Unforgotten (23 page)

It wouldn’t last. He loved them all, she knew. But he’d been born with a restless spirit, as though there was too much of him for any one place. As a child he’d chafed against his boundaries, resisting Doria’s grasp until she afforded him more freedom than any of the others. He found his way into circles of every age, every background. But even that wasn’t enough. Getting his motorcycle had given him wings he hadn’t hesitated to use. No hopping around the nest, testing the wind. He had leaped headfirst, not caring if he fell. And then the world was his limit. Maybe someday he’d find a way out of that.

Sofie peeked in, as unobtrusive as a shadow. “Lance is cooking, Nonna. Want Pop to come up for you?”

Antonia shook her head. Not like this, bent and mute, words jumbled in her mind, her mouth twisted and drooling. One person at a time, she could stand, but not a blur of conversations and too many heartfelt wishes and sympathetic glances. Uffa! Sofie should understand that; she who avoided the limelight but knew well enough the weight of sympathy and judgment.

With what passed for a smile, Antonia waved her out, then tried to rise up in the bed, pushing slowly with her functioning arm. She didn’t have to be there to picture the scene. All the men but Lance would congregate and wait to be served. Anna and Dina would beg off helping with a litany of ailments, plunking themselves down to chat. Celestina would be manipulating the groupings while Doria gathered and nurtured her brood, both trying to control the uncontrollable.

It hit her hard. The sound of gunshots. Papa dying alone while Nonno collapsed in her arms. The fear and fury and helplessness.
“Take Nonno and hide if trouble comes.”
As though there was any escape when even her own mind turned on her, becoming a bramble entrapping her speech, her thoughts, the basic motions of life, yet leaving bare all the things she had hidden… .

Was there something I could have done, more I could have said? The nightmare images plague me even in the daylight now. The moment my thoughts drift, I am seized by the sudden smell of blood, the thought of Papa. “Marco, did you see him, see Papa? Do you know—”

“Yes, Antonia.” He doesn’t appreciate the reminder. “I tried to get to him, but I was too late.” The car rumbles over the rough road.

My chest clenches and I can’t breathe. I remember the shots and knowing it was Papa killed and Nonno clutching my hand, Nonno falling. But what if … “What if Nonno wasn’t dead? What if I buried him alive?”

Marco swerves the car to the side and stops. He pulls me into his arms and holds me tight. “They’re gone, cara. And it’s not your fault.”

Not my fault. Not my fault
.

She jolted back to reality with tears streaming from her eyes. Then whose fault was it?

————

Seeing the glazed look in Rese’s eyes, Lance left the cleanup for Momma and anyone else who would pitch in. He had to get through another twenty-four hours at least before he could get Nonna what she needed from the bank and take Rese home. Hopefully there’d be no lasting trauma—for either of them. Having demonstrated his affection in the hall for all suspecting minds, they were in for an assault, but he didn’t care because it had felt so good to crash through the boundaries they had both established.

Momma, however, was probably planning their first baby shower. As if she didn’t have enough grandkids. But he had yet to produce his share, and in her mind time was running out. She might think Rese cold and unfeeling, but if she was his choice then they should get married and move in where she could oversee everything.

She was mistaken on both counts. He was not staying, and Rese was anything but unfeeling. It was her tenderness that made her work so hard to be tough. She just ran deeper than most people wanted to look. And he loved that about her.

“Come on.” He ushered her out the door as Rico passed by with Star. They had eaten and mingled but now were headed somewhere on foot without drums or costumes. Lance tapped Rico’s arm. “Where are you going?”

“The park.”

“Reading Shakespeare?”

“Listening to the birds sing, man.”

Star giggled.

Lance shook his head. “You’re whacked.”

“Hey.” Rico pressed a hand to his chest. “I can appreciate the little things.”

Lance laughed. “Hoops?” Something hard and physical sounded better than birds.

“Have to swipe a ball.”

