Unforgotten (11 page)
If she could wonder, wasn’t that good? The last time, she’d awakened to a broken mind and a crippled body. She was not unconscious. Maybe this one wasn’t as bad. Maybe.
Lance had jammed his fingers into his hair and stood like a tortured soul in Dante’s Inferno, blaming himself. Damning himself.
“M … ah.” That wasn’t the sound she needed.
“Don’t try to talk, Momma.” Dori soothed her brow with a cool hand.
She had to talk, to tell Lance not to worry, not to blame himself. But the sounds that came scared him worse than before. She stopped making them. Stopped trying. Stopped fighting.
“I’ve called the doctor.”
No. No more doctors. No hospital
. She wanted her family, not strangers who would take her away. She used to know the people at Saint Barnabas as well as the cheese maker and the baker and the shoe repairman and the clockmaker. Now there were faces she’d never seen. People who never knew she had once been lovely and bright. They saw only her disfigurement.
She closed her eyes.
Leave me alone. Leave me
.
L
ance felt the knife in his gut twist with every breath as he stood in the hall outside Nonna’s door. Every time he thought he was getting it right, thought he was in God’s will … Rese stood beside him, but his mind circled one thought only.
My fault
.
He fought the tightness in his throat. He might have had nothing to do with the towers coming down on Tony, but he was directly responsible for Nonna. He had pushed when she begged him not to. He’d wanted to tell her things she didn’t want to know; made her remember things she’d never spoken of. Maybe she hadn’t even known her papa was murdered. What was he doing, blurting it out like that?
The doctor emerged, one who made house calls to an aged stroke victim in the neighborhood of the hospital. He’d been making rounds, and six blocks wasn’t far out of his way. Better than sending an ambulance, taking up a bed. He knew Antonia Michelli.
He had allowed only Momma into the room with him, and Lance was glad. He didn’t want to see the damage, to know he was to blame. But now in the hall Dr. Stern said, “Mrs. Michelli has had what we call a ministroke. The anti-stroke medication she’s taking seems to have minimized the damage.”
Lance swallowed. “Is she conscious?”
“Yes. But I don’t want her disturbed.”
Right. No forcing unwanted information on your enfeebled grandmother.
“One person with her at a time.” He knew the rest of the Michellis. “She needs rest and peace. If she can’t get it here, I’ll have to hospitalize.”
“She’ll get it.” Lance only wanted to tell her how sorry he was, that he would not bother her with any of it again. The business with Marco and Vittorio and Arthur Jackson could remain silent forever.
Basta
. Enough.
After the doctor left, Rese frowned. “I know what you’re doing.”
“What.”
“Blaming yourself.”
“She asked me to stop.”
“Well, that’s not your forte.”
Understatement of the year. His cell phone rang, and he told Monica the status and the doctor’s stipulations. She had taken all the children out to the park, and they’d have to find ways to keep them occupied for the next few days at least. No swarming Nonna. Only one person at a time. And he wasn’t the best choice anymore.
“Pray,” he told Monica. And he should too. He hung up and looked at Rese. “Is it okay if we go to the church?”
“Sure.” She looked relieved, actually. He must be really grim.
They took the stairs down and out to the street, then walked the few blocks to the church. Mount Carmel had been the center of life in his neighborhood since the basement church was built in 1907. Now the triple-arched entrance between the two rusty-red brick towers embraced him. He and Rese arrived as the
donne anziane,
old women in their black scarves and thick stockings, were descending the pale stone stairs from the midday Italian Mass. Many of them greeted him, and he forced a smile as he led Rese inside.
He lowered his head and settled on the kneeler. How many times had he ended up there, hoping God could fix something he’d messed up? He must have some kind of record for getting it wrong. In Sonoma when everything blew up, he’d tried to give it all to Rese; the deed, the money, tried to let her go, thinking that was God’s will. But when she wanted him to stay, it had seemed right to bring it all to Nonna, whose approval mattered as much to him at twenty-eight as it had at eight.
But Nonna had asked for help, not a battle.
Lord
. He deserved the tongue-thrashing only she could deliver. Or could she? How much progress would be lost, and how frustrated would she be? He dropped his face to his hands.
