“I know. Another reason this was a mistake. We’re nothing without the men who do the daily grind, and they need to respect you. They need to be ready to fight for your right to be made. They need to want to die for you if necessary, to consider that an honor. So you need to earn their respect. What you have now is the shadow of their respect for me. Yes, they’ll see this as a punishment, and yes, they’ll make you feel it. But you show me you know how to use that. Turn it around. Learn. Earn their respect.”
Nick wanted him to be the don in ten years. Trey didn’t know what to think or how to feel. But a question popped up in his bubbling brain, and he dared to ask it.
“Is this … about Ren, Uncle?”
Nick’s son. Ren was twelve, far from having any part of this world. But he was Nick’s only son, and he, too, was not full-blooded. It was often said, among the lower ranks, that Trey was meant to be a trial balloon for Ren.
Intense green eyes narrowed to slits. “I’ll answer one time, and you will never bring my son up in this way again. This is not about Ren. When my son is old enough to make a choice about the life he wants, then that choice will be about him. This is about you, Trey. I know what’s said, but I say this: You are not my lab rat. You are my blood, and you are smart and strong. You want this life. So, as long as you make me proud, I will fight for you to have it. Capisci?”
Stunned, Trey at first could barely make his head form a nod. But Nick liked things said aloud, so he forced the words from his speechless mouth. “I understand.”
~oOo~
From Nick’s office, Trey walked in a daze to his car. It was a typical early March day on the coast, with a sun warm with spring, and a breeze cold with winter. He pulled fresh air into his lungs and felt a fractional ease in the tension that meeting had twisted through him.
Shit, he’d been demoted. Nick could call it whatever he wanted, but that was the truth of it. And also shit, Nick was grooming him to take over. Those two concepts played tug-of-war with his brain.
He didn’t have anywhere to be, but he had to get away from PBS to think. As he started the engine, he thought he’d go home, but Lara wasn’t there. At a family dinner a few weeks before, his Aunt Tina had suggested that Lara come by her office. Tina had a doctorate in occupational therapy, and she specialized in animal-assisted therapies. She had a private practice in the Cove, and a menagerie of therapy animals, from furry to feathered to scaled. Lara had expressed some kind of worry about her fitness as a mom, he guessed, and in the course of a discussion of that among the women, Tina had invited her to the office.
His family knew all about Lara’s various issues. She wasn’t circumspect about them, and the Paganos were a collection of oddballs anyway. But Trey was still bowled over that she’d agreed to go, alone, to Tina’s office—and even more stupefied that not only had she enjoyed the visit, but had gone back a few times to meet Tina for lunch, and to hang out at the office for a while. It was possible that Aunt Tina was becoming Lara’s first true female friend.
She was, he expected, getting some therapy on the sly, too. Hey—if it gave her some confidence about motherhood, he was all for it. Her weekly talks with Dr. Rosen had lately seemed to stress her out. And her monthly visits to her OB were even worse. She’d had a good second trimester, she’d been practically serene for those three months, but the last stretch was getting pretty tough.
Her blood pressure was high. Her weight was low. The baby was fine—they’d had another ultrasound at twenty-eight weeks, and their boy was a bit small but otherwise developmentally on track. She was trying hard to get the calories and nutrients she needed, but her body just sloughed them off. She was on medical supplements now, super-high calorie shakes that were supposed to get a ton of nutrition in her without filling her tiny stomach.
When he’d first known her, he thought her food stuff was all in her head, and her preferences for bland food were more habit than anything serious. Throughout his time with her, he saw it was more than that, and during this pregnancy, he’d come to understand how very deep her struggle went. It wasn’t just her mind, her anxieties, those psychic wounds from her childhood. It was physical damage, too. Her body had been trained from infancy to starve.
But now, her mind was taking all that, her inability to provide nourishment for their child, as an indication that she would be a bad mother. The thing that scared Trey most: it was entirely irrational, and that was the last thing Lara ever was. Even in her most anxious states, she turned to reason and order. It was when things made no sense that she got upset. Everything going on now had a clear origin, an obvious cause, and yet she’d made nonsense out of it.
So he was very, very glad that she’d found some solace with Tina and her menagerie.
Without realizing it, Trey had gotten on the interstate, headed to Providence. These days, with Lara and her father both in the Cove, there was only one thing Providence had to offer: his father, at work.
