Most Precious Blood (15 page)

“You're right,” Val said. “I don't understand. You're sitting around in your robe at four in the afternoon because kids used to tease you when you were seven? That's crazy.”

“I'm sitting around in my robe because I want a different set of parents,” Kit replied. “I want a mother who isn't so lost and angry that all she can do is drink. I want a father who loves me more than he loves his boss. I want Pop once in his life to say to Rick, ‘Sorry, but I have plans for Saturday. I'm spending the day with my daughter.' And you know something, I'd take all the rest, cleaning up after Mother, and everyone's attitude at school, all of it, if he'd just say that once, that I'm more important than work.”

“This is all just a huge misunderstanding,” Val said. “It wasn't Daddy that made Jamey change his plans.”

“What do you mean, it wasn't Rick?” Kit asked. “Everything was set until Rick called.”

“But he called for me,” Val said. “I'm the one who asked for Jamey. I'm the one who needs him.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Kit asked.

Val smiled. “Daddy and I had it out yesterday,” she said. “I guess it was a good day for father-daughter confrontations. He told me all about the adoption. It's fine, Kit. I mean I don't exactly come from royalty, but I come from a perfectly okay family. I'm even part Castaladi, if you look hard enough. My father was killed when I was an infant, and my mother didn't have any money, and there were lots of other kids, and Daddy wanted to adopt, so it all just worked out. There's more to the story than that, but those are the important details.”

“Are you okay about it?” Kit asked.

“I'm not sure yet,” Val said. “Mostly I feel relief that all those horrible explanations everyone kept coming up with weren't true. And you're right. There are things about Daddy's business that I haven't wanted to face. I like the idea that he's a respectable businessman. I've never wanted to think of him as anything else, and maybe I'm going to have to. But not this week. This week I've had enough to deal with.”

Kit nodded. “It can wait,” she said. “I guess for you, it'll have to.”

“Daddy and I did our share of screaming yesterday,” Val said. “Malcolm got us started when he drove me home, but I'm glad, because if something hadn't forced the issue, I might never have had the nerve to ask. I kept hoping it would all go away, but I'd remember things, like Shannon O'Roarke, and I was scared. You know how scared I was. And Jamey was no help, but he did keep telling me to ask Daddy, and when I did, I could see Jamey was right. That's why I thought of him, just because he is Daddy's lawyer, and he sees things differently than we do.”

“You thought of him for what?” Kit asked.

“For going with me to Buffalo tomorrow,” Val replied. “That's where she lives. My mother, I mean. The woman who gave birth to me. I'll always think of Mama as my mother, but this other woman lives in Buffalo. Daddy knew right away where she was, and I guess he called her and told her I wanted to go there. He said he would, that he'd take care of all the details, and I don't think he would have called Jamey unless he had. Daddy wanted to go with me, only I said no. I've never said no to him, not about anything serious, and we had a fight over that too, but I won. So then he said I had to go with Bruno, and I knew I'd need someone, but not Bruno. Have you ever had a real conversation with Bruno? You could fall asleep trying. So I thought of Jamey, and the way he listens when you talk to him, and the way he really seems to understand. I've always loved that about him. He never acts like you're a kid.”

“No,” Kit said. “He acts like you're a client.”

“Which is just what I want,” Val said. “I want my lawyer with me. I'm going to meet this strange woman, and frankly all I know about her is she gave birth to me sixteen years ago, and her husband was killed, and both sides of the family are a little better than trash. I don't know what she's going to expect from me. Money, love, regular visits, Mother's Day cards. It scares me, but I know I have to see her. And if Jamey's with me, we can talk about it on the trip back. He'll keep me from going crazy.”

“He's real good at that,” Kit said. “Ask Mother.”

“I'm not Amanda,” Val said. “I wish you'd try to understand.”

“I understand,” Kit replied. “I understand all sorts of things. I understand you didn't even think about me, about what I wanted. No, that isn't it. You didn't even remember I existed. You wanted your Jamey, you snapped your fingers, and Rick provided him for you. It was that simple. And why shouldn't it be? That's how your life's always been. You want something, you just ask Rick for it, and it's yours.”

