Rooted (The Pagano Family Book 3) (18 page)

Eventually, she’d decided she agreed. She’d also started shaving again, because, hey—she liked men, and the men she was attracted to weren’t attracted to hairy women. And then she had settled in the Cove and taken her mother’s place. But she was still feminist.

And still angry.

She looked around and noticed a decided lack of women in the room. Only Manny, Luca’s wife, was there, sitting off by herself. She wasn’t good with crowds or with big shows of emotion, so Carmen just sent her a little smile when their eyes met. Manny was a good little chick. She worked hard to overcome the shit life had dumped on her head from the moment she’d taken her first breath.

“Where’s Sabina? And Adele?”

Luca answered. “Adele’s with Pop. Sabina has Trey at home. It’s the middle of the night, Carm.”

“Oh.” She had no idea what time it was; jetlag and time zones were fucking with her circadian rhythm. “Right. Is that why the Uncles aren’t here? Because they should fucking be here.”

“Yeah. They took Aunt Angie and Aunt Betty home. Nick is…doing what Nick does. I didn’t ask.”

“So tell me. What the fuck is going on?”

“There’s a lot they won’t say. It’s what John and Manny and I got caught up in, though. I’m sure of that. Somebody making a play to take the Uncles down. Somebody who plays by different rules. Or no rules.”

“So why don’t they just crush the fucker?”

“I don’t know, Carm. I’m not invited to sit in on their meetings. They’ve kept the family safe. It’s the business they’re going after, anyway. Pop took losing Norm hard. He blames himself, and he’s been off his game since. What happened to him was stress. But the family is safe.”

She shook her head. They weren’t safe. “It could have been you in that fire, Luc.”

“No. We’ve had people watching our backs. And since the fire, the Uncles have people watching the job sites, too. We’re still getting hurt, because they’re fucking with suppliers and shit, but we’ll pull through it. The Uncles never lose. They’ll figure it out.”

She wasn’t sure she was as convinced as Luca sounded, but he’d been here all along, not gallivanting around Europe without a care in the world. Until now. “How is he?”

Luca shrugged, but his expression was pained. “Out, still. He might have been lying there on the floor for ten minutes before I got there. We tried to work out how long between when Adele said he left for the office and when I got there. It could have been ten minutes he was lying there. He still had his coffee and his lunchbox. He barely got in the door. If he stopped breathing right away, then…Jesus, Carm.”

Carmen put her arms around her brother’s waist, and they held each other. “I want to see him.”

Luca set her back a little. “Okay. The nurses aren’t giving us grief about visiting hours.” He laughed bitterly. “I think the whole hospital is getting used to us being around. Seems like we’re always here lately.”

“I was thinking the same thing. I hate it.”

“Yeah. His room’s down the hall. Adele might be asleep, though.”

“I’ll be quiet. I just want to watch his chest move for a few minutes.”

“A machine’s doing that right now. You know that, right? After the surgery, they’re breathing for him.”

“Luca.” She just needed to see him.

“I know. 323, down the hall.” He kissed her cheek, and she went alone to their father’s room.

The room was dark, with only a pale light on the wall behind the bed, near all the equipment. The setup was eerily similar to that when Joey was in the hospital—ventilator, heart monitor, some kind of machine monitoring a draining tube, a couple of bags hanging on an IV stand, wires and tubes leading to the body in the bed. The body of her father, unconscious, his chest rising to the beat of the machine filling his lungs with air and then removing it.

His chest looked oddly thick, and Carmen realized it was the dressing for his surgery incision, a thick gauze pad down the center of his chest.

She stood at the end of the bed and tried to breathe.

Adele was sleeping in a chair next to the bed. She was snoring, her mouth open, and her chin resting on her chest. Her glasses, which hung on a beaded chain, were askew on her nose.

Adele Dioli had lived next door for Carmen’s whole childhood. She had been their mother’s best friend, and her husband, Dennis, and their father had spent a lot of years talking over their shared back fence, standing over each other’s grills, or mixing each other’s drinks, discussing the Red Sox or the Patriots, depending on the season.

The Diolis had been childless, but Adele had been an eager babysitter when they were growing up. All the siblings knew her well. They all liked her. She was a good woman—a busybody, but a good woman.

Dennis had died a few years after their mother, and Adele began spending more and more time in the Pagano house. Eventually, she’d sort of taken it over. Then Carlo Jr. had moved back in, and his wife, Sabina, had taken it over.

And then their father had married Adele and moved next door, into the Dioli house. He’d turned the house over to Carlo. Carmen still couldn’t make herself feel right about that. She didn’t have a choice—it was a done deal, and her father’s choice to make, but she fucking hated it. She hated it so much.

