Sabina lifted one of his hands and kissed
it. “It’s a little true. You do want to save and protect. You are a
hero, I think. A little. And I think I would be dead now, if you
hadn’t been so persistent in helping me. Chasing me down the beach
even to help me. But I know you love me for more than that. And I
know I love you for more than that, too.”
Carlo leaned in and kissed her. Just as the
kiss was becoming something more, the staircase creaked. They
pulled apart. The creak was too heavy to have been Trey, and there
was no sound of Elsa coming along, so they knew they’d see Carlo
Sr.
And they did. Standing in the entry to the
living room in a pair of white boxers and a white V-neck t-shirt,
his short hair wild from sleep, Carlo St. came into the living
room.
“John called. Joe’s awake. He’s awake. I
gotta get back there.”
Carlo tied Trey’s little Converse sneaker
and gave his foot a pat. “Okay, pal. Let’s go down for breakfast.
Big day today.”
Trey hopped off the bed and grabbed his new
little shark backpack. Today was his first day of preschool. He was
getting a late start; it was the middle of September and almost
three weeks since the beginning of the school year, but it had
taken him most of that time to come back out of his post-traumatic
shell. Those weeks, when his beautiful, boisterous boy had been
withdrawn and indolent, had scared Carlo badly. Jenny had managed
to do a lot of damage in less than a single day.
Actually, no. She’d started doing her damage
to Trey the day she’d abandoned him. But she could do no more.
He’d been better, more like himself, for the
past few days, and after talking with Bina, Carlo had decided that
he’d do well, finish coming back, if he could play with kids his
own age. He was ready for school—Natalie had done lots of
enrichment as his nanny, so he knew his shapes and colors. He could
count and write the numbers to twenty and read a few words. He knew
his address. He could write his name, too.
Well, he could write ‘Trey.’ ‘Carlo
Francesco Pagano III’? Not yet.
“I want waffles. I’m gonna ask Misby for
waffles.”
Carlo stopped in the midst of dropping
Trey’s pajamas into his hamper. “Mizbee?”
“Yeah. It’s like Ms. Bina and Mommy bunched
up. She’s like my mommy now but she’s not my mommy.” His little
brow wrinkled deeply for a flash, then smoothed. “I like her
better. Misby is always nice.”
He was struggling with the straps of his
pack and dropped that bombshell in an almost distracted way,
without even looking at his father. Carlo kept his voice level as
he answered, “She is always nice, isn’t she?” He helped him settle
the straps over his shoulders.
“Yeah. She gave me shark socks that chomp my
feet and she makes me breakfast and she doesn’t ever yell or hit
and she smells good and we went to the ‘quarium and she plays cars
and makes car sounds.” He stopped and considered. “They’re not good
sounds, but I’m showing her to be better.”
His mind reeling, Carlo took his son’s hand,
and they went downstairs, where ‘Misby’ was waiting.
Bina had moved in. She hadn’t given up her
little apartment yet, but she had not spent a night in it since
Trey’s birthday. Carlo and Trey both needed her too much. They all
needed her too much. With Joey still in the hospital, facing a long
recovery even after he was released, and with Trey having been so
traumatized, she was indispensible.
She was still working at Sea Weaver, which
she enjoyed, but, with Andi’s blessing, she took Trey with her when
there was no one else to watch him. He talked often, and with glee,
about his ‘job’ at the shop. In fact, it had been the first thing
he’d shown enthusiasm for after Jenny. He was becoming something
like a shop mascot, charming all the old ladies. He was right—Bina
had become like a mother to him. More than that.
She had become the woman of this house.
He and Trey came into the kitchen now. Elsa
got up from her place against the island and walked to the back
door. Even Elsa had begun to follow Bina around, though she still
slept every night with Trey and never shirked her nannying duties.
Carlo went to let the dog out as Trey shrugged off his pack and
climbed into his seat.
“What are we having for breakfast this
morning, Mr. Trey?” Carlo smiled at Bina’s sweet voice behind him.
