Footsteps

by Susan Fanetti

  She rolled her eyes, and Carlo’s fists tightened. “Why? Are you going to hurt me? This thing right now with Luca—is that little show supposed to make me afraid? You won’t hurt me, Carlo.” She sighed and set the gift on the table in front of her. “Look. I don’t want ugliness. I miss my son. I was wrong to give him up completely. Maybe I was wrong to give him up at all. But I miss him. I want to be in his life. I would like to work that out with you. Just you and me.”

  This was not a Jenny with which he was familiar. She was too composed, too seemingly confident and prepared. The woman he’d known was flighty or anxious, her control always obviously a necessary effort. The Jenny he’d known should have been vibrating with stress right now. “No.”

  “What, no? You can’t just say no and think that’s the end of this. I’m his mother.”

  Carlo took three angry steps forward, ignoring Luca’s warning mutter of his name, and stood towering over Jenny. “See, you’re not. You signed your rights away. You are officially not his mother.”

  She crossed her skinny arms over her chest, and Carlo saw a break in the unfamiliar, artificial calm she’d been projecting. “Rights can be reclaimed.”

  Thinking about Trey’s recent weeks of confusion, his renewed memories and questions about his mother and where she was, and thinking how all of that turmoil had settled in him again since they’d come back to the Cove, how he was back to himself and happy in the life he had now, without her, and thinking of Bina and how good and calm and maternal she was already, how easy and true she was with Trey just by instinct, and how much better they all were now, and how this bitch before him could fuck with that, Carlo snapped. He reached down and grabbed Jenny by the neck and yanked her to her feet. “Are you really that fucking stupid?”

  He squeezed, and her hands clawed at his wrist. His hand clenched and clenched; Carlo didn’t feel like he was operating his own body. He was having an out-of-body experience, his sense gone and his fury left behind.

  And then Luca was there, and Carlo was being shoved back by his brother’s brawny arm. “And this is why I stayed. Okay, you little cunt, put that bony ass back down and shut the fuck up. You’re fine.” Luca turned and grabbed Carlo by the shoulders, forcing him to sit in their father’s big chair. “And you sit here. I’ll just stand right here in the middle.”

  Luca stood between them like Mr. Clean, his arms crossed over his broad chest. Carlo ignored him and glared at Jenny. She was rubbing gingerly at her throat.

  “Now you know I will hurt you. What you did to Trey—you will never get the chance to fuck with his head like that again. You walked away. You disappeared in the night like a coward, and you left my son to wonder why. So no. I will kill you before I let that happen again. And if you are so stupid to think that I will let you even try to take this to court, then you deserve to fucking die. I will unleash everything to keep that from happening. Do you understand what I’m saying, Jenny?”

  “And if I’m sorry?” Her voice had taken on a rough, wavering edge. Her façade of cool control was gone.

  “I don’t fucking care. There’s no sorry that fixes this.”

  “Carlo, I really miss him. He was the only thing I was ever good at—being his mommy.”

  That struck him funny—outrageously funny—and he laughed hard enough that Luca cocked an eyebrow at him. “You think you were good at being his mother? Jenny, if you were good at being his mother, you’d still be his mother.” He stood. “I’m done with this. You’re leaving. On your own feet or thrown over my shoulder, you are leaving now.”

  Jenny just sat there and stared at him. But he hadn’t been exaggerating, so he moved toward her with every intention of yanking her up by her hair and throwing her over his shoulder. She must have sensed that, because she stood, quickly, her hands up.

  “Okay. I’ll go. But will you please at least give him the present? It’s a solar system mobile. He’ll love it.”

  “He doesn’t care about astronomy anymore, Jenny. That was last year. A lot has changed. Take it with you. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t need you or your present. Get. The fuck. Out.”

  They glared at each other for several poisonous seconds, and then Jenny simply drooped. She nodded, and Carlo stepped back. When she walked away from the gift on the table, Carlo retrieved it.

  “Take this with you.”

  She turned and accepted it from him, and he could see that she was fighting back tears.

  He didn’t care—no, wrong. He cared. He was glad. He hoped she felt searing pain right now.

  Luca dropped his hand on Carlo’s shoulder. “I’ll see her out, make sure she goes. You go back to your kid and your woman.” He laughed sourly. “And Jesus fuck, I am never hooking in with a chick. What a fucking mess.”

  ~oOo~

  Before Carlo could go back out to the party, before he’d be fit for the company of Trey and Bina, he had to get himself under control. He went into the kitchen and grabbed one of Luca’s ‘good’ beers and drank it dry while he was still standing in the open cold of the fridge.

  He thought he really would have killed her if Luca hadn’t been there. He wanted to kill her now. He closed the door and leaned his forehead on the cool stainless steel.

