“He was involved in a shoot-out. Wrong place at the wrong time,” she said as she tied on her apron.
“That’s terrible. Are the police looking into it? What are they doing?”
Maria had started to take down a plate. She paused and looked at Robert curiously for a second.
“Um…well…you do know my sister’s from South Central right?”
“No…I didn’t remember that.”
“Yeah. So…the cops don’t really care what happens down there. They think every Hispanic boy belongs to a gang. But he’s not like that. He plays football at high school. He’s the quarterback. He’s really good too from what my sister says.”
“I’m sorry,” Robert said.
Maria nodded.
“Daddy, I want to show you the picture I drew of you at school yesterday,” Alex said as she got down from the chair and tugged at his arm.
“Sure,” he said to Alex. He turned to Maria as he stood.
“I’ll keep your nephew in prayer, Maria. What’s his name?”
There was a violent crash as the plate Maria was holding dropped to the floor. Her hand flew to her mouth.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Alex, go sit back at the table,” Robert said as he bent to help Maria collect the shards of broken china on the floor.
“Was it something I said?” he asked with slight amusement.
“No…it’s just…you never…I mean I never heard you speak about praying before. Are you feeling all right, Mr. Cortelli?”
“Or did I get a blow to the head?” Robert asked drolly.
“I didn’t mean…”
“Relax, Maria. I was kidding. And yes, I’m feeling quite alright. Better than I have in weeks actually. So you were telling me your nephew’s name.”
“Pedro.”
Robert helped Maria discard the broken china. Then he retreated upstairs to Alex’s room where she excitedly showed him her latest masterpiece.
The boys joined them half an hour later. Robert had observed that Dana was usually an early riser so he was surprised when by 7.30 a.m. she still hadn’t emerged from their room.
“Guys, remind me, when does your mom get up?”
“On Saturdays, she gets up late. I don’t know the time, but we’re usually watching cartoons by the time she’s up,” Adam quipped.
“Late” turned out to be 9:30 a.m. Robert had gone for a swim and did a little resistance training with his body weight by the pool. He returned to the master bedroom to find his wife still in her nightgown, sitting at the small table and poring over her Bible with a mug of coffee in her hand.
“Hi,” he said as he closed the door behind him.
Her chin lifted, and his heart turned over in his chest when she smiled at him.
“Hi, yourself. I understand you’ve been a very busy boy this morning. Made hot chocolate, viewed paintings, helped Maria serve breakfast. Impressive.”
“It would have been even better if you were there,” he drawled as he leaned a hip against the vanity table and fixed his eyes on hers.
She returned the stare for a few beats then broke eye contact and glanced back down at her journal.
“Yeah, Saturday is the one day I get to sleep in. I take full advantage and let Maria supervise the kids.”
“I get it. I just really enjoy everything so much more when you’re there.”
Her eyes flew to his, and her mouth formed a small “O”.
“Interesting sentiment,” she said slowly several moments later.
“Weren’t you concerned about leaving me alone with them, though? In light of the amnesia, I mean?”
She shook her head.
“No. After the way I saw you respond to them yesterday I didn’t think about that possibility at all. Although thinking about it now, I probably should have been there to help you this morning. I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s okay. It actually went pretty well.” He pushed off the vanity. “I’m going to take a shower…join me?”
Dana’s eyes almost bugged out of her head.
“Wh…what!” she sputtered.
He chuckled. “That was a joke, baby. Don’t have a conniption.”
He was still laughing as he closed the bathroom door. The expression on Dana’s face had been priceless.
As he lathered his skin Robert’s thoughts drifted from Dana to Maria’s nephew. He said the promised prayer for the young man’s recovery, but as the refreshing water beat down on his body, he felt a prompting in his spirit to do more.
“What do you want me to do, Lord,” he asked.
He turned the question over in his mind as he dried off and wrapped the towel around his body. While brushing his teeth, he felt the Spirit urge him to visit the boy. He tried to resist the urge as he thought about the hassle that would be associated with that.
It was actually a bit of a chore, in general, to leave his home since he had returned to Los Angeles. Even now, there were paparazzi camped outside his gate waiting to get a look at him. He had a security detail at the gates and outside the door, but that hadn’t prevented one eager photographer from attempting to climb over the seven-foot wall a few days prior. Of course, security had caught him and called the police, but the fact remained that he had little privacy and a trek to the hospital to visit the boy would be captured by the press. He chewed on that possibility a bit.
Finally, he said, “Lord, if you put the idea in my head you’ll work it out. I’m willing to go, but you need to create the opportunity.”
Robert returned to the bedroom and found Dana still reading the Scriptures.
“Has Maria brought over my things yet?” he asked.
She nodded but didn’t raise her head. “Santia did. She is one of the maids whom you haven’t met yet. Maria supervises two maids.”
Robert lingered for a couple minutes, waiting to see if she would look up at him and wondering why she didn’t. Either she was fully engaged in what she was reading, or she was determined not to look at him for whatever reason.
