Rooted (The Pagano Family Book 3) (28 page)

Trey nodded and returned his attention to his brother. “Hi, Little Ben. I’m Trey. Misby says even if she didn’t get fat like Aunt Carmen, you’re my brother and she’s your mommy. Like she’s my mommy now, too. She said even if we weren’t in her tummy, we’re in her heart. So you can call her Misby if you want. But that’s a name I made up myself, so only people I say can call her that.” He looked up at Sabina, who had tears running freely down her face. His expression turned to worry. “Don’t cry, Misby. Little Ben can call you Mommy if you want.”

“No, Trey. I would be happy for him to call me Misby, too. I’m crying because I’m happy. I love my boys very much.”

Trey shook his head and turned back to his brother. “Misby says sometimes ladies cry when they’re happy. Ladies are silly.”

From the back of the room, Joey muttered, plenty loud for all to hear, “Got that right.” Everybody laughed, which startled the baby, and he began to cry, showing healthy, strong lungs.

“Little Ben! You’re too loud!” Trey shouted and let go of his brother to cover his ears. With the speedy reflexes of a brand-new mother, Sabina caught the baby before he had barely bobbled on Trey’s lap, and she put him to her shoulder.

An odd sensation thrummed in Carmen’s body, like an electric charge or a magnetic pull. She felt it in her belly, her breasts, everywhere. Her heart most of all. She actually had to tamp down the urge to simply take Little Ben from Sabina’s arms.

There must have been something in her eyes or her posture, because when Sabina turned to her, she cocked her head a little and smiled. “Would you like to hold him?”

Speech deserted her, so Carmen simply nodded and took the baby. It was hardly the first time she’d ever held an infant in her arms. But somehow, it was like nothing she’d felt before. Hormones—it had to be hormones. She looked down into that tiny, perfect face. Little Ben yawned and put his fingers on his face, the gesture of a world-weary old man. Carmen laughed; everybody laughed—but quietly this time. Then Teresa kicked, and, yet again, Carmen burst into tears.

~oOo~

While the family was still taking turns holding the newest addition, Carmen went up to the room she and Rosa had shared. She’d sleep here tonight. No use going even the mile to her own house when she’d just be back here first thing in the morning.

She took her phone out of her bag and scrolled to Theo’s number. For a few seconds, her thumb hovered. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted to say—or what she wanted, period. Except to hear his voice. It was Christmas Eve. There was at least one thing to say. She tapped his name and put the phone to her ear.

It rang through to voice mail. She didn’t want to leave a message, so she ended the call. But before she could set her phone down, he called her.

She answered. “Hi.”

“Carmen. Are you okay? The baby?” An edge of worry sharpened his voice.

“Yes. We’re fine.”

“Oh. Good.” A pause. “Why did you call, then?”

Something about the question hurt her feelings, but she couldn’t see what. Maybe the assumption that she wouldn’t call otherwise, that she needed a specific reason, a problem, to call? But that was her fault. She’d left him. And then she’d made good on her promise to have her lawyer contact him to work out visitation. Because she was a bitch.

She hesitated, not knowing what to say. Into her silence, Theo said, “Carmen, we’re in the middle of something here. If you’re okay, then…”

“I wanted to hear your voice.” Fuck! Why had she said that? It was true, but it was wrong.

He responded to it with silence.

She didn’t speak, either.

Finally, weariness heavy in his voice, he asked, “What does that mean, Carmen?”

She didn’t know. “I don’t know.”

“Have you changed your mind?”

She would not be forced into someone else’s choice. That ultimatum, having the choice laid out for her so starkly, had made her incapable of even considering its merits. She would not be forced. “Have you?”

“No.”

There it was, then. The end. “Okay. I guess…okay. Merry Christmas, then.”

“Be well, Carmen.” He ended the call.

~oOo~

Carlo and Sabina stayed home from Midnight Mass with their sons, but everyone else went to Christ the King. They met the Uncles and aunts and Nick there, as usual. The Uncles had come to some kind of détente in their war, Carmen supposed; they hadn’t had bodyguards for a while now. Things were back to normal, and even moving forward again.

Uncle Ben was thrilled to learn of the new baby and honored that he’d been named for him. The Uncles and their wives planned to come over on Christmas Day to meet the little one.

After Mass, all the siblings went back to the house and stayed the night. Once Trey was asleep, the annual gift shift got underway, with brightly wrapped boxes materializing from the cellar, the attic, next door, various car trunks and back seats. And then, finally, everyone went to bed.