Everybody else was happy for their father, glad he was able to move on and love again. Everybody else understood that Carlo should have the house. He was the oldest, the only one with a family. And he hadn’t been given the house, only lent it. But it drove Carmen nuts. The best she’d been able to accomplish was resignation.

She had given up fucking everything when their mom died. She’d given up her dreams, her goals, her friends. She’d moved back into that house and been a stay-at-home mom to Joey and Rosa. Cooking their meals—she fucking hated to cook. Taking them to and picking them up from school, and soccer, and choir practice, birthday parties and whatever. She’d taken them to the mall and argued with them over appropriate clothes. She’d gone to fucking parent-teacher conferences. All while their father disappeared every night into his study or his bedroom and ignored them all. She’d been twenty-four years old.

Carlo had moved home, too. They’d taken the job on together. But Carlo had gone into the city every day to work. He’d come home and done the middle-class father thing, and he’d gone to soccer games and plays, to those school conferences. But his life hadn’t changed much. Only his address had changed, really.

Carmen’s whole self had changed.

Even when their father had finally mastered his grief enough to be a father again, Carmen hadn’t gotten her life back. Carlo had moved back to Providence then, focused on his career, gotten married, had a child. Had the life he wanted. Not Carmen. Even when she’d moved out of the house, she’d only moved a mile away, to the beach. She’d been the only mother Joey and Rosa had. Until Rosa had gone away to college, only four years ago, Carmen had been the woman of the house on Caravel Road.

And for Carlo to be handed that house like he was the obvious choice? That pissed her the fuck off.

Adele snorted and stirred, opening her eyes. “Carmen?”

“Hey, Adele.”

“Oh, honey. You’re home. I’m so glad. I was so worried that…” Her voice failed her, and when she found it again, it shook badly. “Well. I’m just glad you’re home.”

“How are you?”

Adele sighed. “I’m okay. Scared. I love him so much. I’ve loved him for years. All of you. You’ve been my family as long as I’ve known you.” She patted her father’s still hand. “And he’s my big bear.”

Carmen didn’t want to explore the idea of her father being anybody’s big bear…or maybe she did. “Adele, did you love Mr. D.?

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You say you love Pop, and that we’ve been your family for years. But you were married for decades. Did you love Mr. D.?”

“Yes. Very much. Do you remember when he died?”

Carmen did. Adele had seemed devastated. She nodded.

“It felt like a whole chunk of my heart had sheared right off. I didn’t know how I was going to get through it. And I didn’t have my best friend, because your mother was gone. I had your father, and I had you kids, when you were around. My family. That’s how I got through losing Dennis. He was my first love, a great love.”

“Then how can you say you love Pop?”

Adele stood then and smoothed out her slacks. “Carmen, honey. What’s this about? Is this why you’ve been mad about the house?”

She hadn’t known Adele knew about that, but thinking about it now, she supposed her father would have told his partner. “No…it’s just…how can you have two great loves? Or even real loves?”

“It makes me sad, honey, that you got to be thirty-seven and have to ask that question. I wish you’d known the kind of love that would tell you the answer.” She came over and patted Carmen’s hand where it gripped the footboard of the bed. “The human heart has infinite capacity for love. God wants us to love freely and ecstatically. He wouldn’t be so cruel as to put a cap on how much we love.”

In Carmen’s understanding and experience, God was perfectly happy to be cruel. “So you love my father like you loved Mr. D. That’s what you’re saying.”

Adele’s eyes narrowed. “No. Of course not. Dennis and your father are different men. I am a different woman than I was when Dennis was alive—I’m different
because
he isn’t alive. Your father is a different man since your mother died. I know you know that. I love your father for who he is. We love each other for who we are now. It’s different, but it’s not less. Not less real, not less intense, not less happy. Different. Is there something hurting you, honey? Do you need somebody to talk to? Because I’m here.”

Carmen shook her head. She didn’t want to talk. But she wanted to cry, so when Adele tugged on her arms, she let the smaller woman pull her down and tuck her head on her shoulder. And then Carmen sobbed.

~ 12 ~

“Let’s get out of the house today, Dad.” Eli refilled Theo’s coffee mug, and then his own, and sat back down at the table.

Theo poked at his rancher’s breakfast pie. Something Eli had learned to cook from his grandmother, Theo’s mother, long ago. It was delicious, but Theo was having trouble getting excited about food this morning—just in general, lately. He felt like shit. Most days he felt like shit. It wasn’t even the hangover. It was just shit.

He wished he’d never met Carmen Pagano. He thought about that first night at the Café Aphrodite, which had become ‘their place’ in the weeks to follow. The boys had sent him out on a hunt, literally pushing him out the door. He was too much alone, they’d said. Getting squirrely, they’d said. Paris was the City of Lovers, they’d said. He had a once-in-a-lifetime chance here, they’d said. It was time to live for himself again, they’d said. Don’t come home until you meet someone, they’d said—a beautiful girl. Jordan had called out “
Bonne chance!
” from the balcony, waving a handkerchief. His son, Sarah Bernhardt reincarnated.