She had mastered breakfast. Other meals were a bit more hit and
miss, but he loved her for trying.
“Waffles, please. You should call me Trey.
Mommies don’t say Mister. And you’re Misby. I decided. Like Mommy
Ms. Bina. I already told Daddy.”
Primed for that by his earlier shock, Carlo
turned to see Bina staring dumbly, her mouth open, at Trey, who was
concentrating on his milk. She turned and met Carlo’s look. He
grinned and winked—they’d talk later, but not in front of the boy,
who was, Carlo thought, changing all their lives without even
noticing.
“Um…Yes, if that’s what you’d like.”
“Yeah. I’m just Trey. Like Daddy says. But
he calls me ‘pal,’ too. Don’t call me ‘pal.’ That’s just for
Daddy.”
“Of course.” She cleared her throat, a
dainty sound. “Waffles, yes?”
“With marple syrup, please.”
“They take longer, a little. Would you like
some fruit first?”
“Um…I would like…a banana please.”
Carlo went over to the island, where there
was a big stoneware bowl full of fruit. Bina stood next to it,
pouring ingredients for waffle batter into a bowl shaped like a
large measuring cup. He stood right behind her and leaned over for
the bananas, and he took the opportunity to kiss her bare
shoulder—she was wearing a pretty, sleeveless top—and whisper in
her ear, “Remember that thing you were keeping safe for later?
Would you consider taking it out and looking it over again?” He
hoped she would remember that conversation, but so much had
happened since the night of Trey’s birthday, he would understand if
she didn’t.
She turned her head to his. With a little,
hesitant smile, she said, “This is a surprising morning. But yes, I
think I would like to look at that again.”
“I love you, Misby.” He kissed her shoulder
again and took a banana to his precious, precocious child.
~oOo~
Bina was taking Trey to preschool and then
opening the yarn shop for Andi. Carlo and Peter had a lunch meeting
at Connelly—they’d won that job, and Carlo was already, in the
short time since they’d gotten the news, fighting the desire to let
the work consume him. This was huge. This was why he’d become an
architect. He was making something unique, something that would
change the Providence skyline. And he was doing it for a man with
vision, to whom Carlo could speak and be understood. This job would
make his career. And Peter’s. It would make their little company
something to notice.
Bina and Trey would keep him grounded, he
knew, but still, some part of his brain was constantly, constantly
seeing, making the new building.
Peter and Carlo were doing okay. The
friendship wasn’t quite as it had been, but the business stuff had
worked itself out. Carlo thought that his working much more often
away from the office helped with that. Peter had free rein to do
his thing, schmooze away, without his scowling presence. And when
the meeting or the lunch was important enough to need the ‘talent,’
then Carlo went in.
They had yet to need to attend an evening
function, but one was coming up. Connelly was planning a big do for
the announcement of the winner and reveal of the preliminary
design.
Bina had paled at the news, and upon seeing
her face, Carlo, disappointed though he was, told her she needn’t
attend. But she’d said that was silly, of course she’d go with him.
She would be proud to be with him. He loved her for that, as well
as for a million other reasons. They both knew that cameras would
flash like crazy to see James Auberon’s widow on the arm of Carlo
Pagano Jr., of
those
Paganos. Rumors had been flying for
months, since Auberon’s ‘shocking and untimely’ death. So it would
be a test of them both. But it was also the first time he’d ever
had even a glimmer of interest or excitement about a formal event.
Leading Sabina on his arm? That was worth wearing the monkey suit
and fake-smiling through a night.
Carlo stopped at the hospital on the way out
of town. Joey was…different, now. Though Jenny’s bullet had hit the
right side of his chest and gone wide of his heart, and missed his
lungs, too, it had sliced through a major artery. By the time
they’d gotten him to St. Gabriel’s, he’d lost a great deal of blood
and gone into shock. Function in his lungs and brain had been
compromised, and apparently there was a hard limit to how much of
that lost function he’d recover.
