“Look, Uncle Joey! It’s a starfish that’s
growing a new leg!”
“That’s wicked awesome, bro. What d’you want
to do today?”
“Daddy said I could fly my shark. Right, Ms.
Bina?”
“That’s right. Why don’t you go get it, and
I’ll clean up the colors.”
Trey jumped down from his chair and trotted
off. Joey called after him, “Get your swim stuff, too, bro. We can
look for starfish after lunch.”
They heard a “Yay!” from the staircase as
Trey clomped up to his room.
Sabina put the crayons back in the big box
and gathered up the coloring books. “How are you, Joey?”
“I’m good. All good. You’re around a lot
now—did you move in?”
There was a bit of an edge to his question,
she thought, and she stopped and looked at him. “No.”
He nodded and leaned on the island. “It’s
cool and all. Carlo’s just been…I don’t know…” He shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
There were thickets between Carlo and Joey
that she didn’t understand, so she elected not to pursue this
strange non-conversation. Instead, she asked, “Why ‘Three-peat’?
This name you have for Trey. I don’t understand it.”
He laughed—though his closed teeth, the
effect was rather macabre. “He’s Carlo the third, right?
Three-peat—it’s a sports thing. Means three in a row, kinda. Like
one more than a repeat.”
“Oh. That’s cute. Funny.”
Joey shrugged.
Sabina liked Joey—he was funny and sweet,
goofy and young. He had been, anyway, when she’d first gotten to
know the Paganos. Since he’d been hurt—and he really had been badly
beaten—he was more short-tempered and, even, nervous. Carlo had
called him ‘squirrely’ once. She hadn’t asked what that meant. She
assumed it meant ‘like a squirrel,’ but the image hadn’t worked for
her.
He was a little paranoid, though, she
thought. Since his father and his oldest brother were treating him
with cold shoulders, she assumed that was why he was
uncomfortable.
Maybe this favor he was doing for Carlo,
spending the day with her and Trey, would help to close the
distance between them. She knew that Carlo had helped raise Joey,
and she didn’t like to see them unhappy with each other.
Trey came down with his flying shark—still
in the box—his swim trunks on over his shorts and his goggles on
his head. Laughing, Sabina got him sorted out and packed the huge
tote from the hall closet with beach supplies, including her own
suit and a couple of towels.
Then they packed off into Joey’s Jeep
Wrangler—top and sides open on this bright sunny day—to Quiet Cove
Park.
~oOo~
Quiet Cove Park was a perfectly picturesque
oasis in this quaint New England town. Meandering, tree-lined
walking lanes all converged on an old-fashioned bandstand in the
center of the park, where free concerts happened every Saturday
during the summer. A duck pond and a picnic area under the mottled
shade of stately trees completed the Rodgers and Hammerstein
effect. The large, modern playground at one end seemed an
anachronism.
Joey and Trey flew the big shark for about
twenty minutes, but then the breeze picked up. After the second
time the shark landed in one of those stately trees and Joey had to
climb up and rescue it, they packed it up. Trey wanted to play at
the playground, so they walked over and sat together on a bench,
keeping an eye on him as he climbed and slid and spun.
They didn’t speak much. Joey scanned the
park again and again, almost like he was on a schedule—one scan of
the perimeter every three minutes, perhaps. Sabina looked around,
too, paying attention to every blonde woman she saw. It was a
lovely, late-summer day, and the park was crowded with lingering
summer people. There were a lot of blonde women.
Finally, after they’d been sitting for more
than half an hour, and Sabina had started thinking about suggesting
that they head off for lunch, Joey sat back on the bench, his
posture relaxing.
“Can I ask you something, Sabina?” Though
Carlo and Trey called her Bina, she preferred everyone else to call
her by her full name.
“Of course.” She glanced his way and then
turned most of her attention back to Trey, who had made friends
with a little boy who’d brought a dump truck to the park.
