Footsteps

by Susan Fanetti

  “Um…Yes, if that’s what you’d like.”

  “Yeah. I’m just Trey. Like Daddy says. But he calls me ‘pal,’ too. Don’t call me ‘pal.’ That’s just for Daddy.”

  “Of course.” She cleared her throat, a dainty sound. “Waffles, yes?”

  “With marple syrup, please.”

  “They take longer, a little. Would you like some fruit first?”

  “Um…I would like…a banana please.”

  Carlo went over to the island, where there was a big stoneware bowl full of fruit. Bina stood next to it, pouring ingredients for waffle batter into a bowl shaped like a large measuring cup. He stood right behind her and leaned over for the bananas, and he took the opportunity to kiss her bare shoulder—she was wearing a pretty, sleeveless top—and whisper in her ear, “Remember that thing you were keeping safe for later? Would you consider taking it out and looking it over again?” He hoped she would remember that conversation, but so much had happened since the night of Trey’s birthday, he would understand if she didn’t.

  She turned her head to his. With a little, hesitant smile, she said, “This is a surprising morning. But yes, I think I would like to look at that again.”

  “I love you, Misby.” He kissed her shoulder again and took a banana to his precious, precocious child.

  ~oOo~

  Bina was taking Trey to preschool and then opening the yarn shop for Andi. Carlo and Peter had a lunch meeting at Connelly—they’d won that job, and Carlo was already, in the short time since they’d gotten the news, fighting the desire to let the work consume him. This was huge. This was why he’d become an architect. He was making something unique, something that would change the Providence skyline. And he was doing it for a man with vision, to whom Carlo could speak and be understood. This job would make his career. And Peter’s. It would make their little company something to notice.

  Bina and Trey would keep him grounded, he knew, but still, some part of his brain was constantly, constantly seeing, making the new building.

  Peter and Carlo were doing okay. The friendship wasn’t quite as it had been, but the business stuff had worked itself out. Carlo thought that his working much more often away from the office helped with that. Peter had free rein to do his thing, schmooze away, without his scowling presence. And when the meeting or the lunch was important enough to need the ‘talent,’ then Carlo went in.

  They had yet to need to attend an evening function, but one was coming up. Connelly was planning a big do for the announcement of the winner and reveal of the preliminary design.

  Bina had paled at the news, and upon seeing her face, Carlo, disappointed though he was, told her she needn’t attend. But she’d said that was silly, of course she’d go with him. She would be proud to be with him. He loved her for that, as well as for a million other reasons. They both knew that cameras would flash like crazy to see James Auberon’s widow on the arm of Carlo Pagano Jr., of those Paganos. Rumors had been flying for months, since Auberon’s ‘shocking and untimely’ death. So it would be a test of them both. But it was also the first time he’d ever had even a glimmer of interest or excitement about a formal event. Leading Sabina on his arm? That was worth wearing the monkey suit and fake-smiling through a night.

  Carlo stopped at the hospital on the way out of town. Joey was…different, now. Though Jenny’s bullet had hit the right side of his chest and gone wide of his heart, and missed his lungs, too, it had sliced through a major artery. By the time they’d gotten him to St. Gabriel’s, he’d lost a great deal of blood and gone into shock. Function in his lungs and brain had been compromised, and apparently there was a hard limit to how much of that lost function he’d recover.

  His injuries seemed to be manifesting in a chronic shortness of breath and in drastically slower speech. More than simply slow—it seemed not always to occur to him that he should speak—like it took him an extra beat or two to recognize that someone had asked him a question, and then another beat or two to formulate a response, which itself came in a slow, sometimes stuttering delivery, as if he were searching for every word. They’d unwired his jaw the night of the shooting—he’d been due to have it done a couple of days after that, anyway, and they’d needed to intubate him. He’d been much quieter than normal for weeks before that, but this, the way he used words now, was disconcerting, to say the least.

  His doctors suggested that he probably would regain some breath as he healed, but that his speech patterns would likely always be different in this way. They called it ‘aphasia.’ His intelligence hadn’t been affected, but the connections in his brain that helped him put thought into word were now faulty. There was some therapy they were doing, but no one had held out hope that Joey would ever be what he’d been.

  It was difficult for Carlo to think about Joey—hyper, goofy Joey, always quick with a joke or an asinine comment, always on the make in one way or another—as the same person as this slow, quiet, gasping young man with his forehead always creased.

  Jenny had done this, too. And so had Carlo himself. He knew blame rested on Jenny’s dead shoulders, but he felt the weight of guilt and regret on his. He had been hard on Joey in the weeks before the shooting. He had thought too little of his baby brother.