“That's not true,” Val said. “I never wanted Mama to be sick, and there was nothing Daddy could do about that.”

“But she was a Castaladi,” Kit declared. “If only by marriage. It's the rest of the world you think you own, the way your father owns mine. The way you own me.”

“I don't own you,” Val said. “And Daddy certainly doesn't own Jamey.” She looked away, at the wall where a painting once hung.

“I want you to leave,” Kit said. “I'll be your employee's daughter, but I won't be your friend.”

“That isn't fair,” Val said. “Look, there's got to be a way out of this. I'll tell Daddy I don't want Jamey to come with me. I'll find someone else.”

Kit remained silent.

“Terry,” Val said. “I'll ask Terry to come instead. That's perfect. She's been a nervous wreck all week, and this way she'll know everything's okay between Daddy and her family. Sure she'll cry, but that's okay too. I bet I'll be crying. And with Bruno along, he'll know how to get us on the airplane and find us cabs and all that. Terry's just right. She was Mama's best friend, and she vowed to Mama she'd look after me. I'm sorry I ever thought of Jamey. Terry's much better, and that way you and Jamey can spend tomorrow together the way you wanted.”

“What if Terry doesn't want to go?” Kit asked.

“She'll want to,” Val replied. “If Daddy asks her, she'll want to.”

Kit laughed. “It's that easy for you, isn't it,” she said. “You're still just snapping your fingers.”

“Maybe I am,” Val said. “Maybe you're right about that. But I can't change overnight, Kit. At least give me the weekend to become a completely different person.”

“My mother once told me that once you lose your innocence, you can't ever find it again,” Kit said. “Change or don't change, Val. That's up to you. But don't think you'll find me where I was last week. I'm not there anymore, and I'm never going back.”

Val stood up. “I can't go back either,” she said. “So I wouldn't have been looking for you there.” She grabbed her books and her jacket. “Have a good weekend,” she said. “I'll see myself out.”

“Val,” Kit said, but Val ignored her. Kit had one set of demons to deal with. Val had enough of her own.

Chapter 11

The house, on the outskirts of Buffalo, was small, maybe a quarter the size of the one Val grew up in. She tried to imagine what it had been like, with five young children elbowing for room, but it seemed overcrowded enough with just her, Bruno, Terry, and Carmela Primo inside it. The weather had turned ugly, and there was a raw wind that seemed to cut into the walls. The windows made a disconcerting, rattling sound.

“If you want, I'll lower the storms for you,” Bruno offered.

“That'd be nice,” Carmela replied. “Usually one of the boys does it, but the older they get, the less I can count on them.”

“That's how it is with boys,” Terry said. “I've got a batch of them myself.”

Val looked around at the grownups and wished she had an army of contemporaries to protect her. Bruno began his self-appointed task.

“Would you like something to drink?” Carmela asked Terry. “Coffee maybe?”

Terry shook her head. “I'll just wait in the kitchen,” she said. “You and Val can have your visit.”

“Help yourself if you want something,” Carmela said. “There's plenty of food in there.”

“Thank you,” Terry said.

Val sat down on a chair in the living room. Over the sofa was
The Last Supper
. Above the TV set was a painting of Jesus surrounded by little children. The furniture was covered with an orange-and-rust floral material, and the curtains were a green-and-brown plaid. She wished she could let Amanda loose on the room. Slashing could only improve it.

“You're a pretty girl,” Carmela said. “You look like Charley, take after the Primo side.”

Val nodded, as though she had always known that. She could see no resemblance between herself and Carmela, a heavy-set woman with graying hair and stubby, reddened hands. Her mother had had beautiful hands. She'd gone for manicures weekly before she got sick.

“I'd love a smoke,” Carmela said.

“Go ahead,” Val replied. “It won't bother me.”

“I quit two years ago,” Carmela declared. “The kids were after me to stop for years, and I finally did. My biggest accomplishment, quitting. But I'd sure love a cigarette now.”