“You know what really happened to Auberon,
right?”
Stunned, she swiveled her head to gape at
him. “What?”
“I mean, you know. I know you know. But do
you
know
?”
“Joey, we shouldn’t speak of this.”
“There’s nobody around to hear. I was just
wondering how much you knew.”
“I know he can’t hurt me anymore. He can’t
anymore keep me from being happy. That’s what I know.”
She began to stand up; she wanted to collect
Trey and take him to lunch. She hoped that Trey would keep Joey
from pursuing this terrible topic. But as she came off the bench,
Joey grabbed her arm—hard—and pulled her down.
“I was there. I saw. I did some of it.” He
laughed through his wired teeth, and that macabre vision was all
the grimmer now. “Uncle Ben was
really
pissed off at
him.”
“Joey, please. This isn’t right.” She pulled
her arm, but he wouldn’t let her go, and Sabina began to feel fear.
Real fear, like she hadn’t felt since Carmen had helped her off the
beach that night that seemed so long ago. “Joey, please.”
He let up. “I just want to know how you get
it right in your head. So it doesn’t keep showing up in there. I
keep seeing it.”
“I don’t know. Joey, I’m sorry. I don’t
know.”
“Do you feel guilty at all? For your
part?”
“No.” Her fear took on a thread of anger at
this last question, and she answered it immediately and firmly. “I
don’t think of it like that at all. I don’t know what was my part
in it, but I don’t mind having one. I am glad. I am happy. I have
no guilt
at all
.”
“I do. He screamed. He screamed a lot. I
hear it at night. A human being shouldn’t make sounds like
that.”
Sabina sat quietly and tried to sort her
head into some kind of order. She had not expected this discussion,
and it had not occurred to her that Joey would have been a part of
what had been done to Auberon. She hadn’t bothered herself about
the details of that event at all. He was dead; she was free. End of
story. But now she was being confronted by the idea that she bore
some responsibility for a horror. Whether she agreed or not, the
thought itself spun her thoughts like a pinwheel.
“Joey, I don’t understand—why talk to me of
this? I didn’t ask you to be there. I didn’t ask you to take part.
I don’t know how I help you now.”
He shrugged and looked down at his hands. “I
don’t know. I guess because you’re the one he hurt. You’re why we
did what we did. I thought maybe you could make me see it right.
But maybe there’s no right way to see it. I know he was a bad guy.
I mean, I saw a little of what he did to you—the way you looked
after. But I didn’t know him.”
“I’m sorry, Joey. I wish I knew what I
should say.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t matter. We should get the kid
and take him to lunch.”
~oOo~
They took Trey for burgers and then went to
the beach, camping out on Carmen’s stretch of sand. For the boy’s
sake, Sabina and Joey were lighthearted, keeping smiles on their
faces and engaging Trey in conversation. Joey took Trey for a walk
to some of the pools among the rocks, looking for starfish. Sabina
sat on the sand and let her mind try to find its way through the
snarl Joey had made.
She had no guilt—not for Auberon. Though
yes, he was dead because she had told Carlo about her plight,
because he and his family had helped her, she felt no guilt at all
for her part in Auberon’s death. She was glad of it. He deserved to
die. Her life was reclaimed because his had been ended. She was
glad.
She did feel some remorse, though, or
something like it, for Joey. She had never bothered herself about
the details of the death. She’d had a vague thought to hope it had
been painful and traumatic—a hope that had apparently been
realized. But she had not thought about the effect it might have on
the people who’d done it. She hadn’t expected it to have an effect
like this at all.
Now that she was truly thinking about it,
she realized that she hadn’t even bothered to worry if anyone would
be arrested for helping her. Uncle Ben had said he would take care
of it, and she had put all her trust in that without considering
consequences ever.
She wondered what that said about her. She
didn’t know. But she was worried about Joey.
She had to speak to Carlo.
~oOo~
When Joey walked Trey back, they were
without starfish, and Trey was worn out and getting cross.
