Footsteps

by Susan Fanetti

  Carlo Sr. had scowled down the row when Luca had sat down, his motorcycle helmet on the pew next to him, but otherwise, his focus was on the altar. Carlo turned and considered his father’s profile. He got the impression that he was carefully trying not to pay attention to where his youngest son had decided to sit. Not having been home for several weeks, Carlo wasn’t sure whether this was a new thing or not, but the sense he got was that everyone was as surprised as he was.

  He turned the other way and leaned over Trey to Carmen. “Joey?”

  She only shook her head and rolled her eyes. A talk for another time, then. But soon. He didn’t like this development at all.

  ~oOo~

  His intention to grill Carmen for some information about Joey was thwarted after Mass, when they were milling with other parishioners on the sidewalk outside the church, taking their turn to say a word to Father Michael. As Trey squatted down next to him to study a beetle trundling over the concrete, Carlo turned and came face to face with Sabina. Bina. She must have been at Mass.

  Her hair was brushed sleekly straight and held back with a silk scarf fixed like a wide headband. She was dressed in a pretty, brownish-pink skirt that fell below her knees and a snug, off-white sleeveless sweater with a kind of short turtleneck. That sweater showed nothing and everything and was completely stunning.

  He looked down at her feet and saw that she was wearing tall, off-white boots with what he would call a high heel. Jenny would probably have laughed at that. She’d always preferred sky-high heels. Still did, for all he knew.

  But he was surprised to see Bina here at all, much less wearing heels. Her foot had been in not-great shape last night. The marks on her wrists were gone, too, somehow.

  “Bina. Good morning. Are you doing better?”

  “Yes. Thank you. And to you, too, good morning. I stopped only to say, again, thank you. For helping me.”

  “It was my pleasure.” It really was. Too much his pleasure. He’d been tortured all night by thoughts of her soft skin in his hand. Her laugh. And that last smile as he was leaving. His creative mind had taken those tiny details of the real world and turned them into vivid fodder for his dream world.

  Her eyes shifted from him in a way he thought was self-conscious, and he looked behind him to see his entire family staring dumbly at them. Nothing to do here but the obvious, unfortunately.

  “Oh. I should introduce you. Sabina…Auberon”—it was surprisingly difficult to get that last name out—“this is my family. My father, Carlo Sr., my sisters, Carmen and Rosa, and my brothers John and Luca.” Bina shook hands with everyone.

  “There’s another brother around somewhere: Joey.” He ruffled Trey’s head, and his son stood and hooked an arm around his leg. “And this is my son, Trey. Trey, this nice lady is Ms. Bina.” He glanced at her to make sure she didn’t mind the way he’d introduced her. By her genuine smile, he assumed she did not.

  Bina bent at the waist to get closer to his son. She was wearing a pendant with a rose-colored stone, and it dangled as she leaned. “Hello, Mr. Trey. How are you?”

  “I’m fine thank you. You’re pretty.” He reached out and wrapped his little hand around her pendant. “This is pretty, too.”

  “Trey, let go, pal.” Carlo put his hand on Trey’s arm and gently pulled him back.

  “It’s not a worry, really. Thank you, Mr. Trey. You are a very nice person.” She stood up.

  “Yes I am. You’re nice, too. Do you like doughnuts with jimmies? We have doughnuts at Pop-Pop’s for breakfast. And beagles. I don’t like beagles but Daddy said I could have two jimmie doughnuts if I was quiet like a mouse in Mass and I was so now I can have two jimmie doughnuts when we go home but if you like jimmie doughnuts I would give you one.”

  She laughed. It was a beautiful sound coming from a beautiful mouth in a beautiful face. So beautiful that for a moment, Carlo hoped she would take Trey up on his offer and come home with them. What the fuck was he thinking? “Trey…”

  Bina put her hand up to stop him from saying more. “That is the most wonderful thing anyone’s wanted to do for me in a long time, Mr. Trey. I have an appointment this morning, though, so I’m afraid I’m not able to join you for a doughnut. Maybe some other time?”

  “Okay but I don’t know when Mrs. D. will bring doughnuts again. And I don’t live here all the time. Only sometimes.” He looked up at Carlo. “Daddy, how many days do we live here now?”

  “Seven more days, pal.” He looked from his son to Bina; her eyes were on him—in the sunlight he saw that they were hazel—and that feeling of something came over him again. He barely caught himself from taking the steps that would close the distance between them. What was going on here?

  Trey counted and then held up seven fingers; he had to shove his books under his arm to do so. “This is seven many. That’s a lot. Maybe we’ll have doughnuts again.”