Lord, heal her. I’ll leave the past to the past. I don’t need answers. Just bring her back
.
He dropped his forehead to his hands and sank down until his backside rested against the pew with his knees still on the kneeler. He could remember Momma scolding him for slacking into that position.
“Keep a straight back for the One whose back was scourged for you.”
He meant no disrespect but drew himself up again anyway, sensing a perpetual incense inside the walls, not from the burning of gray powder, but of prayers raised to heaven in silent anticipation and faith. He could almost hear the murmur of whispers in the rafters and added his own.
Into your heart, into your hand,
All that I am, naked I stand.
Selah, O Lord, Selah. In the silence you find me.
Selah, my Lord, Selah. In the stillness refine me.
His lyrics. The problem was he couldn’t get still, couldn’t find the silence. He needed the road. He stood up and motioned Rese out ahead of him, dropping down to genuflect before leaving. God had heard him, he was sure. But he didn’t know what the answer would be. And he couldn’t stand still to find out.
————
Lance’s stride leaving the church meant trouble. He had obviously not found peace and comfort, even though she’d been amazed by the beauty inside, the adoration it inspired. Rese hadn’t expected the wealth of stained glass and marbled pillars, the carved and painted scenes along the walls and ceiling. She hadn’t thought to find any of that in a neighborhood church.
But she hadn’t expected anything that had happened so far. A quick explanation of their plans, a sincere effort to set things right, a chance for Lance to bring his efforts for his grandmother to conclusion—that was what she’d expected. Now she worked to keep up as they descended the sun-warmed steps.
“Lance?” she puffed.
He didn’t respond for two blocks, or when they reached his apartment, or when he searched through the keys by the door and raised a ring wordlessly to Rico, who was practicing a drum riff with Star at his feet. Rico didn’t pause, merely nodded.
Back downstairs and out the back this time, Lance used one key to unlock a lean-to in the courtyard, then wheeled out a Kawasaki so stripped it made his Harley look like a luxury cruiser.
Rese’s jaw dropped. “What’s that?”
“Rico’s chopper.”
“I thought he had a van, the one he drove to Sonoma with all the gear.”
Lance brushed the dust from the seat. “He borrows that when he’s got a gig. These are his wheels.”
She looked again at the bike, barely making out the word Vulcan on the dented metal. The thing looked as though it had been through reentry. Lance rested it on its stand, leaned back into the enclosure, and brought out a helmet, nowhere near as sleek and nice as the black one he’d bought for her.
“Rico has a helmet?” She would have thought he, like Lance, didn’t bother.
“It’s an old one of Tony’s. We’ll cinch it up on you.”
“Lance, I’m not—” But when he raised the helmet to her head, she noticed his hands shaking. She’d seen him upset, but not shaking. He needed this. She pulled the helmet down and adjusted the chin strap, but cringed when he started the bike. The exhaust pipe choked up gray spume before the engine settled into an asthmatic growl.
He hollered, “Jump on.”
“Lance …” She had barely come to trust him with the Harley on quiet Sonoma highways.
“Come on.” He jerked his chin toward the spot behind him as the idle choked and wheezed.
She knew what he wanted, but she could not get on that thing. It was an accident waiting to happen. Didn’t he hear it? What was it with him and two-wheeled death vehicles?
He looked up and caught her expression. His shoulders slumped. “It’s okay. You don’t have to.” He dug for his house keys and held them out. With his other hand, he brought the engine back from death with a rev.
He would go without her, and wouldn’t she rather he did? Not if he was upset enough to shake. “Lance … don’t …” Oh, what was the use? She closed her eyes and straddled the bike, clamping onto his waist. It was a closer fit than the Harley, the seat configuration leaning her down against him. As he accelerated through the alley and into the street, her arms tightened. Rico’s bike didn’t have the rich roar of the Harley. It needed muffler work to quiet the racket the helmet didn’t buffer and surely had other issues that begged a mechanic.
As they maneuvered through the city, it took everything in her not to yell for Lance to take her back—if it would even register. His agitated starts and stops, his impatience with the congestion and lights showed just how wound up he was. She knew what he wanted, open road, speed. She recalled with shocking clarity that first ride in which he had intentionally scared her speechless.