  He’d be discharged soon, and he was coming back to the house. It would be months before he could live on his own. He wasn’t so disabled that he couldn’t take care of himself eventually, but he was weak and uncertain. Carlo was going to talk to Natalie after the Connelly meeting, and see if she would consider coming to Quiet Cove to work for the family—or, if not (and he didn’t think she would; she was a nanny, not a nurse), if she could recommend someone who could help him.

  Now, he walked into Joey’s private room. His brother was sitting up in bed, watching a game show on the television bolted to the wall. He had a cannula in his nose and also a mask draped over the top of the bed, lying on the pillow next to his head. That meant he was having a rough day.

  “Hey, Joe. How’s it going?”

  Joey turned his head slowly. “H-h-h-h.” He took a breath. “Hey.”

  “Hey. I brought you some guanti. And Bina made you shark socks like Trey’s. Special order from the man himself.”

  Joey blinked. “Shark…socks?”

  Carlo lifted them out of the paper sack he’d brought in with him. “Yeah. See? Like the ones she gave Trey for his birthday. He wanted you to have a pair, too.”

  He grinned, and Carlo was glad to see it. “How’s…Trey? Okay?”

  “He’s good, man. He’s really good. Starting preschool today. Would you like me to bring him by again?”

  Joey watched Carlo as he sat on the chair at his bedside. Then he shook his head. “No. Bad place…f-for him here.”

  “Okay. Well, you’ll be home soon, and then you two can hang out like before.”

  Turning back to the television, Joey didn’t say anything for a long time. The game show was Let’s Make a Deal; Carlo had no idea that was still on television. Some black guy Carlo almost recognized was the host now, apparently.

  Knowing that talking was hard for Joey, Carlo sat back and watched the inane show in silence. Then, without turning from the television, Joey said, “Sorry…s-so sorry.”

  Carlo sat forward and gripped his baby brother’s forearm. “Joe. You gotta stop with that. I know I was shitty to you since the thing with the money, and I’m sorry about that. But you did everything you could that day. You took a bullet to try to protect Bina and Trey. And Trey’s safe. He’s home and he’s good.” He squeezed; there was less mass to Joey than there had been. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

  “Every…thing’s…f-f-fucked.”

  “It’s gonna be okay, Joe.”

  “No. Wasn’t…okay…bef-f-fore this.”

  Carlo didn’t know what to say to that. So, feeling inadequate, he gave his brother’s arm another squeeze and they watched silly people in silly costumes do silly things for cash and prizes.

  ~oOo~ />
  When Carlo got home that evening, the house smelled like dinner preparations had not gone well. Trey was sitting in Pop-Pop’s chair, a big Richard Scarry book open in his lap. He didn’t get up, but he dropped the book and wrinkled his nose. “We had a fire and now we get PIZZA!”

  Carlo dropped his portfolio at the side of the hall tree. “A fire?”

  “Yeah. The teeny turkeys made a fire. Pop-Pop put it out.” He went back to his book, blasé about the whole apparent cataclysm, and Carlo went quickly down the hall and ducked his head into the kitchen.

  The windows and back door were open, the fan was on, and smoke was wafting out of the room. Definitely a fire. His father was scraping black chunks about the size of his fist off a baking sheet and into the garbage, and Bina was fluttering around waving a towel through the air. Elsa was standing on the patio, watching the frenzy through the open door, her head cocked.

  “Hi?”

  She looked over and, when she saw him, blushed, her golden skin turning russet. “Oh, Carlo. I’m a disaster.”

  “What happened?”

  His father chuckled. “The game hens got away from her a little. We’re all set, though.”

  “Game hens?”

  She blushed an even deeper shade. “There was a sale. They were cute.”

  Carlo laughed, and once he started, the hilarity mounted until he was doubled over, clutching his stomach.

  “You laugh at me!”

  “Oh, yeah,” he gasped. “I’m laughing right at you. This is like an I Love Lucy moment. It’s perfect. A family story for sure. You cremated the cute, discount game hens.” Another spasm of laughter overtook him. “Oh, God. I’m dying.” His father caught the bug then, and Bina was surrounded by howling Paganos.

  She hit him with the towel. “See if I cook for you again ever.”

  Getting himself under control, he grabbed the towel as it came at him again, and he pulled her to him. “Aw, baby. I’ll eat anything you cook.”

  “Be careful, Mr. Smart Pants, or I’ll take from the bin a cute hen and put it on a plate for you. With a parsley sprig.” She was smiling, and he kissed her. She tasted a little of smoke.