His injuries seemed to be manifesting in a
chronic shortness of breath and in drastically slower speech. More
than simply slow—it seemed not always to occur to him that he
should
speak—like it took him an extra beat or two to
recognize that someone had asked him a question, and then another
beat or two to formulate a response, which itself came in a slow,
sometimes stuttering delivery, as if he were searching for every
word. They’d unwired his jaw the night of the shooting—he’d been
due to have it done a couple of days after that, anyway, and they’d
needed to intubate him. He’d been much quieter than normal for
weeks before that, but this, the way he used words now, was
disconcerting, to say the least.
His doctors suggested that he probably would
regain some breath as he healed, but that his speech patterns would
likely always be different in this way. They called it ‘aphasia.’
His intelligence hadn’t been affected, but the connections in his
brain that helped him put thought into word were now faulty. There
was some therapy they were doing, but no one had held out hope that
Joey would ever be what he’d been.
It was difficult for Carlo to think about
Joey—hyper, goofy Joey, always quick with a joke or an asinine
comment, always on the make in one way or another—as the same
person as this slow, quiet, gasping young man with his forehead
always creased.
Jenny had done this, too. And so had Carlo
himself. He knew blame rested on Jenny’s dead shoulders, but he
felt the weight of guilt and regret on his. He had been hard on
Joey in the weeks before the shooting. He had thought too little of
his baby brother.
He’d be discharged soon, and he was coming
back to the house. It would be months before he could live on his
own. He wasn’t so disabled that he couldn’t take care of himself
eventually, but he was weak and uncertain. Carlo was going to talk
to Natalie after the Connelly meeting, and see if she would
consider coming to Quiet Cove to work for the family—or, if not
(and he didn’t think she would; she was a nanny, not a nurse), if
she could recommend someone who could help him.
Now, he walked into Joey’s private room. His
brother was sitting up in bed, watching a game show on the
television bolted to the wall. He had a cannula in his nose and
also a mask draped over the top of the bed, lying on the pillow
next to his head. That meant he was having a rough day.
“Hey, Joe. How’s it going?”
Joey turned his head slowly. “H-h-h-h.” He
took a breath. “Hey.”
“Hey. I brought you some
guanti
. And
Bina made you shark socks like Trey’s. Special order from the man
himself.”
Joey blinked. “Shark…socks?”
Carlo lifted them out of the paper sack he’d
brought in with him. “Yeah. See? Like the ones she gave Trey for
his birthday. He wanted you to have a pair, too.”
He grinned, and Carlo was glad to see it.
“How’s…Trey? Okay?”
“He’s good, man. He’s really good. Starting
preschool today. Would you like me to bring him by again?”
Joey watched Carlo as he sat on the chair at
his bedside. Then he shook his head. “No. Bad place…f-for him
here.”
“Okay. Well, you’ll be home soon, and then
you two can hang out like before.”
Turning back to the television, Joey didn’t
say anything for a long time. The game show was
Let’s Make a
Deal
; Carlo had no idea that was still on television. Some
black guy Carlo almost recognized was the host now, apparently.
Knowing that talking was hard for Joey,
Carlo sat back and watched the inane show in silence. Then, without
turning from the television, Joey said, “Sorry…s-so sorry.”
Carlo sat forward and gripped his baby
brother’s forearm. “Joe. You gotta stop with that. I know I was
shitty to you since the thing with the money, and
I’m
sorry
about that. But you did everything you could that day. You took a
bullet to try to protect Bina and Trey. And Trey’s safe. He’s home
and he’s good.” He squeezed; there was less mass to Joey than there
had been. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Every…thing’s…f-f-fucked.”
“It’s gonna be okay, Joe.”
“No. Wasn’t…okay…bef-f-fore this.”
Carlo didn’t know what to say to that. So,
feeling inadequate, he gave his brother’s arm another squeeze and
they watched silly people in silly costumes do silly things for
cash and prizes.