Rooted (The Pagano Family Book 3) (20 page)

She waited as long as she could to say anything to anyone. She’d had her first prenatal exam before she’d even considered telling anybody, and by then she was, according to her OB/GYN, almost ten weeks along. Her clothes still fit—she’d always lived an active life and had the tone to show for it, and with all the puking, she’d actually lost weight—but her family had commented a few times on the fact that she looked tired and down. Rosa, who’d, of course, blabbed to everybody about Theo, had them all convinced that she was suffering from a broken heart.

That was true, too. That Theo had ignored her texts had shattered the last little bit of restraint she’d had left, and she’d tumbled into a pretty dark place. It was her fault, she knew. She had torn them apart, and he had no reason at all to reply to her texts. She thought about texting again and being specific, but how do you text the words ‘I’m pregnant?’ What would it be like to get a text like that? Then she thought about calling. But she just couldn’t.

No, that door was closed, and it was her fault.

So she let her family think that heartbrokenness was her only problem. But pretty soon, no matter how much puking she did, she wouldn’t be able to hide what else was going on.

One Sunday evening, a few weeks after she’d found out, while she was over at the house on Caravel Road—she couldn’t imagine ever thinking of the house she’d grown up in, the house she’d run after her mother had died, as her brother’s house—after a family dinner and round of games, she went into the living room, where Carlo was flipping through albums. Sabina and John were cleaning up. Adele had taken their father home next door. Joey, Trey, Rosa, and Eli were in the cellar, playing foosball, and their gleeful sounds came up from the open door. Elsa, who hated the open-riser stairs and almost never went to the cellar, whined at the top, sure she was missing something great.

“Hey, Carlo?”

“What’s up?”

“Can we sit outside for a bit? I need to talk.”

Her big brother stood up. “Sure, Caramel. You okay?”

“Yeah. Just need an ear.”

“I’ve got two.”

Just then, apparently something exciting happened in foosball, and a roar rose up from below. Eli’s voice carried up: “Eat that, bitches!”

And then Trey’s: “Yeah, bitches!” And then a lot of laughter. It was good to hear Joey’s laugh among the others. He’d started therapy again and had been getting better, needing oxygen less during the day. His speech seemed like it was never going to be better, but Carmen was glad to see his face again without the tubes across it.

Carlo laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know why we bother teaching him manners. He’s surrounded by the Lost Boys—and I mean Kiefer Sutherland, not Peter Pan. I think I like Eli, though. He sure likes Rosie.”

Carmen felt a sharp pain, but ignored it and smiled. “Yeah, he’s good people. Good for her, too. Really down to earth. You know she’s leaving, right? She said she was going to tell you.”

“He got a job in New York, and she’s going, too. Yeah, she said. That scares me. I don’t know how Pop’s going to take it.” He led Carmen out onto the front porch, and they sat on the settee.

“It’s not so far. She’ll be home almost as much as she ever was. And it’s a good job for Eli—he wants to be a chef, and this is an apprentice thing, I guess. Anyway, he’s excited. And she’s got interviews lined up. She has to tell Pop soon, though.”

“Yeah. It’s weird to think about the little Peanut growing up and starting a life. Doesn’t seem like that long ago you and I were playing Mom and Dad for her and Joey.”

“Carlo, I’m pregnant.” The words had been jumping on her tongue since she’d asked Carlo to come outside with her, but they’d surprised her almost as much as him by coming out right then.

“What?”

She didn’t say it again.

“Carm, are you sure? How? When? Who?”

“I’m sure. Took the test twice, and I’ve already been to the doctor. I’m a little more than ten weeks. In Paris, with Theo. I can’t be more specific than that. I guess we got sloppy.”

“You guess?”

“There was…” Shit. She hated admitting this. “We were drunk sometimes. I guess we must have forgotten and not noticed that we had. I honestly have no idea when.”

“Jesus, Carm. Since when are you ‘sloppy’? And you were drinking? That much? Since when do you drink like that? You were pregnant and drinking? Jesus!”

“Carlo, stop. All of these thoughts are already in my head. There’s nothing I can do about what happened in Paris, because it already happened. What I need to think about now is what happens next.”

“Does he know?”

“No. I texted him, and he didn’t respond. So no. And I don’t want him to know.”

The sound he made at that was somewhere between a scoff and a snort. “Carmen, that’s insane. Our sister is about to move in with his son. How do you think he’s not going to know?”

“I know. I know! But I need to figure this out first. Please don’t tell anybody. Not even Sabina. Please. Give me some time to figure it out. Theo is in Paris until the end of the year, and then he’ll be in Maine. Rosa and Eli will be in New York, and we probably won’t see them until the holidays—if they last that long. I have weeks to work all this out. Okay? Please.” Her heart was doing at least triple time now, and her stomach rolled. Man, she was tired of nausea.