Sabina picked him up. “How would you like to
go back to the house and watch a movie with an apple juice
pop?”
Trey nodded and dropped his head to her
shoulder. Joey picked up all their gear, and they walked to his
Jeep, parked out on Carmen’s lonely little lane that led only to
her house.
“Hold up.” There was another car, a silver
Chevrolet sedan, parked in front of his Jeep. Joey dropped the tote
and reached around to his back. Sabina saw him pulling at the
waistband of his board shorts as though he’d instinctively expected
to find something there. “Fuck!”
The front passenger door of the Chevy
opened, and a slim, pretty, blonde got out of the car.
She had a gun.
Trey, his head still lolling on her
shoulder, muttered, “That’s Mommy.” Joey stepped in front of
Sabina.
“Jenny, what the fuck? Don’t be stupid.”
Joey blocked Sabina’s view of the woman, but
she heard her laugh. There was a sharp, terrifying blade of mania
in the sound. “I think the unarmed guy putting himself between my
gun and the thing I want is the stupid one, don’t you? And when did
you get all heroic, anyway? Move, Joey. That’s my kid. All I wanted
was to see him again. But now I’m taking him.”
“You’re a good girl, Jen. This isn’t like
you. You don’t want to do this.” He moved then, sidling carefully,
his hand reaching back to wrap around Sabina’s arm—he was trying to
jockey them to the shelter of his Jeep.
“Stop, Joey. Just step aside.”
“You’re gonna have to shoot me to get me out
of your way, Jen—”
She shot him.
The thunderous impact knocked him backwards
and he dropped, unconscious. Trey screamed. Sabina clutched him
close and curled herself around him as much as she could.
“I’m guessing you’re the ‘woman’ Luca was
talking about. Carlo’s. Fine. Have him. But I’m taking my son.”
Unable to make any thoughts, unable to do
anything but try to protect, Sabina shook her head and held Trey,
who was sobbing and squeezing her neck hysterically.
She hazarded a glance at the woman. The gun
shook in her hands, but her expression was terrifying—her eyes were
alight with manic madness.
“I’ll shoot him, too. I will. I’ll shoot you
right through him. Carlo thinks he can keep me away. That he can
scare me away. Well, I can take him away. One way or another, I’m
taking him away.”
“Please. Please don’t hurt him. He’s your
son. You can’t hurt him.” Her words with thick with tears, but she
had shed none yet.
“He’s mine. Right. So give him over and I
won’t hurt him. I’ll love him. He’s for
me
to love.”
Sabina couldn’t do it. Trey was suffocating
her with his hold around her neck. He was terrified. She could not
simply hand him over to a woman so insane that she was threatening
to kill what she loved, just to keep him from being loved by anyone
else.
“Jenny, what are you doing? Fuck!” A male
voice—Sabina was shocked. She turned her head a little and saw a
man standing at the other side of the Chevy. He must have been
driving. “Just get the kid and let’s go. You shot the guy, so we
have to
go
!”
Jenny walked up to within two feet of Sabina
and Trey. “Hey, Roo. Did you miss Mommy?”
Trey only wailed and held Sabina more
tightly.
A darkness went through Jenny’s eyes at
Trey’s rejection. Then she put the muzzle of the gun on Trey’s
head. “I will shoot you both dead. Hand. Him. Over.”
Sobbing freely now, Sabina kissed Trey’s
head over and over. “You’re going to be okay, Mr. Trey. Your daddy
loves you. I love you. Your mommy loves you. You’re going to be
okay.” She pried Trey loose.
Trey bawled and tried to hold on. “Ms. Bina!
Ms. Bina!”
Jenny snatched him up and ran back to the
car.
Design meetings with prospective clients
were among the things Carlo hated most about his job, but also
among the things he loved the best. Talking about a building he had
visualized, making somebody else see it, making them love it like
he did, he could do that all day.