  “Please let me know if you do.” She held her hand out to Trey, and he shook it, two sharp shakes. “It was very nice to meet you, Mr. Trey.” She looked over to the still-gaping family. “And all of you, as well. Please have a lovely day. Goodbye.” She walked away, not limping at all. Carlo couldn’t tear his eyes away.

  As soon as she was safely away, his father strode to him and grabbed his arm, pulling him away from Trey. “Auberon? This is who you were with last night? Do you know who that woman’s husband is? What the hell are you doing, boy? Diddling another man’s wife? That man’s wife? Are you trying to start a war? I expect this bullshit from Luca or Joey. Not you.”

  “I’m not diddling anybody, Pop. I walked her home, and then John picked me up. End of story.” He wrenched his arm free from the vise of his father’s hand.

  “I’m not an idiot, boy. And I’m not blind. Maybe it’s been a while since I made ‘em myself, but I know googly-eyes when I see ‘em. If you haven’t done anything stupid yet, good. Don’t. Stay away.”

  He turned and stalked off toward the parking lot. “Home,” he said as he passed his children. Everyone fell in line to follow. Carlo took Trey’s hand and trailed after. As he crossed the sidewalk toward the parking lot, he met his Uncle Ben’s eyes.

  Uncle Ben had seen it all, too.

  ~oOo~

  Early that afternoon, he and Luca sat on a log on the beach, their wetsuits folded around their waists and their boards leaning against the wood-slat fence behind them. A small, red cooler sat in the sand between them, and they’d each pulled a beer from it.

  Luca was the black sheep, the rebel. He was also Carlo’s favorite sibling. Even though Carlo was the responsible one, and Luca was the one always in trouble, they got each other better than anyone else. Carlo had eventually realized that they were the most like their father of any of the siblings, even though they were quite different. It was as if Carlo Sr.’s personality had been divided in half and each of his eldest sons got one half. Carlo was the one who put his head down, who almost always did what was expected, who took care. The provider and family man that their father was.

  Luca was the one who demanded space of his own, who would not bow to pressure to conform. He had the kind of strength that their father had shown when he’d stood before his older brothers and refused to become a part of their organization. Their father had demanded the right to live a legitimate life, and his brothers had respected his strength and embraced him for it.

  The line between the family businesses had grown a little blurry over the years, and was getting even blurrier if Joey had made the choice it seemed he might have, but their father’s accomplishment in building a business that was successful and respected in its own right was not diminished.

  Luca shared another thing with their father that Carlo didn’t share: physicality. Carlo was tall, lean, and long-limbed, six-foot-three, with broad shoulders and comparatively narrow hips, Luca was built like a cage fighter—right at six feet and massively muscled, his biceps huge and his trapezius muscles arcing noticeably over his shoulders. He’d actually done some boxing
and competitive MMA in his twenties, but he’d blown a knee. It had been repaired, but he hadn’t been so enamored of the sport that he’d been willing to cripple himself for it.

  Their father had the same build. In later life, it had tended to roundness, but Luca, at thirty-three, was all hard muscle. Despite his greater height and his own cut physique, on which he worked with some sense of commitment, Carlo often felt unsubstantial next to his younger brother.

  That was brought home again as they sat on the beach. As usual, all the girls who walked by saw Luca first and smiled at him, their hips picking up a little extra sway when he smiled back. And he always smiled back.

  But this afternoon he was less welcoming of the girls’ attention than usual. He and Carlo were talking in some depth. They were both in their father’s doghouse now.

  Carlo had first asked about Joey, but Luca didn’t know more than Carmen had, which wasn’t much. Whatever was going on with Joey and the Uncles was new. Carlo Sr. had grabbed his youngest son by the collar after breakfast and pulled him into his study. They’d still been in there when Carlo had left Trey watching television with Rosa and John and had gone out to have a paddle with Luca. The waves had been a little mushy, but it was always good just to get wet.

  When they came back in and settled on the beach, they’d first talked about Luca, because Carlo had taken a preemptive strike and put their conversation on that path. Luca and Carlo Sr. were fighting over a job bid, it turned out. Luca thought their father was underbidding on a big job, to the point that he thought it could hurt them. When he’d gotten nowhere in private discussion, he’d challenged the bid in front of the customer.

  Carlo was pretty glad he’d been in Providence for the explosion that Luca had described.

  “What’s the fallout?”

  Luca shrugged. “We’ll see next week. After that scene in front of the customer, I expect we’ll lose the bid. But I’m glad. No way we could have made it with such a close shave. He should have seen it even without me pointing it out. He definitely should have seen it after I did. Something’s going on with Pop. It’s like he’s getting desperate all of a sudden. I can’t figure it. But I need to keep some space between him and me for a while. Much as I can.”

  There wasn’t much space Luca could get. He was chief supervisor, in charge of all the crews. He was their father’s right hand. But now Carlo understood why he hadn’t shown for the cookout.