“Are you hoping Eli will dump her so that he doesn’t find out about this and tell his dad?”

She hit his arm. “No! Jesus, what do you think I am? I just need some time. I fucked everything up, Carlo, and I need a minute to catch my breath and see what’s left. Please.”

He put his arm around her and brought her close. She fought it for a second, but she wanted the comfort, so she laid her head on his shoulder.

“Okay. I wish you could find a way to be happy, Caramel. I just want to see you happy someday.”

She didn’t respond; she didn’t know how to.

“You know I have to tell Bina. Spouse clause. She won’t tell anyone else. You know that, too.”

It wouldn’t be so bad to be able to talk to Sabina about it, too. She nodded. “Nobody else, though. Let me tell everybody else. In my time.”

“Okay, sis. Okay.”

~ 14 ~

Paris was beautiful and lively any time of the year. Though summer was over and fall was aging, the city remained spectacularly beautiful and abuzz with people. But Theo felt a heavy November pall even so. He’d been alone now for more than two months and, despite Eli and Jordan’s frequent calls and Skyping, he was more lonely than he’d ever been. Though he’d been living here for seven months, he’d never gotten around to making friends among his neighbors or with any other residents. He’d had his sons, and then he’d had Carmen.

And then he’d had bourbon.

He still had bourbon. So he was alone.

But he was writing. Six, seven, eight, twelve hours a day, the words flew from his fingers. Sometimes he wrote on the memoir, sometimes he wrote poetry, in his journal. And sometimes he wrote letters. Long letters, in longhand. To Carmen. They were all stuffed in the back of his journal.

He thought there might be a way to bring some of them into the memoir, but the thought of baring those rawest of thoughts to the world stopped him from trying. In those letters, Theo was naked.

On this chilly, rainy day, Theo was sitting at the kitchen table. He’d designated the table by the Eiffel Tower window, where his Mac sat, to be his memoir writing place. When he wrote a letter, he sat in the bedroom, where he felt the sharpest ache of Carmen. When he wrote poetry, he sat in the kitchen, with coffee going.

He’d had the idea to open every chapter of the memoir with a short poem. Focusing his poetry so thematically at the initial stage had always been a challenge for him, but it was a good exercise, too, one he could abandon if it didn’t work. The freedom to change paths completely could be empowering.

He read over what he’d been working on today, while raindrops pelted the windows and ran down in long streams.

What Wants to Grow
She wrapped her hand
tightly,
clutched tender leaves
and stems,
firm fingers brushing
rich soil,
and said: “Not here.”
Her arm rigid, she pulled
with force,
tore green life away,
broke
the sun of the flower,
discarded it.
“Not this,” she said.
The next day, a frail, green
shoot
rose up in that same spot.
The roots,
intact, would not be dislodged
could not
be dissuaded or discounted.
We do not want what
thrives
where it chooses, what
sends roots deep,
what will not be denied,
demands
its belonging.
What we call a weed
is what most wants to grow.

Theo sat with his pen poised over the page, looking for lines to rework. The whole thing had come out in a rush, almost without pause at all. Since then, he’d rewritten it five times, finding new line and stanza breaks, finding patterns in the words and rhythms. He considered everything he’d done today, all the rewriting and lining out, to be part of the first draft. Not until he came back in a day or so, with a fresh eyes and mind, would he consider what he was doing to be ‘revision.’ But this was good. He could see the worthiness of this draft and knew it would grow into something of value. He felt the truth in it.

He’d been a pathetic sack since August because there was so much truth in it. What he felt for Carmen was rooted now. It didn’t want to give up.

His phone sat on the table; Jordan had called earlier while he was writing. Now, Theo picked it up and scrolled through his messages. He had two from Carmen, sent weeks ago—months ago—which he’d never returned. He’d been angry and hurt—not to mention drunk—and had stared at them when they’d come in, deciding then that he couldn’t face any more drama. She wanted to be done, so done they would be.

Now, so long after, was too late to respond.

~oOo~

Three days before Thanksgiving, Theo stared at his Mac, his head a disorienting muddle of gloom and glory. The holidays were upon him, Thanksgiving was looming, and he was alone. The French did not celebrate Thanksgiving; it was just a Thursday here. Jordan was spending the day with friends, and Eli and Rosa were leaving Brooklyn on Wednesday to spend the Thanksgiving weekend in Quiet Cove. Eli seemed to be worming his way into the midst of Carmen’s family, and it burned Theo to know that he would always be in just enough contact with her to miss her.

That was the gloom. The glory was that he was finished. He had a manuscript.

He read over the page he’d just written. The Foreword:

I sit here in Paris on a crisp day just before Thanksgiving. My task upon arriving in the city months ago was to write a story about the beginning of my life with Maggie. I’ve already written about its end, in my first memoir,
Orchids in Autumn
. On this late-autumn afternoon, I’ve just finished writing what I was meant to write here, in the beautiful city in which Maggie and I honeymooned many years ago.