  “She’s gone, bro. Toss me one of those, will ya?”

  Luca was behind him. He opened the fridge again and tossed him a bottle.

  “You know she’s not just gonna skitter off like the little rat she is, right? If she’s got this in her pointy little teeth—”

  Carlo wheeled on him. “You think you need to tell me that? I was with her for six fucking years. I know. I know.” Jenny was not stable, and though he’d never seen the collected cool she’d started their encounter today with, he knew full well that if she was obsessing about Trey now, they had a problem. “I meant what I told her. I will kill her before I let her near him.”

  “No, you will not.” Carlo and Luca both stood straight and turned to see Uncle Ben and Aunt Angie standing at the door to the mudroom, which led from the back door. “We came in to say goodbye. Wait outside, Ang. I’ll be out in just a minute.”

  Aunt Angie nodded, and she, Carlo, and Luca said a polite goodbye.

  “Uncle Ben, this isn’t—” Carlo stopped when his uncle put up a firm hand.

  “It is a family matter, obviously. But I seem to be coming into this story in the second act. Or perhaps the third. Jenny is here? Or was?”

  Luca cleared his throat. “Was.”

  The look Uncle Ben sent Luca shut him up. He directed his next question to Carlo. “She left willingly?”

  “On her own power, but no.”

  “Luca, pour me a scotch, will you? Straight.”

  “Sure, Uncle.” Luca turned and headed to the dining room, where the bar was.

  Uncle Ben sighed heavily and smoothed his heavy mustache. “You didn’t let her see him. And from what I hear, you’re ready to commit murder to prevent it. You’d rather do that than ask for help from family?”

  “Family? Or business?” Still fighting his rage, Carlo didn’t catch the words before they were out, or the combative tone in which they were uttered. Uncle Ben’s narrowing eyes were chilling enough for him to get control of himself.

  “You and Luca owe a business debt already, boy. You put your nose in our business with your brother, and that puts you in our business. That we’ll talk about on Monday. At the warehouse. Your problem with this vagabond woman, that is family. I told you once before I would put her back where she belongs.”

  Luca came back with Uncle Ben’s scotch, then got himself and Carlo another beer each.

  Carlo took it with a grateful nod and poured a long swallow down his throat. “I don’t want her back, Uncle. She’ll only hurt and confuse Trey. He and I need to move on.”

  “With Sabina?”

  “Yes. I hope so. Uncle, I’m not asking for help. Not yet.”

  “I’m not offering help yet. I need to know more before I do. I might have somebody look into
a few things—just information gathering. What I am telling you is that before you resort to murder, I would hope that you would come talk to us. We have other options. And, if it comes to it, we’re better prepared for…every eventuality. Family, not business. I love you and your boy. Sabina is a delight. A good Catholic girl, too. Now putting Jenny where she belongs means getting her away. When she signed those papers, she was done in this family. You should move on.”

  Carlo nodded, feeling guarded and relieved in equal measure. “Thank you.”

  Uncle Ben nodded. “You both—in my office Monday morning. Ten sharp—that should give you time to check in at your job sites first, Luca. Then we talk business.” He finished his scotch. “Your father has excellent taste. I’d better get to your aunt, or I’ll be hearing for the rest of the night about how I made her sit in the car. Good night, boys.”

  When they were alone in the kitchen, Luca leaned against the counter. “We just got called to the woodshed.”

  “Yep. There’s a chipper in that shed. I am going to go unwire Joey’s jaw so I can break it again. Fucking ass.”

  “Easy. What did we do wrong? Helped our brother, made sure the Uncles got paid. How bad could our trouble be?”

  “He says we owe a debt.”

  Luca dropped his head. “Fuck.”

  “Yeah.” But that was a worry for Monday. Now, Carlo just wanted to get his arms around his kid. He finished his beer and went back to the party.

  ~oOo~

  That night, Trey slept in his shark pajamas and his shark socks, inside his shark sleeping bag, hugging his giant stuffed shark while an undersea fantasy undulated in light on his walls and ceiling. He was a happy, exhausted four-year-old with a life as full as it should be.

  He’d fallen asleep halfway through his first story. Carlo kissed his forehead and gave Elsa’s head a pat. Before he pulled the door to, he stood in the doorway and just watched as the waves of light from the new projector rolled over Trey’s sleeping form.

  Things were coming back together. Trey was happy here. Carlo had signed him up for part-time preschool. His design had made the second round for the Connelly job, and that had backed Peter off from his snit-induced intent to kill their company. They’d had a decent—or, at least, not hostile—conversation when Carlo called him with the news. And Ken Jeremy had gotten the office work done in four days.

