Miracle (The Pagano Family Book 6) (26 page)

She nodded, and Nancy smiled.

“Excellent. Your comprehension seems preserved, but I’d like to do some tests anyway, to get a benchmark. And we’ll see how your writing fluency is. No practice today. Let’s just define your communication boundaries. Then I’ll put together a plan, and we can start tomorrow. Sound good?”

Tina nodded. It sounded like the best she could hope for.

She wanted Joey.

~oOo~

Reading and auditory comprehension were one-hundred percent preserved, but Tina was as unable to write words as she was to speak them. She had no way of communicating except by body language—and she knew that she would be unable to form words by sign language, either. The break was between concept and sign. She could think words but not form them.

Joey’s aphasia meant that he misplaced the words he made. He could both form words and speak them, but he often lost them along the way. Given enough time, he could find the words he wanted or make other ways to express his meaning.

Tina’s diagnosis meant that she was effectively silenced.

In her coursework she had studied a variety of different therapeutic disciplines. She knew enough about communication pathology to know that it was unlikely that such extensive losses could be dramatically remediated. It would take a miracle, and apparently, she’d spent her miracle on not dying in that cellar.

Nancy said several times before she’d left that afternoon that it was too early to know if the losses were permanent, that continued physical healing in combination with aggressive therapy could very well lessen the impact of the aphasia. And the nurse came in later to say that her neurologist had scheduled her for a new battery of tests the next day, to identify the extent of healing that they could expect to continue.

Hope wasn’t lost, they all said. It was too early to know for sure.

But Tina thought of her mother, and all those weeks sitting beside her in the hospital, and then the care center, waiting for improvement that had never come. She thought of Joey and his bitter fight through a decade of cycling losses and gains.

And she knew that her career was over. Her entire life as she’d known it was over.

No one would ever know what she was thinking, or how she felt, ever again.

~oOo~

“Baby.” Joey stood at the side of her bed. As always, he held her hand. She wiggled her fingers free so that she could slide them under the leather of the bracelet she’d given him for his birthday. So long ago.

She would need a bracelet like this, too. One that explained that she wouldn’t be able to communicate.

He looked down and watched her fingers on his wrist for a moment, then brought his eyes back to hers. His free hand he laid gently on the side of her face; she felt his fingertips on her scalp. Because she was bald, too, nothing but stubbly scruff where her hair had been, that thick, dark mass she’d inherited from her mother.

And now there was a long, nasty scar.

When they’d finally allowed her a mirror, she’d thought she’d prepared herself for what she’d see—they had all been so reluctant to let her near a reflective surface that she had known it would be bad.

But there was no way to prepare oneself to look so totally different from the way one had looked for a lifetime.

Her nose was completely different. The outside corner of her left eye turned downward now, and that eyelid drooped.

And the scars. A thick track bisecting her left eyebrow lengthwise, and another straight line under her left eye. An arc around her right nostril, and a jagged hook between her eyes. A short, straight line along the outside of her right eye. The puckered line down the center of her throat. And those were only the ones everyone would always see.

“Baby,” Joey said again, and she lifted her eyes to his. “I love you.”

He’d said those three words so often in the past five weeks that their path must have been forged in stone. He never hesitated over them now.

She loved him, too, he was the only thing left in her life that had meaning for a future, but she had no way to tell him so. Her eyes filled. When a tear slid down her temple, he leaned to her and kissed it away.

“You…me…forever.”

Tina shook her head, but she wasn’t sure what she meant by it. She wanted him to stay forever. She wanted him to mean it, and she believed that he did. But what would it be like now?

“Yes. Forever. …I’ll be here.”

When weeping overtook her, he slid strong arms around her and held her closely, gently.

~oOo~

Later that evening, near the end of the visiting hours that her family entirely ignored, Matt and their father were in the cafeteria, seeking out snacks for them and a smoothie for her. Joey was stretched out beside her in bed, watching some singing contest show on television.

The door to her room opened, and Nick Pagano came in.

Joey came to his feet so quickly that the jolting of the bed made Tina feel a bit seasick. She watched, heart pounding, as he went and stood before his cousin, the don.

“No,” Joey said.

Good. Tina didn’t want Don Pagano anywhere near her. Or any of his men.
Any
of them.

She knew that J.J., Frank, and Lou were dead, that Nick had killed them, or had them killed, or however he handled his vendettas. But it didn’t matter. That was his vendetta. It didn’t change her new life in the slightest.

Nick’s eyes left Joey and landed on her. With a tilt of his head, he conveyed an apology. She stared back, too hurt and despairing to be either intimidated or placated by his presence.

Joey shifted, stepping into Nick’s line of sight again. “No,” he repeated.

To Joey, but loudly enough to show that he was really speaking to her, Nick said, “I know I’m not welcome, and I understand. I came tonight because I know Tina’s going home soon, and I want her to know that she needn’t worry about bills. I’ve paid the bill here, and I’ll cover her medical and therapy expenses for as long as she has any. Should that exceed my lifetime, I’ve made arrangements.”

