Remorse

“Take me back to that night again,” my lawyer says. 

“Again?”

He’s hoping that something surfaces in one of the retellings that hadn’t shown before. Something that I’d forgotten that might get me out of here.

If you Google “woman stabs boyfriend in Lenape County,” you’ll need to scroll down a lot to find the one or two news articles with my name in it: Angie Amato. Most of the stories that’ll appear on the search page will be about men attacking, and often killing, women because that’s how it goes. 

Men commit 90% of homicides in America. When women do kill it’s either in self-defense or after years of abuse. Yet, here I am, stuck in the Lenape County Women’s Correctional Institution as they slow walk my case through the justice system.

Meanwhile, my ex-boyfriend—the stabee, Vinnie Ferrari—walks. He’s the quote unquote victim even though he threatened to shoot me. No, he doesn’t own a gun. No, nobody else heard the threat. And no, I didn’t tell anybody else about it. So, it’s he said/she said.

Many attorneys won’t take cases that argue that emotional abuse justified the crime. Tough to prove. Comes down to dueling shrink testimony that usually ends in a draw. And the question: Weren’t there other options for dealing with the situation short of murder? My lawyer’s a court-appointed public defender who checks his cell too many damn times. (“Excuse me. I just really need to take this. Do you mind?”)

Does it matter?

He wants me to cop a plea.

“I am innocent!” I insist, which loops us back to the beginning.

“Tell me about that night,” he says. “Again.”

Well, drunk. Both of us, me and Vinnie: drunk. Again. We argue. Again. It’s the “I hate you; I can’t live without you” Angie and Vinnie show. Again. We’re always making up, with the sex so great that we ignore just how rancid everything else about the relationship is. 

I remind my lawyer: “He threatened to shoot me in the head!”

“At the bar, he comes out with this.” He’s flipping pages, checking his notes, looking for inconsistencies. 

Yeah, at McStraggler’s on Gothenburg Boulevard. We’re arguing even before we start downing shots and beer, and everybody knows how alcohol defuses tense situations, right? 

“You need to shut it, Angie!” Vinnie says. “Now!”

I say, “You’re a pathetic little mouse, Vinnie! A cur! A coward! A creep!”

For some reason he takes offense.

Vinnie’s a big guy, a roofer. Mid-40s, dark hair, and nice bod, aside from the drinker’s bump. Ruggedly handsome. Has presence. Looks like his father, who’d been a prosecutor. Vinnie went the blue-collar route partly out of rebellion, and partly because he’d inherited his smarts from his ditzy ex-dancer of a mother. He barely made it out of high school.

Too bad me trying to kill him ended our relationship because we photograph nice. 

Despite the partying, I look ten years younger than my age (43) and punks 20 years younger hit on me. I did that ancestor thing; found out that I’m a mutt who won the genetic lottery. Dark blue-black Italian hair, porcelain Irish skin, intense Nordic blue eyes. Oh, yeah, and a butt and boobs that defy gravity. I still got it, although check back in seven or so years.

I’m a nurse at one of the big hospitals, making about $105,000 gross. Was a nurse. They fired me because of the incident, and the union can’t do a damn thing about it.

That night at McStraggler’s, we don’t raise our voices because the bartender keeps looking over. He’s flagged us before, and he knows the signs. 

Vinnie’s face burns and he clenches his fists.

I smirk in my way, a talent I’d developed young to shoo the horn dogs. 

“What now, Vinnie?” I say. “Gonna hit me? Such a manly man.”

Why this drama?

Because I’d found lovey-dovey text messages on his phone from his second wife. He accuses me of flirting with the ex of one of my girlfriends, something I’d never do in a gazillion years. Even if I wanted to go that low, I barely have time to pee, let alone juggle men.

Vinnie slams his beer mug on the bar, throws down some green, and storms out. Of course, he doesn’t leave enough to cover the whole bill, so I must cough up the difference. Bastard! We both drove there for our usual Friday night rendezvous: Vinnie in his Ford pickup and me in my Camry. 

Even now, in prison, I admit that we’d had some great times together. The not-so-great-times? We got through them, and I thought that there’s no reason why that shouldn’t always be the case. All couples fight, right? We’d figure it out. Eventually.

This is what the local newspaper says happens next. I pull into the driveway as night eases twilight aside, but he’d parked his truck so that my Camry sticks out into the street a little. Either he doesn’t want me on our property, or he’s just too tanked up to execute a proper landing. Either way….

“Nice,” I think. “Just beautiful. So thoughtful of you, bastard.”

I sit in my car for a full two minutes. What now? Should I go in? I don’t know what to expect, and he did threaten me.

When I finally do get out, I am holding the knife, which I keep in my glove compartment. I don’t take the mace and stun gun with me. 

The neighbor’s anti-crime camera catches me.

“A knife,” my lawyer says. “Not the best choice. You’ll be asked why you didn’t use one of the less lethal weapons.”

“I don’t actually know why,” I say.

“Hmm."

“I am innocent!”