As depressed as she was, Carmen found some comfort in the full feel of this house she loved, which held everything about her life that was worthwhile. For good or ill, this was her life. Here, in Quiet Cove. Nowhere else. That had to be true. What she knew about herself and her life fell apart without the roots that had grown into the foundation of this house.

But even lying in her childhood bed, surrounded by her whole family, on Christmas Eve, Carmen felt hollow. She lay staring up at the ceiling, knowing she wouldn’t sleep, playing over and over that call to Theo. Hearing Rosa, Eli, and Jordan talking and laughing in the background. Theo’s detached, fed-up tone. His monosyllabic response when she’d asked if he’d changed his mind. “No.” Like the end of them wasn’t worth more energy than those two letters.

Little Ben began to cry, and then the floorboards creaked as somebody went to collect him. Carmen got up and slid her arms into her robe. She wanted to see the little guy again.

She found him with his father, sitting in the living room, feeding him a bottle. Carlo looked up when she came into the room. “Hey, Caramel. Can’t sleep?”

“No.” Carlo was in their father’s big leather chair. Carmen sat on the floor at his feet.

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Are you going to be able to get up from there?”

“Smartass. Yes. I’m not that far gone yet.”

They were quiet for a while, watching the baby. Without taking his eyes from his new son, Carlo said, “Can we talk about what’s going on with you?”

Carmen regretted coming down. “Nothing to say. It didn’t work out.”

“But you love him.” He didn’t ask, he stated. Because he knew it was true.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s not enough. He wants me to give everything up and move to Maine. I can’t do that.”

“I love you, Carm. I love you so much. But you worry me. You used to follow your heart. Now I’m not sure you even know where it is.”

His words hurt, and she flinched as if he’d slapped her. “Jesus, Carlo. Why would you say something like that?”

“I don’t mean you’re heartless, sis. Not even close. I mean you’re lost. You put yourself aside so often that you’ve forgotten where you left you. That wild girl you used to be. The one who used to stand up in Tony Napoli’s CJ-5 while he flew down the highway, your arms over your head and your hair flying behind you like a flag. Remember her? She was awesome.”

“And what am I now? Worthless?”

The baby fussed, and Carlo set the empty bottle aside and put his new son on his shoulder. “No! You’re unhappy. You’ve been unhappy for years. You made a good life, but you made it out of other people’s leavings. What do
you
want? You don’t have to take care of the family anymore. You could let somebody take care of you. That would be okay.”

“I need to stay here, Carlo. With the family. It’s what I know will be here always. That’s what Teresa needs.”

“Is it what
you
need? Is it what you
want
?”

Now Carmen was definitely regretting coming down. She swallowed down that blasted lump in her throat. How could she know what she needed? And what she wanted? When had that fucking mattered? “Carlo, stop. I made my choice. It’s the right one. I know it. It has to be.”

They stared at each other while Carlo patted Little Ben’s back. Finally, he nodded. “Okay. You’re right about one thing, at least. We’re here. We’re always here.”

“I know. That’s how I know I’m right. About all of it.”

She stood and went back upstairs, leaving Carlo alone with his new son. Curled again under her old, sunny yellow quilt, Carmen wrapped her hand around the necklace Andi had made her, full of nurturing stones. Like jasper.

Here, her home, was right. It had to be.

~ 20 ~

The new year started cold and thick with snow. Eli had helped Theo put the plow on the lawnmower while he and Rosa were in for Christmas, and it was getting regular use. Theo and Jordan spent the first two weeks of January quietly, mainly in the house. Theo worked on refreshing his syllabi and getting his courses ready for the spring semester and got a new home improvement project started, keeping busy, trying to keep his mind off of Carmen, and trying not to think about booze. He had dumped everything that had been in the house, and at least the snow had the significant effect of making it too much trouble to go out for more. When he felt the need to drink, he went outside and chopped wood or plowed the drive or just walked in the woods until it passed.

Jordan was uncharacteristically quiet. He had been most of his break, but as January began to age and it was time for him to pack up and head back to Orono, he was almost sullen—and that was not a mood his youngest son normally expressed. Theo got the sense, too, that Jordan was avoiding him, which was hard to do in a house of this size.

In the middle of the last week of break, a few days before both Theo and Jordan were set to return to their respective campuses, Theo sat in his office, creating PowerPoint slides for his first day of classes. He didn’t really like PowerPoint, but he’d found that students paid better attention if he gave them something interesting to look at while he talked—something more interesting than him. So he found images of the authors they would be reading and matched them with quotes that were funny or relevant in some way.