“Lots of people have trouble quitting,” Val said. “Bob, that's Terry's husband, he must have tried quitting a dozen times. Daddy used to smoke, but he stopped when Mama got sick.” She hadn't known whether she should say Daddy and Mama in front of Carmela, but she was too nervous to stop herself.

“It took me a couple of times too,” Carmela said. “The kids, especially Marcie, were always leaving propaganda around the house. Things they'd get at school saying how bad smoking is for you. When they saw I wasn't reading it, they started reading it out loud to me. I'd be doing the dishes, and all of a sudden I'd hear this anti-smoking sermon. I quit when a friend of mine came down with lung cancer. I think it takes something like that to make you believe what cigarettes really do. My friend Marie. We went to school together, started smoking around the same time. I figured if it could happen to her, it could happen to me, so I quit. She died last winter.”

“I'm sorry,” Val said.

“Your mother died of cancer too, right?” Carmela replied. “What was it, lung?”

“I'm not sure,” Val admitted. “Nobody ever really told me. She was sick for a very long time, I know that, and she had all kinds of treatments and surgery, but nothing seemed to work.”

“That's a rough break,” Carmela said. “Losing your mother when you're young like that. It was hard on my kids when their father died, and a father is nothing like a mother. At least Charley wasn't. It wasn't that he didn't love the kids. But he wasn't one for diapering or making Kool-Aid. I look at TV, and there are all these young fathers on, doing that sort of thing for their kids, and I try to picture Charley, and I just laugh. So how're your grades? You like that high school you go to?”

“It's fine,” Val said. “I've been going there since kindergarten. My grades are all right.”

“I always said Charley had a brain if he would only apply himself,” Carmela declared. “But he wasn't a book kind of a person. Neither am I. I never read, except the magazines. I must read two or three magazines a month, plus the ones at the beauty parlor. I like the papers you can buy at the check-out lines. They're the only ones that tell you what's really happening with the stars. I pick them up sometimes. You like to read?”

“I read a lot when Mama was sick,” Val replied. “We had to keep things pretty quiet, so reading was a good thing to do. I haven't done that much reading since then though. I guess I associate it with sickness.”

“I've never been sick a day in my life,” Carmela said. “Six times I gave birth, and all six times I was on my feet the next day. Of course with a lot of kids, you don't have time to get sick. Nobody's going to pamper you if you start sneezing. Charley didn't get sick much either. Sometimes his stomach would upset him a little, but I always thought that was nervousness. Charley could be a real nervous kind of a guy.” She paused for a moment, then laughed. “Funny. I haven't talked this much about Charley in years. I haven't even thought about him this much. But ever since Rick called, well, it's natural I should think about Charley, and what things would have been like if he hadn't gotten himself killed like that. Sixteen years. I used to kid him about what an old man he was, he was a couple of years older than me, but now I can't believe he died so young. He was just thirty-one. He didn't like turning thirty at all, let me tell you. I gave him a big surprise party, and he damn near killed me. Not that he didn't love parties, or surprises for that matter. It was just turning thirty that got him down. His own father died when he was thirty-four, and Charley was always convinced he'd die at thirty-four too. He didn't make it even that long.”

“How did his father die?” Val asked. Her grandfather.

“Car crash,” Carmela replied. “Charley's mother was in the car too, and she was never much use after that. She died a couple of years after. It was natural Charley would run wild, his parents being like that. I come from a completely different type of family, the Rinaldis were much classier. My parents thought it was a big mistake, me marrying Charley, but I saw to it they had to agree. Charley Junior was born seven months to the day after Charley and I got married.”

“Are your parents still alive?” Val asked.

Carmela shook her head. “Poppa died right after I got married,” she said. “Heart attack. He was a young man too, younger than I am now. Mama died when I was pregnant with Marcie. The doctors never could figure out what was wrong with her. She was sick a long time, and had test after test, and the doctors would just shake their heads until finally she died. Marcie favors Mama, and I think it's because she was born so soon after Mama died. I wish she had a little more of Mama's personality though. I have five stubborn kids, and Marcie's the worst.”