I have finished writing what I was meant to write, not what I was supposed to write.

What Maggie and I had was not a fairy-tale romance. We were two young people who fell in love in the usual way and had a marriage that was loving and successful in the usual way. We were good and loving partners, good and loving parents, in the usual ways. Our story is not remarkable. The most interesting thing about our life together was its end.

So what follows is not the story of the beginning of my life with Maggie.

It is the story of the beginning of my life without her.

He needed to set the manuscript aside for a couple of days and read it over again, and then again, before he sent it to his editor. But one thing he could say for heartbreak—it was the thing that made him write best and hardest.

Now the question was whether his editor, and Hunter Anders, would be satisfied with the book he’d written.

He poured himself a drink. Nothing he could do about that. He’d written what he’d needed to write. The only thing he could write. Literally.

~oOo~

Theo went out for his (almost) daily run in the evening on the day before Thanksgiving, a little later than usual. Despite the drinking, he was trying to stay at least a little bit healthy. If nothing else, running made his brain work in a straight line. It was good for writing and general problem-solving alike. Most runs, his sweat smelled of booze and he came back thinking there was a fifty-fifty shot he’d keel over dead, but he was getting in at least three a week. That he could run gave him some justification for his contention that he was still scrabbling at the slippery slope and had not yet fallen on his ass.

Justification, rationalization…tomayto, tomahto.

He did about eight kilometers—he’d started thinking in the metric system months ago—and was wet and exhausted when he got back into the apartment. Before he could get to the kitchen for his chilled bottle of water, his phone started rattling on the table by his Mac.

He checked the screen and saw he had four texts from Eli:

Dad—you there?

Need to talk ASAP.

Checking again—you there?

Get on Skype soon as you get this. I’m up and waiting. Don’t even text.

He was too sweaty to sit on Hunter’s upholstery, so he took his Mac to the kitchen and sat there, grabbing his water before he opened the screen.

True to his word, Eli was there waiting when Theo got on Skype. “Hey, son. Are you okay?”

Eli goggled at him. “Dad—are you? You look like hell.”

He laughed. “Just came in from a run. I’m fine. Finished the book yesterday. First draft, anyway.”

“That’s awesome! But Dad…I…you’re sitting, right? You look like you’re in the kitchen. Are you sitting?”

Theo tried to decide if he was about to get bad news or good. Eli looked a bit wide-eyed and tense, but not enough to determine whether it was excitement or stress making him so. “I’m sitting, E. What’s wrong?”

Eli took a breath. “You know I came to Quiet Cove with Rosa for Thanksgiving, right?”

Of course he did, and Eli knew he knew. He was stalling. “Eli. Out with it.”

“We’re here at her brother’s house. Staying here. Everybody came over tonight for dinner and games. It’s a thing they do a lot. Everybody’s here, Dad.”

Now he knew that this was about Carmen. That was what Eli was saying without saying. “I know. I expected it. It’s fine. Don’t feel like you’re disloyal or something stupid like that. It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine. And it’s not that.” In the background, Theo heard Rosa’s voice, and Eli turned away from the camera.

Eli, God. Just say it. You want me to tell him, I will. I’m going to get my ass kicked anyway.

No, Rhody, I got it. Just…okay.
He turned back to the screen.

“Dad, can you get here? I think you need to get here. Maybe now.”

Something was wrong with Carmen. “Christ, Eli. What the hell is wrong? Is Carmen sick? Hurt? What?”

Eli swallowed hard, and Theo’s heart, which had only just returned to its normal rhythm after his run, picked back up to full speed. “She’s pregnant, Dad.”

His ears heard, but his head rejected. “What?”

“She’s about five months now.”

Carmen was pregnant.

Five months pregnant.

She’d gotten pregnant five months ago.

In the summer.

Carmen was pregnant with his child.

Theo’s heart thumped hard, stopped, and then resumed its speedy beat.

And then the camera shifted and Rosa filled his screen, looking surprisingly blonde but otherwise adorably familiar. “She said not to tell you, that she was figuring out how to do it in her own way, but forget about it. She’s halfway gone. I get it if you don’t want to come, but you need to know. You needed to know a long time ago, I.M.O. What do you want to do?”

Anger. Joy. Sorrow. Shock. Love. Hate. Fear. He felt it all. “I’m coming. Soon as I can get there.”

“You want us to say anything?”

“I don’t care. Up to you.”

Rosa grinned, and Theo, whose head was a cacophony of incomprehensible thoughts, had a moment’s pause. That grin was positively viperous. “I’m not gonna say, then.”

“Fair enough.” He closed the Mac and started packing.