He was wasting time online, actually, when Jordan knocked on his door and then opened it a few inches. “Dad, do you have some time to talk?”

“Sure, kiddo. Come on in.” Theo noticed that Jordan looked a little pale—not sick, but not happy. “I hope this is you wanting to talk about why you’ve been down lately.”

Jordan sat on the old, floral sofa that had been cast off to Theo’s office years before. “Yes. Yes, I do. I’m not sure exactly how to say it, though.”

“Just say it, Jordan. The way you usually do. Bold.”

He sat up straight and primly and took a big breath. On the exhale he said, “I’m not going back to school.”

Theo closed his laptop at that. Before he could turn fully around again, Jordan added, “Wait—were you looking at cribs? Is there news?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“No—if there’s news about Carmen, that’s more important.”

“There’s no news. I haven’t spoken to her since Christmas.”

Jordan sighed theatrically. “You’re both stupid, just so you know.”

“Jordan, no. You came in here and dropped a bomb. You don’t get to change the subject. What do you mean you’re not going back to school?”

“I’m not. There’s no point. Why am I getting a degree in theater? Why am I doing stupid campus productions of
Peer Gynt
or whatever? Why am I not in New York, auditioning and getting roles that pay? They don’t care in New York if I have a degree! They only care if I can act and sing and dance—and I’m fantastic at all those things!”

“You thought all this out when you decided to go to college in the first place, Jordan. You decided the education would round out your experience and make you a better actor. You wanted the meaty roles and the variety from campus productions on your résumé. Aren’t you getting that?”

Jordan sighed and threw himself back to slouch on the sofa. “Yes, but…”

“Look. This is a choice you have to make for yourself. You’re twenty-one. You live your own consequences. You have a good head on your shoulders, so I trust you to use it. If this is the choice you want to make, then we’ll go up on the weekend and clear out your dorm room. But I’m surprised. You’ve loved college until now. Is there something else going on?”

Jordan looked down at his lap, and Theo knew there was something. “What is it, son?”

“I’m so tired of it, Dad. I’m just so tired of being The Fag. I’m tired of pretending like it doesn’t bother me. I want to live in Chelsea and be someplace where I’m normal. A state school in Maine is not a place where I’m normal.”

Both Eli and Jordan could have gone to Colson College, where Theo taught, for free, but they had both wanted to spread their wings and live away from home. Eli had done well in school and had played varsity football well enough to garner some regional news attention. He’d gotten a scholarship to a different private college with a fair football program. Jordan had spent his school years being fabulous and hanging out with the arts crowd, not studying. His academic success had been middling. With no scholarships forthcoming for him, his choices were his father’s college or the state university. He chose the big school, thinking that it would be easier to fit in or blend in with a larger student body. But he had never fit or blended well.

Still, this was the first Theo had heard of any major trouble Jordan was having at college because of who he was. “Has it been going on the whole time, or did something happen this fall?”

“Dad! It’s been going on my whole life! I don’t fit here. Maybe being in Europe for a few weeks made it more clear—maybe that’s why it sucks more now. But I’m so
over
it. Maine is too small for me. In more ways than one. I literally just
cannot
anymore.”

“Okay. But Chelsea isn’t exactly a cut-rate neighborhood. How are you going to afford it?”

“Chelsea is the dream. In the meantime, Eli and Rosa said I could stay with them in Brooklyn until I find a day job and maybe a sublet or a share or something.” He smirked. “Or a sugar daddy.”

Ignoring that last remark with a wry eyeroll, Theo asked, “You talked to Eli and Rosa, but not to me? Why not?”

He shrugged. “I thought you’d make your disappointed face. I hate your disappointed face.”

“If I’m disappointed, it’s not in you, Jordan. Never in you. I’m disappointed that the world is a hard place. People in general disappoint me.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” He scooted over to one side of the sofa. “Now that that’s settled, sit over here with me and let’s build a dream nursery for my baby sister. She can have Eli’s room. Do you know Pinterest? We should start a board.”

~oOo~

They moved Jordan out of the dorm that weekend, and after a few days in which he lingered in nervous indolence, using a new, light snowfall as his excuse to stay in his pajamas and watch television, Jordan packed up the RAV4 that had been his mother’s and drove to Brooklyn.

Theo was alone again.