Now as he hit the highway heading north into Connecticut, she sensed not rage in him but a similar ferocity. Wind buffeted her face and drowned her breath. She hated being at the mercy of his reflexes, his decisions, especially when she was not convinced he was making any. Lance in this mood was pure emotion, pure reaction.
She had given up control. It wouldn’t be as bad if she thought one of them had it, but she knew he was flying blind. She squeezed his sides and hollered, “Slow down!”
Instead, he leaned them out around the vehicle he’d run up on, into the oncoming lane, then back before a minivan whooshed by the other way. She ducked her head behind his shoulder. She could die … or worse.
What was a coma like; paralysis? How badly would it hurt to have every bone in her body broken? How would it feel to break every bone in Lance’s? But, having caused his grandmother’s relapse, he was probably trying to break them all himself. No one could blame himself like Lance Michelli.
Squinting down at the road flying by underneath, she tried not to imagine being launched with him and having those awful seconds to anticipate macadam imbedding in soft tissue, muscles wrenched and screaming before the mercifully swift snap of her neck. And now she was mad. “Lance, stop it!”
But he didn’t. Miles of interstate flew by, wooded landscape, quaint towns, and white-fenced estates. She didn’t know if Lance saw any of it. He was doing what he did to cope, as she would get hold of her tools and bury herself in a project, tearing out or building up, every cut perfect, every fit tight, every detail considered and executed. Losing herself. Running, maybe, as Lance was, without the speed and danger.
Danger. A flash of a blood-splattered wall, her dad’s screams, the warm, coppery scent of life escaping. She forced slow breaths, angry to be flashing back when it wasn’t even triggered by the sound and smell of a saw on wood. Only thoughts of death. Agonizing death. “Lance!”
He reached down and gripped her knee, pressing her leg against him. Was it supposed to be reassuring that he now drove with one hand? She wanted to scream, but hollered instead, “We need to stop!”
He’d heard her, she knew by the sudden deceleration, and a moment later he let go of her knee and made the arm signal for a right turn onto the exit. She gulped for breath as the wind stopped pummeling her lungs. His speed dropped dramatically as they entered the small town of Darien. A collage of Victorian, colonial, and Edwardian architecture surrounded her with picturesque shrub-lined cobblestone sidewalks that contrasted starkly with the grim streets of the Bronx.
Her limbs softened as he cruised through the town center and postcard-perfect neighborhood to a beach as lovely in its East Coast way as any she’d seen on the other. Pleasure boats bobbed in the water that lapped at the shore, white gulls winged overhead. The air smelled fresh… . Well, okay, there was still the exhaust from Rico’s bike, and her anger kicked back in when Lance brought the monster to a stop and climbed off.
She yanked off the helmet and glared.
“Wha-a-t?”
“You have to ask?”
“I said you didn’t have to come.”
“And where would you be now?”
“Farther.”
She got off the bike. “That thing is a wreck.”
“Just looks like it.”
“What about the gray smoke spewing out and its death rattle shutting off?”
Lance patted the grip. “A little rusty. Rico must not be riding much without my Harley to keep up with.”
She shook her head. “What is it with you? What does driving hellbent accomplish?”
He sent his gaze off. “It’s the miles, the motion of the road.”
“It’s running away.”
“Maybe.” His brow pinched. “I can’t really get far enough. I just have to try.”
She sighed. “Do you have to do it so fast?”
“It feels faster on a bike.”
Possible. Her road experience was in a Chevy 4x4. Lots of steel.
She looked out at the tree-lined beach, the golden sand, the cobalt water. After the noise and smell and film of carbon monoxide in the city, it was incredible. She could almost be glad they’d come. She was definitely glad they’d stopped. “Is that the Atlantic Ocean?”
He looked up as though he only now realized where he was. “Long Island Sound.”
Where would they have ended up if she hadn’t gotten through to him? Canada? She had a crazy desire to laugh—probably some hysterical release. She cocked her head and said dryly, “Where’s the picnic?” Now that the terror was over, she was starved.
He huffed. “Picnics are dangerous.”