He’d intended to blow them off. Have a meal, enjoy some quiet, do a little people-watching. And then Carmen had walked in. So fucking gorgeous—tall and dark, that heavy, amazing drape of near-black hair, hints of gold and red catching the lights from the globes around the room. She’d been alone, dressed casually in jeans and a sweater, a leather bag slung across her shoulders. Marc, the waiter, had greeted her as if he’d known her.

Confidence and control wafted off of her so strongly he could almost see them curling around her.

Entranced by her self-possessed beauty, he’d watched her for a long time, focusing on each feature individually—her exotic eyes, too wide to be almond-shaped, but canted just slightly up at the outside corner. The dramatic arch of her dark brows. And her mouth. Sweet Christ, her mouth. Full and lush. He now knew the taste of that mouth, the feel of it, all over his body. God, that mouth.

She’d been reading while she ate, and he’d been curious what a woman like that might be reading. That curiosity had finally gotten him out of his seat.

Infinite Jest
was what she’d been reading. One of the greatest and most challenging contemporary novels in the English language. By his favorite author, David Foster Wallace. He’d gone hard while they’d bantered about it. It was then, he thought, that he’d become a hopeless case, even if he hadn’t realized it at the time.

He’d never felt guilty about loving Carmen. He still didn’t feel guilty about it—stupid, but not guilty. He’d never felt conflicted or disloyal to Maggie. They were different women—in some ways they were polar opposites. Maggie had been preternaturally calm, a spiritual, forgiving woman with a wide and indiscriminate nurturing streak. She had fostered dogs and cats, nursed wild animals back to health, offered their sofa to the boys’ friends or Theo’s students whenever they needed a place to crash. She’d gardened and made a special garden just for the deer and rabbits, to distract them from the family vegetables—which hadn’t worked, they’d just eaten from both gardens, but she’d done it all the same.

Maggie had been slight and a little mousy; her beauty had been in her sweetness and
joie de vivre
.

Carmen was tall and imposing and exotically beautiful. She was smart and savvy and sarcastic, quick to anger and quick to judgment. More likely to roll her eyes than to offer her shoulder. She was guarded and self-contained. She challenged him constantly. From the first words she’d said to him, she had challenged him. And Theo had caught fire—not simply for her, but for his life. He loved to talk to her, to poke at her and get her ire up, to argue with her about books and ideas. And God, how he loved winning her over, finding the glorious softness, the openness and vulnerability that spiked armor was protecting.

She’d made him want to roar in the face of life.

He didn’t feel guilty, because he loved Carmen for entirely different reasons than he’d loved Maggie. She accessed parts of his mind and heart even he hadn’t been aware of.

And then she’d cut those parts out of him and stomped them into dust.

He sighed and tried to perk up. Refocusing on Eli, he gestured at the food on his plate. “You really should look into culinary school, E. This is what you love.”

Eli shook his head. “I’ve read all the horror stories about how expensive the schools are and how you end up with your degree or diploma or whatever and all you can get is some crappy minimum wage job doing prep, if you’re even lucky enough to get in a kitchen at all. I’ve already got debt to pay off. I can’t handle more.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

Eli half-chuckled, just a syllable. “Today, I want to go out and do something in Paris. Get my mind off my stuff. No reason to be sad and lonely in the City of Light, right? So let’s go to the Orsay or the Pompidou or something.”

Carmen and Rosa had been gone for a couple of weeks. Theo knew why Eli was still in Paris—to look after him. They’d argued about it; he didn’t need his kid to babysit him. He was depressed, yeah. He’d given up even the attempt to write, sure. And maybe he was sliding down the slope a little with the bourbon. But he was fifty years old—today—and he didn’t need his son to take care of him.

“I’m not in the mood, E. And we’ve been to the Orsay twice already.”

“New exhibit opens today. It’s your birthday, Dad. Let’s at least take a walk. Hey—we could go to that old books market in the Square Georges Brassens. And then maybe the Catacombs again. I love the Catacombs.”

“I need to write today. You should go out by yourself.”

“Dad.”

Theo glared at Eli. The subtext screaming out from that single word, that single syllable, was that Theo hadn’t even opened his laptop in two weeks. He had no words.

“Please, Dad. I need some company. I need to get my mind off missing Rosa, and you need to find something to fill your mind, too.”

“If you really love her, you should be there, not here. She probably needs you right now.” That was becoming an old fight between them. It hurt him, too, to think of Carmen going through her worry about her father, almost losing him, alone. But she wasn’t alone. She’d always said family was the most important thing, and she was in the bosom of hers. As was Rosa.