Joey looked over his shoulder at her. Not sure what to think, she simply held his gaze. Neither a nod nor a shake of the head seemed appropriate.

“One last thing, and then I’ll say good night.” He stepped around Joey and came to the bed. This time, Joey didn’t block him. “This falls at my feet, Tina, not Angie’s. He might well have saved my life, and you paid for that. What happened to you—I’m deeply sorry that my trouble blew back on you. I’d like to make the amends I can by bringing your family back together. I’m asking you to let your brother come to see you.”

“Nick, out. …Get out.” Joey put his hand on Nick’s arm.

Nick stared down at Joey’s hand for a long moment. Then he nodded and pulled his arm free. “Good night, then.” He laid his hand on hers, a brief touch, and then lifted it away.

Before he turned, Tina grabbed his hand. His surprised eyes met and studied hers.

“May I send him up tomorrow?”

Tina looked at Joey, who watched with keen interest and concern, but he didn’t offer his opinion in look or word. He let her make up her own mind.

Until she’d grabbed Nick’s hand, she would have said she never wanted to see Angie again in her life. Her father and Matt had cut him out as well.

She didn’t know what had changed. But when her eyes returned to the don’s, she nodded.

Nick smiled. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

~oOo~

Angie was there when visiting hours began the next morning, while Tina was still sucking on her hospital-issue liquid breakfast. One of the morning news shows was on. They kept the television on most of the day; otherwise, it got too quiet in the room, especially when Joey was the only one with her.

Her doctor had been in before breakfast to let her know about the testing schedule for the day and that she’d be released the following day. Somehow, Nick had known that before anyone else, even Tina herself.

Joey was in the bathroom brushing his teeth when her brother came into the room, so for those first few seconds, that minute or so, Angie and Tina were alone.

She felt afraid.

Though Tina’s looks had been changed markedly and permanently, Angie looked exactly like Angie—no visible sign, all these weeks later, of what they’d gone through.

Except, maybe, some new lines at the corners of his eyes, and a few strands of grey in his dark, slicked-back hair.

He was manifestly shocked at her appearance; guilt creased his features. “Hey, Teenie,” he said, standing closer to the door than the bed.

She didn’t know if she’d have said anything even if she’d had words.

He was standing in the same spot, like he’d grown roots there, when Joey came out of the bathroom. For a second, the two men stood and stared at each other, and Tina thought the tension between them was nearly visible, like waves of red heat.

“Hey, Joe. Gimme a couple minutes with my sister.”

“No. Not…alone with her.”

Tina realized, with a shock, that Joey wasn’t hesitating as much. He didn’t speak much, or for long, but the words seemed smoother, and to come more easily. Or maybe it was simply that her inarticulate silence provided a different contrast now.

Angie turned to Tina, and she shook her head. She didn’t want to be alone with him.

With a long, shaky sigh, he nodded and came to the bed.

“I’m so sorry, Teenie. Will you forgive me?”

Tina stared but didn’t give him any indication of an answer. She didn’t know what her answer would be yet.

Joey stood near the window, his arms crossed, and glared. His tank sat on the chair at his side. She couldn’t remember when he’d last used it, other than when he turned that chair into a cot for the night.

“I never wanted you around my business. I never wanted you to know anything about it. I thought I could keep you all away from it.” He dropped his head with another sigh. “I don’t know what to say or do to make it right, shrimp. I wish you could tell me.”

All at once, the weary sorrow she’d been fighting since she’d discovered her silence rolled over Tina like a lead sheet. She turned her good ear to the pillow and sobbed. She could still hear a little, but everything dimmed as if she’d been wrapped in thick padding. Except her own voice. The moans that came with her tears, muffled by her wired jaw, and yet echoing loudly in her head, were the most articulate sounds she’d made since Angie had crashed his car.

The bout of emotion didn’t last long, however. She was too tired and sad to cry much.

He tried to take her hand, but she yanked it away as soon as his skin grazed hers—not to punish him, but because the thought of his pity scalded her brain so sharply that she almost believed its touch might burn her hand.

“Angie.” Joey was at the bed now, pushing her brother back. “Enough.”

“Okay, man. I’m going.” Angie made a noise as if he’d meant to laugh but had forgotten how. “You know why I wanted this life so bad? Why I wanted to be made so fucking bad? Because I wanted to be somebody important. I didn’t want to spend my life in a bloody apron like Dad. Ironic, huh? I’m more of a butcher than he’s ever been. There are days I scrub my hands for an hour, scrub ‘em raw, and still can’t get all the blood.” He took a few more steps backward, in the direction of the door. “I’m sorry, shrimp. I guess that’s all I got.” Putting his fingers to his lips, he sent her a kiss, then turned and left the room.