“Swiping isn’t nice.” Lance motioned Rese ahead of him past a tourist couple going the other way. “We’ll let the kids play too.”

“Ah man.” Rico hung his head back.

They’d have no trouble finding takers, Lance knew. He played a fair shortstop, tough handball, and wicked pool, but neither he nor Rico had the size or the spring for hoops. And since the makeup of the neighborhood had shifted to giants more along Chaz’s line, the kids would eat them alive.

The game in progress was not maxed out, and their overture was accepted as he’s expected. Tall, rangy Lawon Johnson gave Rese the eye and said, “You playin’?”

She shrugged. “Why not?”

Hands on his hips, Lance stared when she joined the other team. He hadn’t thought to ask Rese, but he didn’t have time to sweat it. The ball had gotten loose in a scramble. He snagged it, passed low to Rico on the bounce, but Lawon got between, spun, and shot.

Ignacio took the rebound and sent it back to Luis. As Lance ran, he glimpsed Star, who had slipped off when they joined teams and was at the playground, leading a hopping, twirling retinue of ragamuffins, fingers splayed, heads thrown back. The Pied Piper of illusion.

“Lance.” Rico passed him the ball.

He caught it hard in the chest, then dribbled in and made the shot. He hooked fingers with Rico, but Rese had taken the rebound and sent a sharp bouncing pass to Lawon who dribbled down, then sent it back to her when Ignacio blocked him. It was over before he and Rico reached the other end of the court.

Lance panted in close. “I didn’t know you could shoot.” He blocked her path as Rico and Ignacio raced the ball down, then missed the rim shot.

“You didn’t ask.”

“We should put a hoop on the workshop.”

She half smiled. “Are you distracting me?”

He took her waist in his hands. “Would I do that?”

She snorted, ducked around him, and rushed down for a pass. Rese Barrett played basketball. There were probably a thousand other things he didn’t know. It felt strange, when most of the people he knew were like the back of his hand, Rico a second skin.

From the day they’d met, when Rico’s lunch got kicked into the gutter and Lance shared the meatball sub in his own, Rico had stuck closer than a tick. Lance saw right off that he didn’t stand a chance, even in his own family. Seven kids fighting over what little they had of food, belongings—and affection.

It was pathetic how Rico had worked for his father’s attention— the biggest thing he and Lance had in common. But two years after they met, Juan went to prison for knifing an opposing gang member. He did six years, and when he came back Rico didn’t need his attention anymore, which was good since Juan was locked up again seven months later.

Lance took the pass from Rico and turned into Lawon’s chest. He ducked under the armpit and bounced the ball at Ignacio, but Rese intercepted, took off down the court, and made the lay-up. Rico couldn’t stop her. He gave it all he had, but in spite of quick reflexes and coordination, basketball would never be his game.

Rese high-fived Lawon, and Lance reconsidered the hoop on the workshop. Wouldn’t match the d
cor. They went back and forth, and when Rese got too confident, Rico stole the ball, heaved it at Lance, and he swooshed. They grinned like fed tigers.

One of the younger kids complained that Rese and Lawon were hogging the action, and Lance took the moment to catch his breath.

“Your woman’s hot,” Ignacio said, beside him.

“Yeah, and don’t even think of moving in on her.”

The kid grinned.

Four hours at the park—playing ball, watching Star’s impromptu skit with a handful of future thespians, talking with Chaz and his friends who joined them—took his mind off the safe deposit box and what it might hold. It almost distracted him from Nonna’s relapse and the stress and confusion she must be experiencing.

He didn’t want to explain that she had to come with him to the bank. If she wouldn’t come down for breakfast, she must not want to be seen in public until she had recovered, and that wasn’t likely anytime soon.

Elliot Dobbs had assured him there was no way into the box without her, not without a court order that might be granted only by proving her incompetent. No way. Nonna was perfectly competent, even if she couldn’t voice things correctly. She knew what she meant by those words, even if others didn’t. But he had no control over other people’s reactions. It could be humiliating and aggravating—exactly what she didn’t need.