Really, what he wanted was for Eli to go back to the States and get off his back. Instead, he was going to spend the following week being double-teamed, he knew, because Jordan was coming back for a visit. With any luck, he’d get Eli to go home with his brother.

Eli sighed. “She’s with her family. And her dad is getting better. She said they brought him home. And we haven’t figured out the next step yet. I don’t have an apartment in Augusta anymore, so I’m where I need to be right here. Except that I want to get outside today.”

Theo gave up. “I’ll take a shower. Then let’s go look at old books and dead bones.”

~oOo~

“
Dad
. When you caught the girl, you were supposed to keep her!”

Eli swatted Jordan on the back of the head, upsetting his careful quiff. “Jordan, shit. Not everything in your head has to come out your mouth.”

Theo laughed. Things had been easier since Jordan was back. His attitude about everything was so bulletproof that it was hard to stay glum around him. This was a boy who’d picked himself up, dusted off his vintage velvet trousers, and walked through a ring of bullies to go back to class. Routinely. A little heartbreak, a dash of pining—these were nothing to him. And he wasn’t tolerating it in his father and brother, either. He didn’t nag at Theo to shake off his gloom. He’d simply refused to accept its existence.

In the days Jordan had been back in Paris, Theo had had hours-long stretches during which he hadn’t thought about Carmen or his writer’s block. Or bourbon, for that matter. The week was coming to an end, but he felt stronger and clearer.

They were sitting at a sidewalk café on the Left Bank at the end of a day spent combing through the nooks and crannies of a Paris most tourists didn’t see.

Eli was going back to the States with Jordan, and they’d all been talking about his plans—which were, for now, to go back to the house in Colson and get it open and running again in anticipation of the end of the year, when Theo would be home and back teaching. Eli was still unsure about his own job plans, and he was loath to make any until he understood something of his future with Rosa.

The conversation had turned to Rosa and what Eli perceived as a distance growing between them. She, like her sister, was focused on her family now. She was no longer as interested in trying to work out plans with Eli.

“She keeps hedging,” he’d said, “so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I mean, I get it. Her dad almost died, and he’s still not doing great. She wants to focus on him. I really, really get it.”

Theo nodded. “Of course you get it.”

“But she has the luxury of not thinking about work yet. Her family is rich, or rich enough, anyway. I have to earn, and I can’t even think about looking for real work unless I know where we’re going to settle. Or even if she’s settling with me.”

“Maybe this is a good thing, E. Maybe you need a breather. You two were moving fast, and if you crash, you’re going to explode.”

Both Jordan and Eli stared at him, and he realized, after a beat, that he was talking about himself, too.

And then Jordan had said, rolling his eyes, “
Dad
. When you caught the girl, you were supposed to keep her!”

And Eli had smacked him and mussed his hair.

Laughing, Theo replied, “I’m okay, boys. I was fine by myself before. I’ll get over this and be fine again.”

“You
weren’t
fine before, Dad. That’s why we sent you off to find her in the first place. You were so not okay you creeped us out! And if you ask me, she was perfect for you. Watching you two at La Chanteuse? Be still my heart! You needed a parental advisory! There were practically fairies and stardust circling your head whenever you were with her—and I wasn’t even here for when things got really serious.”

His chest felt squeezed and sore. “Not helping, Jordan. And I guess things never did get really serious. I was wrong about that.”

“Pffft. It was serious. She’s just an idiot. And so are you. You know what I think? Heterosexuals are weird about love. Just OH MY GOD
seriously
. You find it, you have it, this miracle, and then you toss it away like it’s nothing. It’s not nothing. Love is not disposable. It’s something you fight for. It’s something you cling to even when literally every other possible choice would be easier.”

Theo cocked his head. His kid was amazing. Even Eli was gaping at him like the Oracle had spoken. But fighting was a two-way deal. Fighting alone was just fighting oneself.

“Tell her that, son.”

“You need to hear it, too! You walked away?
You walked away?
How is that fighting? That’s the opposite of fighting!”

He was smart, but he was young, and he’d experienced little yet of the kind of love they were talking about. “Okay, Jordan. That’ll do. It’s more complicated than you’re making it out. I can’t force a woman to love me.”

Jordan sighed heavily and crossed his arms. “Weird, I’m telling you. You people do
not
get it at all.”

~oOo~

Two days later, Theo let himself into Hunter Anders’ apartment. He’d accompanied his sons to the airport. They’d had an early lunch in the terminal, and he’d seen them off just before they went to the security checkpoint.

Eli and Jordan were gone.

And now he was alone in Paris for the first time since May. Even though he’d often been in this apartment alone, it seemed to echo now in a new way. In May, he’d been filled with a fresh vigor—more than half a year in Paris, the luxury to write without worrying about exams and essays and faculty meetings and student advising. Half a year to be nothing but a writer. It had been a nearly incomprehensible gift.