“I know that, and you know that. The trick is getting a jury to believe us. But that’s in the future. The trick now is to get Judge Parker to either downgrade the charges, or at least set a lower bail for you.”

Not likely. Judge Reginald Parker doesn’t fancy me at all. When the cops brought me in that night, I’d already pledged that I would never again take any shit from any man, including those who wear black robes. 

I snarked and snapped and perhaps dropped a few F-bombs the judge’s way and next thing you know he charges me with attempted murder and sets the bail at $1 million. Do the math: 10% of $1 million is $100,000, and I don’t know anybody with that kind of scratch.

The lawyer says, “Where’s your filter?”

“I speak my mind.”

“Well stop speaking your mind. This case is hard enough as it is. Your Vinnie….”

“He’s not mine. Not anymore.”

“Mr. Ferrari’s got connections all over the county thanks to his father, the late prosecutor.”

“He’s definitely not his father.”

“You have an unfortunate history when it comes to romantic partners, don’t you, Angie?”

True.

An old uncle years ago said that I’m one of those women who can walk into a room with 10 guys in it; nine good fellas, and one psycho/creep/bum/criminal/you-name-it and I’d go for the critter every time. 

This theory didn’t bother me, coming as it did from a lifelong bachelor who’d never recovered from being dumped by a woman he loved when he’d been a young man. I made some bad choices. So what? We all do. At least I bounced back.

The years blur by, and two divorces and three restraining orders later I realize that my uncle knew that I’d hear about what he’d said and hoped that I’d take it as a warning. Eventually I do.

Then Vinnie comes along. I fall in love. He’s a gentleman, fearless and goodhearted. I go slow for once. My friends like him. My family embraces him. This time it’s the real thing. This time it’ll stick. This time….

Anyway, here’s what happened off-camera the night I stabbed him.

“I’m home asshole!” I yelled, ready for Round 2. When he didn’t answer, I crept to our bedroom. I heard him snoring from the hallway. I peeked in. He laid parallel to the headboard — arms and legs spread out.

I stood over him for a second, then shook his shoulder. He swatted my hand away and kept snoring. I placed the knife on the nightstand, a little embarrassed by having it. After all, I know Vinnie’s just talk. That he wouldn’t shoot me.

The most Vinnie ever laid hands on me was to push me out of the way when he wanted to escape, and he often wanted to escape. So did I. Sometimes it seemed like a race about who could get the hell out of our happy home faster.

Now I say: “You’re lying across the bed! Move! I can’t get in!”

He swats at me again, and this time calls me the C-word.

And that’s all it took. Then it happens. I don’t know why I snapped, and snapped the way I did. He’d called me that before.

This time, though, rage flared in me like the jolt of fear that would ambush me at horror movies when I was a kid. I should have just punched him in the nose or kicked in him the groin.

But no.

I stabbed him. I don’t even remember grabbing the knife, or using it, but I did. I punctured a lung and cut him twice in the side as he yelled and shoved me onto the floor where the alcohol kicked in and gave me the spins. And that’s how he got away.

After he slammed the downstairs door, I called 911, and told them that he threatened to shoot me. But that didn’t hold up. It probably wouldn’t have held up even if Vinnie’s dad hadn’t been a prosecutor.

“It’s hard, I know,” my lawyer says. 

“How would you know?”

He doesn’t get flustered.

“Patience,” he intones.

They let us into the courtyard about an hour each day depending on the weather and security concerns. I’m careful not to go all Anne of Green Gables, swooning at this parceled slice of the outdoors. Some inmates would see that as weakness, and I don’t intend to let my guard down around these she-wolves. 

Yet, feeling the breeze, seeing the sun, and smelling the fragrance of the surrounding woods mellows me out better than any glass of wine or mug of beer on a Friday night. For at least that one hour, toxic thoughts stop deviling me, and just seeing the clouds move along brings comfort.

Of course, clouds also bring rain.

One of my first nights inside, a storm so strong crashed down that I thought it might swallow the prison whole. I wondered if it scrubbed away the trail of Vinnie’s blood leading from our house to the neighbor’s. 

Remorse?

The question flashed before me the next morning, the last dream image before waking. I pushed it aside.

“Didn’t we settle this already?” I thought. I don’t know exactly who “we” is; I’m betting it’s the id and the superego having a debate that I’m overhearing. Of course I feel remorse. I nearly killed another human being. I wanted to kill another human being. Yet the image returned.

Remorse?

I finally figured it out. My remorse comes with strings, excuses. Yes, I feel remorse for what happened but … “he threatened to shoot me” … “we were drunk” … “he cheated on me at least twice that I know of” … “he stole from me” … “he called me the C-word” … “he gave me the silent treatment” … “he yelled at me” … and on and on and on.

I need to get to a place where I unhook remorse from those chains. If I do get to that place, I will reach out to Vinnie. I will try to find him no matter where he is or whatever turn his life may have taken. 

Maybe he will have settled down by then and become the good man I always thought he could be. A good father, and a good husband to another woman. No matter. I will find him, and I will ask him to forgive me. 

Because unless I do that, I will never truly be free.