  “Could he be sick? He was on me yesterday about abandoning the family legacy. He even said he was going to die, and then where would things be.”

  Luca laughed. “No way he’ll ever see that it should be me. Fucking sucks, too. I love that damn company.”

  “I know. I still say he’ll come around eventually. If only because there’s no one else.” The idea of either John or Joey at the helm of Pagano & Sons was a joke. Both worked crews—or had; Carlo wasn’t sure about Joey now—and both were good on a job site, but neither had the acumen to run the business.

  “Yeah. But nah, I don’t think he’s sick. I see him every day. If he is, the Oscar goes to, because he’s big and strong and tough as ever. The moods are getting to be a pain in the ass, but he’s not irrational. Just a son of a bitch. There’s something goin’ on, though. Somewhere.” Luca drained his beer and opened the cooler for another, tossing a fresh to Carlo, too. “But my shit with Pop is old news. How’d you end up bunking with me in the shithouse? Tell me what’s up with this chick. She’s hot—wicked rack on her.”

  He guessed he’d staved this conversation off as long as he could. “She’s just a nice woman that I met. I only walked her home when she left the bonfire last night. Nothing’s up—she’s married.”

  “Yeah, so I hear. To that Auberon bastard. You know Pop and I are writing a bid for him, right?”

  “No. I didn’t. Pete and I are trying to get an invite to submit on something, too. Doesn’t matter. Seriously, Luc. Just walked the woman home.”

  Luca laughed. “Big brother, you are either an idiot or a liar. There was some hardcore eye-fucking going on this morning. Right there in front of Pop, Trey, Father Michael and hell, probably God himself. I mean, it’s time you got back in the game, but maybe you don’t want to start out with a death match, you know? That guy is every bit as ruthless as the Uncles, and you know it. You’re sitting on the wrong side of the pews if you want to take on James Auberon. Especially if you’re doing it to fuck his wife.”

  “Jesus, Luc! I was nice to her. End of story. And I met her two days ago. Why is everybody so damn sure I want to get into her pants?”

  “Don’t you? Be straight.”

  He hesitated for only a second, but that was enough. Luca laughed knowingly and slapped him on the back, and Carlo didn’t even bother to answer.

  Yeah. He did want her. Or, at least, he was interested. But she belonged to somebody else. That she belonged to a sadistic bastard was irrelevant. She had taken a vow to another.

  His family was right; he should stay away. In this cozy little nook of the world, staying away might not be so easy, though. Maybe he and Trey should cut their week short and head back to Providence.

  ~ 6 ~

  When Sabina got back to the beach house, she removed her boots as quickly as she could and tried to flex her sore foot. She’d wrapped it well, covering the gauze bandage with an elastic bandage she’d wrapped around her foot and ankle to make sure it all stayed in place. But even the low, two-inch heels of these boots had been a small torture.

  She changed from her church clothes into a pair of dark brown shorts, leaving her little sweater on but taking off most of her jewelry. Then she pulled her hair up into a ponytail and picked up her book. She’d stay on the veranda today. Sand was not yet her friend again.

  Though she’d been enjoying the book she’d started yesterday—it was an old Ellery Queen murder mystery, which she’d found amusingly on point when she’d selected it—she had trouble focusing this afternoon. There were many thoughts in her head, and they all demanded to be thought at once.

  She wasn’t completely certain why she’d gone to Mass. It hadn’t been to see Carlo, although she had felt a frightening thrill when she’d realized he was sitting near the front. She’d gone for the Mass itself.

  She hadn’t been in more than fifteen years, not since she’d met and immediately become serious with James. He was nominally a Presbyterian. In reality, though, he had no patience for religion, and he sneeringly referred to Catholics as ‘papists,’ so there’d been no chance of her continuing to practice the religion into which she’d been born. They’d met at a time in her life when she’d been chafing at the rigid dogma of her Church and questioning her faith in general, so she hadn’t really minded or even noticed the way he’d pulled her from it. He’d given her youthful rebellion an excuse, and she’d taken it.

  It was years before she’d missed it. Even after she’d known the hell she’d chosen instead, she hadn’t really pined for Sunday Mass or confession or communion, or any of it. And when she had, her faith had been bound up in a knot of nostalgia that held all the things about who she’d been and what she’d lost—her faith, her language, the last remnants of her family. All of it. She’d had no specific need to reconnect with the Church.

  But something about talking to Carlo last night had touched that part of her. Perhaps it was the way he’d simply known she would be Catholic, and the way he’d expected her thus to understand why his marriage had been annulled. And she had understood. Divorce among Catholics was serious business, and Catholics who divorced could not remarry in the Church. An annulment allowed for the chance to remarry. It was the need of a man who had hope for his future.