  “Don’t get lovey or you’ll ruin my appetite,” his father grumbled, grinning. “We got pizza coming. I opened a good wine before the excitement, so we’ll do our slices up fancy.”

  After dinner, Carlo asked his father to put Trey to bed, and he took Bina down to the beach. She loved to walk along the beach at night, and so did he. Especially now, after the season, on a weekday evening in September, before the weather had turned too cold, an evening walk along the tideline was among the most relaxing, peaceful things he could think to do. It had always seemed to Carlo that the beach at night made a kind of contentment that he could almost literally taste. It lingered on his tongue—the salt of the sea, the cool wet of the moon-brightened air, the musk of the sand. It was a peace that sustained.

  They had the place to themselves. Carmen was home, and she waved at them through her living room window, but she knew not to intrude on their evening. They’d stop in on their way back to the car.

  Bina was dressed in a bulky fisherman sweater and snug jeans, with little white sneakers on her feet. Her hair was caught back in a simple ponytail, and tendrils had come loose in the sea breeze. He had changed from his suit to vastly more comfortable jeans and a thermal tee under a flannel shirt, his favorite Timberlands on his feet. Not beach shoes, really, but the boots kept the sand out.

  As they walked, he told her about his visit with Joey. She seemed to have taken a keen interest in his little brother; he figured that going through what they had together had forged a bond between them. She had said a few things, too, that made Carlo believe that perhaps Joey had confided in her in a way he had not with his brothers and sisters. He didn’t mind; in fact, he was glad of it. He knew he had not been there for Joey the way Joey had needed. Maybe none of them had. So if Bina could be a support for him, then Carlo was thrilled about it.

  He told her, too, about his meetings in the city—Natalie had of course refused to move her life to Quiet Cove, but she’d given him some names of people she recommended. People who were qualified to help Joey complete his recovery and who lived in the area.

  And work. He talked at length about work. This job was going so perfectly, Carlo could hardly believe it. He was beginning to wait for the reality check, because so far, working with Connelly was a dream. She asked about the upcoming announcement event, and he heard the hint of nervousness in her voice.

  “I mean it honestly, Bina. I will understand if you don’t want to go with me. The media will be all over you, and there won’t be much I can do about it.”

  “No. This is important for you. I want to be there. Only…may I choose my dress? Do you mind what I wear?”

  The question surprised him—it confused him. It would never, never have occurred to him to even wonder what she’d wear, much less decide it for her. “Yeah, of course. Wear what you like.” As he was speaking, he understood that Auberon must have dressed her. Jesus, that guy was unbelievable.

  Bina smirked, and that surprised him, too. “Good. I was thinking I should like to earn the media’s notice, if you don’t mind that.”

  “You minx! You’re going to tart up, aren’t you?” He laughed.

  “Do you mind?”

  “God, no. Wear pasties and a fig leaf for all I care. Go for it. Shock the hell out of everybody.” What he was thinking was that he was going to be the most reviled man at that damn party, because whatever she wore, he would have the absolutely most beautiful woman in New England on his arm—and he would also be the man of the hour. James Auberon, down in his fiery hole in Hell, could suck a bag of dicks.

  They’d walked for quite a while, talking, and as they crested a steep rise, over a cluster of large, wave-rounded rocks, Bina stopped, pulling lightly on his hand. He turned to her and saw her staring at a point up ahead. He swiveled back and saw her old beach house in the distance. Auberon’s house. It was vibrant with light.

  They had not walked so far together since that first night.

  He stepped back and put his arm around her waist. “You okay?”

  She took a deep breath. “Yes. Only—there are memories. They hurt.”

  He pulled her closer, and she let him tuck her to his chest. The house had sold quickly, but she had seen no proceeds from it. She’d taken only the bags she’d had with her, and those, Auberon’s attorney had had brought to her.

  The last time she’d been in that house, the last time she’d even seen it, Auberon had hurt her badly. Carlo tightened his hold on her as that comprehension completed. “Bina. I love you so much.”

  She turned her head and kissed his chest, her lips on his thermal shirt. “I would like to accept the offer you made me. The one I kept safe. I’m ready now, I think.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  He wanted to be absolutely certain that they were talking about the same thing. “You’ll marry me?”

  She looked up, and the moonlight caught her eyes and made them sparkle. “Yes. I would very much like that.”

  “God, baby. So would I. I love you. I love you.” Before she could reply, he took her face in his hands and kissed her. She tasted like moonlight and the sea.

  ~oOo~

  They spent about half an hour with Carmen and then went back to the house. It was dark; Trey was asleep, and Carlo’s father had, as usual, retired, probably not long after he got Trey down. His work days started before dawn.