? The possibilities...all of this luxury of choice now in front of my eyes, at my hands' touch, after so long wondering. Too long wondering.

But Cha Cha answered for me, and I knew she'd made the right choice. The one I wanted to see the most.

This book was the thinnest. 1988-1991.

"I want to show you who Kitty was," Cha Cha said.

Was?

Like she was opening the gates to heaven, the thick hardcover of the leather bound photo album opened with snapping sounds, like it hadn't been opened in years. And on those pages.

My hand went over my mouth.

Her red polished fingernail tapped on the tight plastic, indicating. There was a man with long, curly, gingery blond hair that was to his mid-neck. He was overweight and cherry cheeked like Santa Claus. But he wasn't smiling. Next to him in the photo was an extremely skinny man. His cheekbones protruded too much, his eyes looked sunken in and underneath were bags that led to wrinkles. He wasn't smiling either. His hair looked stringy, sick. They sat on the floor together against the wall, the too skinny man staring at the camera like... I don't know what. My heart sank.

"This is 1991," Cha Cha said, swallowing immediately after. She paused. Her hand went over my other hand, which was gripping my knee too hard. I hadn't realized it was. "Are you okay?"

I only nodded. I was shocked.

She went on. Her finger moved over the photograph slowly, then came down on the redhead. "That's Kitty. Or...Kerry McLauren...his real name. We knew him as Kitty, because his stage name was Kitty Bomb. He had this really thick Brooklyn accent. He was from Brooklyn. So proud. He and Sasha were thick because of that. But...you know..." She swallowed again. It sounded like she needed a drink.

She paused. My eyes fell on another photo. This one showed the skinny man again in a hospital bed, but with long, luxurious, wavy brown hair instead of the stringy mess. But those eyes. Those same, staring eyes.

Cha Cha sighed and I heard her sniffle hard. I didn't expect this, so my eyes broke off from the photograph that took my soul and wouldn't let it go.

"You know," she squeaked. She cleared her throat and leaned over a little on herself. "I'm really sorry...really sorry..."

My eyebrows creased. What was she talking about?

"I'm really sorry...to God, because...I'm sorry, because I wasn't there. I can't look at this book."

And all of a sudden she was up. As she left, her foot hit the glass with the orange juice and it spilled on the carpet. I watched it soak in, trying to figure out this confusion I felt. A door slammed and I jumped. It brought me back to my senses, or what little senses I was aware of right now. I found myself drifting to the only closed door in the hallway. The bathroom door. My hand went to the doorknob and turned it, and it gave.

Inside, Cha Cha was sat on the floor, hugging her knees to herself. Tears were going down her face, but not many. I decided to sit with her. It felt surreal, because we'd been just looking at a photo like this.

She wrapped her arms around me and rubbed her face into my shoulder. It reminded me of something. A familiar warmth flooded into my heart, my brain. This warmth. This is what it was. It reminded me...of when she was small. 1967. 1968.

Her voice came muffled into my shoulder.

"About Kitty...did I tell you..."

I wrapped my arms around her, too. She sniffled. I felt her warm tears.

"Did I tell you..."

I kissed the top of her head, let her speak.

"Did I...say...that Kitty committed suicide...when Paulie died?"

Oh, god...

"Did I tell you...that I didn't know them...in 1991?"

I let my lips stay in her hair, trying to comfort her. What was she saying? What was this information? My brain couldn't comprehend it. There was too much I didn't know. This information...it didn't make sense, because it was incomplete...

"I didn't know them...Paulie... I tried to help Paulie...but he didn't want... And I left him...them...and he... He got AIDS and Kitty decided to...if I had been there... I can't look at that book...those books... Georgina...he's staring at me...asking me why..."

I didn't know what to say. All I knew was there was one thing she was saying that clicked. Only one thing that was making sense to my brain right now.

If I had been there.

I knew that phrase. Because I thought about it all the time. If I had been there maybe things could have been different. What would things have been like if I had been there?

And now I had images to what had happened. What Ruiz had said. If I had been there.

I could only press Cha Cha to me as she silently wept her pain into me, her regrets, and I understood those regrets completely.