He was quickly back in the campus swing, though, and his job was a demanding one. On a normal week, he easily put in sixty hours of teaching, meetings, service, advising, preparation, grading. The first week of any semester tended to be chaotic, full of students begging for seats in an already-full course, or needing last-minute schedule changes, or just generally being confused about life. Every single committee wanted to meet in the first couple of weeks, too. His schedule was packed, and that was a good thing. It kept his mind occupied.

Colleagues stopped by Theo’s office with some regularity, inviting him for lunch or coffee, or, more complicated, drinks at the end of the day. The Department of Literatures and Languages at Colson College was, by the strained standards of academe, a collegial group. They went to each other’s houses for cocktail parties, they played poker together, they met for drinks. They bowled and played softball. Sure, there were some gasbags, malcontents, and shit-disturbers in the mix, but for the most part, people got along and even enjoyed each other. That kind of amity among faculty was rare, and it was another reason Theo could not consider changing jobs to move to Quiet Cove. You simply did not walk away from the job of your dreams.

Even if it meant going home to a completely empty house, knowing that the woman you loved and the child she was carrying would not come to you and make it full.

Carmen was wrong. She was
wrong
. She was using his reluctance—fine, his unwillingness—to leave his life as an excuse not to see that his life was the right one for them both. She was unhappy in her life. Why would she cleave to it so hard when she had no joy in it?

Because she was afraid. Even as she admitted her fear, she seemed unable to fight against it.

He knew that he’d been stupid and impulsive in their last fight, drawing the line too starkly and serving up an excuse for her to give into her fear. Perhaps if he apologized…but it was too late for that. Now she would see any attempt to convince her that Maine was where they belonged as a refusal to see her perspective. And that was wrong. He saw her perspective, and he saw that it was skewed and incomplete.

They were blocked from each other by mutual stubbornness.

She had sent him papers from a lawyer. A proposal for a visitation arrangement. Offering him one fucking Saturday a month in Quiet Cove with his own daughter.

So, no. He would not apologize. No, he would not concede. And no, he would not sign those blasted papers. He’d contacted his own lawyer.

And this was what they had become.

When she’d called on Christmas Eve, saying that she’d missed his voice, he’d felt a heart-racing surge of love and hope. And then ire had suffused and overwhelmed the love. Fucking bitch. To send him that terrible document from her lawyer? And two days later to call to tell him she wanted to hear his voice?

No. He didn’t play games like that.

But he wanted her. He wanted his daughter. He wanted his family, and he knew he wouldn’t be complete again without them.

So he filled his days on campus, and saw as many friends and colleagues as he could. If they noticed he wasn’t drinking, they didn’t remark on it—at least not to him. And then he came home and prepared the next classes and graded papers. In the free time he had left, he worked on turning Eli’s room into Teresa’s room.

Maybe someday he’d be able to bring her here, and she’d sleep in the crib he’d bought her.

~oOo~

Near the end of January, in Lewiston after a gloomy meeting with his lawyer during which the specifics and complications of interstate custody and visitation law were shared in demoralizing detail, Theo sat behind the wheel of his old Cherokee, staring at a strip mall across the street. It was one of those bare, industrial-looking buildings, thrown up quickly, with no thought of aesthetics. All about the bottom line. The resident businesses were no more inspired than the building in which they were housed. A nail salon. An national tax-preparation franchise. A Chinese takeout joint. Two empty storefronts, their windows swirled to opacity with soap. On one far end, Lewis Liquor, its sign glowing orange neon. And on the other end, a perfect bookend, The Dugout. A bar.

He really needed a fucking drink.

He drove across the street and parked in front of The Dugout. The bar was better—at least then the drinks would be coming one at a time, and maybe he’d be okay with just one. Or two.

He went in.

It was a typical local-hole kind of place, a little dreary, a lot beer-soaked. The walls were covered with photographs of Little League teams and fishing tournament catches, bowling leagues, softball leagues, memorabilia from the Boston teams. Behind the bar, between the shelves of liquor, were three shelves jam-packed with trophies. Two televisions were installed high in corners opposite each other, currently showing a Bruins game and the local news, respectively. Aside from the stools at the long bar, the only other seating was a row of four wood-grain Formica tables, each with four red, cafeteria-style chairs. This was a place you went for a drink, not a meal.

It was early yet, and this wasn’t the kind of place that would draw a lot of suited businessmen stopping off for a quick cold one before commuting home to the ‘burbs. There were a couple of older men sitting on stools at the bar, and a tired-looking waitress leaning on the service rail, talking to the men and the bartender, an older guy an iron grey crew cut and the deeply wrinkled face and neck of a man who’d spent his life in the sun. Retired military or commercial fisherman was Theo’s guess.