He decided not to pursue it just then. There was plenty of time to explore their relationship later. He walked over to the walk-in-closet and found his things neatly hung up and folded. He quickly selected a pair of blue jeans and a white tee shirt and pulled them on.
When he returned to the bedroom, Dana was absent. He could hear water running in the bathroom.
He trekked down the long winding staircase and saw a maid dusting the furniture. She was probably Santia. He nodded at her and she smiled shyly. Over the last few days he had seen staff pop up everywhere: to cook their food, to tend the garden, to clean the pool, he’d even seen a guy washing the cars. He didn’t remember having that number of staff. But then he couldn’t remember having so much stuff either. Was that what his life had come down to? The acquisition of status and things?
Robert found the kids in the family room where he’d left them earlier watching TV. Maria had ensured that they had bathed and dressed. He glanced at the watch on his wrist. It was now 10:30 a.m. He wondered if they had done their homework. That was something his dad had always made sure was done before play time when he was growing up.
“Guys, homework all done?”
This was met with silence as the trio’s eyes remained glued to the screen. Robert repeated himself, a little louder this time.
Three heads swung in his direction. They had blank expressions on their faces.
“Have you done your homework?” Robert asked.
The kids nodded.
“Yeah, Dad,” Aaron said, “We did it at Grandma’s yesterday after school.”
Robert walked over to the coffee table. He took up the remote and switched off the TV.
“Why don’t we go outside and get some fresh air and exercise, then? Too much TV is bad for you.”
There were groans all around.
“Dad, if people stopped watching TV we’d get poor,” Aaron responded as he jumped up and reached for the remote in Robert’s hand. Rob
ert had concluded that Aaron was the smart aleck of the bunch.
“Don’t you worry about that,’ Robert replied as he held the remote aloft. “Go put on your sneakers and come outside in the backyard. All three of you. I checked out all this equipment we’ve got out there for you guys to play with. It’s phenomenal. You know how many kids have to leave their homes and trek to a public park to play with stuff like that. And you’ve got it right in your backyard. Waste not want not.”
~*~*~*~
Dana gave up her search for Robert and the kids and found Maria where she was doing laundry.
“Maria, where are the kids?”
“Mr. Cortelli took them outside to play.”
Play? On Saturday morning. This she had to see. Usually, the kids watched the cartoons they weren’t allowed to watch during the school week. Even when Robert was home, he most often slept in on Saturday mornings.
As she made her way through the French doors which led onto the back porch, Dana rubbed her neck in anticipation of seeing her husband again. As if the ‘join me in the shower?’ comment hadn’t been enough, he’d had to emerge from the bathroom bare-chested, muscles rippling, hair damp and silky, and just looking dead sexy. She had wondered if he was trying to test her resolve that they should not sleep together yet. Coward that she was, she had beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom when he went into the closet and then hid out in there while she regained her composure.
She found Robert and the children in the backyard. The kids were playing on the multicolored playground that she and Robert had installed for them when they were three. From the look on their faces, they were having a great time.
Robert sat on a bench in the shade of a spreading tree watching the children play. His long legs were extended before him, and his arms were stretched out over the back of the bench. Neither the close-fitting tee shirt nor the pose did anything to hide his well-built physique. She shook her head. This was becoming ridiculous. She felt like a teen with raging hormones.
“Hey,” she said, dropping down beside him, careful not to get too close. One touch might just set her to combust.
“Hey, yourself,” he said turning his face to her with a contented sigh.
There was companionable silence as they watched the children frolic in the backyard.
“They are such happy children. It looks like we did a good job.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say, “We? You mean me.”
She didn’t. She bit her tongue as the Holy Spirit revealed to her how unfair that train of thought was. She was reminded that while Robert had been away often in the last two and a half years, before that he had really been an attentive father.
When the children were newborns he had been up with her during the night at every feeding. On numerous occasions he had taken all three children out for early morning strolls in the triple pram, to allow her to sleep in.
His first movie after their birth had been shot in Bangkok. He had asked her to bring the kids and travel with him so that they wouldn’t be separated for such a long period.
After that, they had continued to travel on location with him as conditions allowed. Soon after the children turned four, though, their sojourns with him had stopped.
She had been the one to initiate that change.
“Robert, I’m going to enroll the kids in school this September,” she had said.
“School? Aren’t they too young for that? What’s the rush?”
“Hon, they’re school age. They were four in January.”
“Hmmm.”
“The thing is, though, it means we can’t come with you to Berlin in October when you’re shooting Covert One.”
“Why not? Can’t you get them a tutor? It’s not like they’ll be learning that much anyway. Or you can homeschool them while we’re on location.”
“Because I don’t want to that’s why. I’m not interested in homeschooling them, Robert. I’ve been home with them all their lives. Besides, I’ve been offered a co-starring role in an upcoming film, and I’m seriously considering it.”
“I see.”
“So, I was thinking you could maybe cut back on your movies. Or find projects that will just be shot locally.”