  And Bina. He’d had a moment of insanity this evening, proposing to her out of the blue, but she hadn’t been overly freaked out. He’d just been so overwhelmed by the simple, astonishing beauty of her choice to learn a skill just to make Trey a gift. Maybe it was silly, but it had moved Carlo in ways beyond description. That and her silly cake—she was trying, without seeming to know she was trying, to learn to be his son’s mother.

  She didn’t seem to see it, but Carlo certainly did. He loved her all the more for trying, and for not knowing she was.

  If Jenny fucked with any of it, he would tear her into pieces and throw the chum into the ocean to attract Trey’s beloved sharks.

  When he went downstairs, Rosa and Carmen were cleaning the kitchen. His father was taking out the trash. Carlo was surprised not to see Bina—she was usually in the midst of the work that there was to be done. “Where’s Bina?”

  He felt a low-grade jolt of worry that she had left. She had her car here, so she could have gone. Why she would have, though, he didn’t know. In their brief, whispered discussion about his confrontation in the living room, she had seemed more concerned for him than anxious about Jenny.

  Rosa turned from the cabinet where she was putting glassware away. “She was out back, last I saw, collecting wrapping paper and stuff.”

  He found her sweeping the flagstones, her little skirt swaying with her hips, and he walked up behind her. “Hey, Cinderella. Got a date for the ball?”

  Holding the broom in one hand, she turned in his arms and blinked coyly at him. “I was hoping the handsome prince would ask me.”

  “He did, baby. You told him to wait.” Damn. His fucking mouth. Her sweet smile faltered a little, but she recovered quickly. She dropped the play, however.

  “Is Trey asleep?”

  “He is. All sharked out. He’s going to boil in all that gear tonight, but he was blissed.” A breeze kicked up, and in it Carlo smelled the rain that had threatened since the morning. “Think it might finally let loose.”

  “Yes. I felt a drop or two already. I should go.”

  “Bina, stay tonight. Just tonight. After everything, I want to be with you tonight.”

  “Does Trey know?”

  “No. But you’re his, too. Remember? He’ll be okay if you’re here in the morning. He’ll be happy.”

  The rain started, dropping gentle beads on the canvas tenting over the patio.

  “And if I’m not here every morning? Carlo, you tempt me. Do you know how much I want to say yes? To everything? Every day you offer me this life that I love. But I’m not ready. I want to be strong enough. You say you’ll give me time for this, to be strong, but—”

  He kissed her quiet. The events of the evening had focused some things in Carlo’s head, things he needed to say. When he pulled back, he took her hands in his. “Come sit with me. We need to talk.” He led her to the settee and sat with her. “Bina, why do you say you’re not strong enough?”

  She looked down at their twined hands for a long time. Without looking up, she finally said, “Not so long ago, I didn’t understand even how to make a phone contract. I’m only learning how to live.”

  “I don’t think that’s true. Stuff like apartments and phones—that’s minutia. I think you know better than most how to live. I think living the life you lived and coming through it and being who you are shows that your strength is practically superhuman. Bina—you still trust. You’re still quick to love. You’re kind, and you’re not suspicious or cynical—all things you have every fucking right to be. Do you understand how miraculous that is?” He wanted her to understand. He willed it at her.

  But she shook her head. “I let him do those things to me. For years, I let him do those things—to hurt me, to control me, to take my body from me. To take motherhood from me. I thought I was strong to live it, but I feel now so much that I missed. So much of myself had to die to live that way. I don’t want to join with you before I recover what I lost. I’m sorry, Carlo. I need that. You say I am yours, and Trey’s, and my heart…my heart swells at that. It’s so much of what I want. But I want to be mine, too. Do you see?”

  He saw. He wanted her to see what he saw—the strength she showed even now, in pushing him back. Seeing Jenny must have put what he’d had in this short time with Bina in a new perspective, a stark contrast, because he felt a frenzy building up. He was impatient. She was right—it was all too fast. But he didn’t fucking care. He wanted his family intact. He wanted her in it. And he wanted her to fucking see how right they were, and that he would not get in the way of her having herself, being who she wanted to be. He wanted to shake her and make her see.

  He dropped his head and took a deep, shaky breath. He was a man on the edge tonight. “Just for tonight. I need you. I need to feel you with me. We can talk to Trey in the morning about how sometimes you’ll sleep over and sometimes you won’t. He’ll roll with it. Already you’re here sometimes and sometimes you’re not. I can’t sleep alone tonight, and I can’t be gone when Trey wakes up, because I was here when he went to sleep. I need you here with me.” He looked up. “I’m asking you to save me, Bina. Tonight, I need you to save me.”

  That was the right thing to say; he saw it in her eyes, and, when she brought a hand to his cheek, he felt it in her touch. “Trey’s mother—”