A surge of protectiveness overwhelmed him. Why hadn’t she let it go? He had released it all. Why did God keep returning what he surrendered?

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

I
n the bedroom, surrounded by Star’s frog sculptures that all seemed to be smirking, Rese frowned. “It’s not funny. It was awful.” Star had gone out with Rico after the park, and Rese had hoped to join them, but she and Lance were invited to dinner with Monica’s family. While the numbers were fewer, the noise didn’t reflect it, Monica alone reaching decibels that threatened the eardrum when she shouted her kids down. And then there was the scrutiny, the delving and drilling. Rese felt like a tooth, hollowed and de-nerved and stuffed to insensitivity. “I don’t pry into other people’s lives; why do they have to know every detail of mine?”

Star pulled a clip from her hair and let it fall down around her shoulders. “You haven’t learned the art of deflection.”

Rese shook her head. Lance had been right when he warned her that the minute his sister suspected a romantic interest she would give them no peace. Bobby hadn’t been much better with his ribbing Lance, though he’d toned it down in front of the children …
all
the children. They couldn’t all be theirs. She suspected they’d picked up a few of Lucy’s and maybe some off the street as well.

Rese pressed her fingers to her forehead. She enjoyed them individually, especially Nicky, whose angelic face hid a naughty streak that reminded her of Lance. But gathered at the table with Bobby’s pontifications, Monica’s staccato questions—answers interrupted midsentence by admonitions to the kids—and the kids’ constant arguing, she had almost craved a cell in an asylum.

“ ‘Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.’ ”

Rese frowned. She did not want that message again, especially from Star. Why would she need more adversity? She groaned. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

“Cosmic convergence.” Star threaded her fingers in and scratched her scalp, then slid them out until the coils sprang free. “It was meant to be, all of us here together for this moment in time.”

“Right.” Rese tugged the comforter back on the bed. “You came to be with Rico. I came to settle business.”

Star giggled. “And Lance?”

“What do you think? It’s his business.” She tossed the pillow up to fluff and set it into place.

“You are so funny.”

“It’s true. All that business in Sonoma, Star—the skeleton, for heaven’s sake. He’s trying to finish what he started, and he wanted me here to discuss our plans with Antonia. It’s just … with Lance nothing goes the way I expect.”

Star spun around and laughed. “Because you don’t know what you expect.”

“I know exactly what I expect. But Lance …” She couldn’t even blame him this time. How could he know Antonia would get so upset, relapse, and need him yet again?

Star fixed her with a piercing blue gaze. “Lance is your other self.”

Rese huffed. “I’m not saying he doesn’t matter to me. Just … that’s not why I’m here.”

Star laughed again. “ ‘Thou art bewitched with the rogue’s company.’ ”

Rese swept Star’s clothes from the floor and folded them into a drawer. “So now that you’re here by cosmic decree, are you going to stay?”

Star looked startled. “I never think that way.” She dropped her head back, the bones of her slender neck forming a delicate ridge. “I am a free bird, sailing the winds of life.”

“Don’t you ever want a plan?”

Her head came up. “We can’t change the forces. I’m just glad they’ve cast us here now.” And the poignant brilliance of her china blue eyes left Rese breathless as Star sprang forward and clasped their hands in a patty-cake position.

“Would you ever have come here with me, Rese? Would you have left that old place at all?”

Rese frowned. Entrenched was probably a fair description. “Maybe.”

Star tossed her head and laughed. “Never. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you in the hall. Planets must have realigned.” She let go and spun, her arms in ballet position. “Don’t you see? This was all meant to be. Rico and me and you and Lance.”

“Star—”

“‘We are bound together, you and I.’ ” Star’s face turned grave, her voice ominous. “ ‘Two sides of the same magic.’ ” Recognizing the lines from
The Last Unicorn,
which Star had devoured as a child, Rese said grimly, “That makes me the harpy.”