He was silent for several minutes, but she could see from the way the muscle was twitching in his jaw that he was seething.
“Let me get this straight,” he had said in slow, clipped tones as he looked off into the distance. “You’ve decided that you no longer want to travel with me, and now I’m supposed to bring my career to a grinding halt to accommodate your plans.”
She was quick with a sharp response.
“I thought this was a partnership, not a dictatorship. For the last few years I have put my career on hold to take care of this family. I have travelled with you wherever you went, with no complaint. I was happy to do it too because I love you and I desired to be with you and our young family. Now I have the opportunity to resume my career because I think the kids are older and can handle that and it offends you! How selfish can one person be, Robert? Why does every decision I make have to revolve around you?”
“Because you’re my wife. Listen my mother had a job, okay? But it was never an issue. She understood her prio…”
“Don’t you dare compare me to your mother! Because then I’d have to compare you to your father, and from what Reba told me, Michael never did the kind of traveling you do. He did not make movies back-to-back, and most of his films were shot in California.”
He’d had no response to that. And after several minutes he had said quietly, “Okay, here’s what I propose. During recess, you guys can visit me, and I’ll come home to visit some weekends as filming allows.”
“So, I guess there’s no question of you choosing films based here?”
“I’ll try, but I just can’t restrict my choices that way. It doesn’t make sense. We’ll work it out.”
The problem was that Robert was never the type of actor who just acted and left the set. He was involved in every aspect of the production. It was difficult, then, for him to travel most weekends.
While Dana had packed up the kids and traveled to Berlin during the children’s winter recess from school, she hadn’t done so on subsequent breaks. First, because she had been shooting a movie in California and was unable to travel. Later, it was due to a building resentment that she had to be the one to make all these allowances while Robert continued to live his life to please himself.
“From what you’ve told me I’ve really been a neglectful father, haven’t I?”
Robert’s voice cut into her thoughts and brought Dana back to the present. She looked over at him and then back at the children.
“I don’t think they have ever doubted your love for them, Robert.”
“Despite my frequent absences?”
“We travelled with you for the first four years of their lives so, technically, you’ve only been absent during the last couple of years. Even during that time whenever you came home you were a good father,” she said sincerely. “In fact, before the accident, you came home for their birthday even though it meant that filming would be on hold. There are certain days on the calendar that are sacred to you. Their birthday is one of those days.”
“I may have been a lousy husband, but I wasn’t too bad a father, then.”
She sighed. “I never said you were a lousy husband.”
“Not in so many words.”
She bit her lip and went silent. He hadn’t been present in recent years, but he’d still tried to be there for her birthday, Christmas and particularly their anniversary. Besides, he was a lot better than most Hollywood actors. They had never wound up on the cover of tabloids because her husband had been caught with the nanny or with a costar or anything like that. To the best of her knowledge, he had always stayed faithful. The only mistress he had was his job.
“I’d say in the last couple of years things got pretty bad. You were hardly home.”
“It looks like I
really had my priorities screwed up.”
“I think the bigger you got in your career, the more obsessed you became with retaining that top positon.”
“So, what do you usually do on Saturdays?”
She blinked at the abrupt change of subject. After a brief pause, she replied, “That often depends. In the morning, we take it easy. After lunch, the kids have quiet time, and later in the day we go out and do various things. Right now, though, my priority is taking care of you. Whatever you want to do is fine with me.”
He slowly smiled at her. “That’s very sweet of you. How about we go visit my folks?”
“Your parents?”
“Yeah, besides that brief reunion at the airport I haven’t seen them since we got back. I want to go see them.”
She nodded. “Okay. That sounds great.”
Chapter 17
The Cortellis senior lived half an hour away. Generally, Robert drove. On this occasion, they were chauffeured in the limo.
Michael and Reba lived in an impressive six-bedroom Mediterranean-style villa at the top of the knoll in Palisades Highlands. The house had spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and mountains. It was the home in which Robert had grown up.
Dana remembered asking Robert the first time she’d visited how he’d managed to avoid becoming a pampered pooch after growing up in a home like that. She had teased and called him the Prince of the Pacific Palisades. After all, he was Hollywood royalty. He had laughed and told her that Reba Cortelli did not raise pampered pooches.
Reba, who met them in the massive foyer, now hugged him as though she would never let him go. When they drew apart, Dana felt warmth flood her heart as she observed that both her husband and mother-in-law’s eyes were moist.
“Welcome home,” Reba said as she cupped Robert’s cheeks with both hands and peered into his eyes.
“Thanks, Ma. It’s great to be back.”
When it was his turn, Michael gave his son a hug and thump on the back. “How are you, son?”
“I feel pretty good, Pa.”
The grandparents greeted their grandkids with hugs and kisses as though they hadn’t just seen them the previous day. The children ran off to play games in the entertainment room while the adults chatted.
Second Chance: A Christian Romance (Royals Book 2) Page 18