Chapter Four

A child cried somewhere in the back rows of the church, and she looked up at him again. He wasn’t looking at her today. It made her sad.

“Gina,” Joel whispered in her ear, “he’s here.” She looked up at a huge broad man, flanked by armed bodyguards. He looked at her and smiled, ever so slightly. Her eyes grew red with rage, “how could he” she cried in her heart, “the demon, the wretched demon”.

Ricardo Russo, Simon’s father, never approved of Gina. He never approved of anything Simon did or said or chose. Nobody knew why. Maybe he was over protective, maybe he thought his son was too young to make the right decision or maybe he was used to always having things done his way.

Ricardo cringed when he learned that Simon had joined the church choir. He was frustrated when he learned that Simon visited the Home for the Aged. He was disappointed when he learned that Simon was teaching the poor at night school. He was furious when he learned that Simon wanted to marry a small town girl, who refused to put her father’s name with her own, ‘just because’ he had left her and her mother to die on the cold streets for a younger woman. He nearly tore his hair off when he learned that Simon kept meeting Gina, against his strict orders, and the flame of their love still burned bright. That flame hurt Ricardo’s eyes, and he decided that something had to be done, to put it out forever.

Gina loved to walk along the river bank. Simon loved to do whatever made Gina happy. Simon managed to catch a very bad cold that winter. They were sitting on the park bench and singing “Rudolf the red nosed reindeer…” She was mimicking his nasal voice. He punched her playfully in her tummy, and she pretended to fall off the bench and roll in pain. But Simon had stopped laughing.