Did he want to see his old man? Why? They were getting along better lately, but right now, he had some shit to work out, and he couldn’t do it with his father. It wasn’t like he could talk to him about Nick. Not stuff this deep. And damn sure not about possibly someday being don.
Jesus, really? Don?
However, tending to take such things as signs, Trey didn’t pull off and turn around. He’d stop in at the office and see if he could take him down for a coffee or something. There was apparently something in his head to talk to his father about.
~oOo~
His father was the best known and most esteemed architect in Providence, and probably in New England. From a little shop he’d had with a friend, back when Trey was a kid, he’d grown to a downcity penthouse office suite, with six architects under him and a couple dozen other employees as well.
Trey went through the heavy glass doors into the gleaming lobby area, where a gorgeous receptionist sat behind a minimalist desk under large, sleek, minimalist letters on the wall that spelled out CFP STRUCTURAL DESIGN.
CFP: Carlo Francesco Pagano.
The receptionist smiled. “Mr. Pagano. Are you here to see your father?”
“I am. He’s not expecting me, though. Is he busy?”
“He just came back from a meeting. One moment.” She pushed some buttons and spoke into the almost invisible headset she wore. “Mr. Pagano, your son is here to see you. … Yes, sir.” She smiled at Trey again. “You can go up, of course.”
Up was the second floor of the suite, which soared over the reception and design areas. Giving the receptionist a nod, Trey turned and climbed the sweeping stairs to his father’s office.
He was waiting at the top of the stairs and held out his arms for a hug. “Trey! This is a good surprise.”
“Hi, Dad.” They embraced, and his father set him back to look him over.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. I just wondered if you had time to grab a coffee or something.”
“Actually, I just got out of a meeting that went long, and I haven’t had lunch yet. Did you eat? We could go to the Colony, get some stuffies.”
“Sounds good, yeah.”
His father’s grin was so broad, so pleased, Trey felt guilty. He’d spent a long time angry at his father, and just as long feeling disconnected from him. He was sure it was mostly his father’s fault, but sometimes … Sometimes, he wondered. How much of their distance was because he’d stopped understanding, too?
~oOo~
The Colony Tavern tried to balance the historical tradition of pubs, and of Providence, with a more modern expectation of comfort and convenience. The food was good, and it was downcity, not too far from Trey’s father’s office. They had great stuffies.
Until they had their food in front of them, they didn’t talk about anything important. Trey still had no idea what subconscious impulse, or guiding hand, had put him on the road to his father. So he asked about the firm’s current projects, and they talked about Ben, who’d sent word a couple days ago that
he’d been awarded a prestigious summer internship at a big New York design firm. Trey talked about Lara, and redecorating the nursery for the baby, and how he was trying to get as many mornings of dawn patrol in as he could before the baby came and made morning surfs difficult if not impossible.
It was talking about the baby—his son—that made him see why he was here. He washed down a last bite with the rest of his beer. “Dad, I have a weird question. Don’t get mad.”
His father’s jaw paused in mid-chew, then picked up and finished its work. He washed beer down his throat. “I’ll do my best.”
“What would you do differently? With me, I mean. When things got hard with us.”
“Whew, pal. That’s not a weird question. But it’s a hard one. Are you thinking about your boy?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat, which had gone suddenly tight. “I miss you, Dad. After things got bad, I missed you while we were living in the same house. I don’t want him to miss me.”
“Jesus Christ, Trey.” The words were nothing but a rush of breath.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. But I wasn’t prepared for that.” He rubbed his chest. “Give me a sec to work it through.”
Trey gave him a sec. The server came by, seeing their glasses were empty. Trey waved him off.
“When you were little, preschool age, you had night terrors. Do you remember that?”
“No.” He remembered very little from his first years, which was normal, he thought. His bio-mom was barely a wisp in his memory. He’d seen photos, but they were of a stranger. And yet, her impact reverberated through his life.
“They were bad. You’d wake up screaming so hard you made yourself hoarse, and crying your little eyes out, and you wanted your mom. I never knew what to do but hold you and tell you I loved you and wait them out with you. Right after Jenny left, they started, and they stopped not long after Bina came to live with us. When it was just you and me, you had night terrors. When you had a mom, you didn’t. I didn’t think about it then, I was just glad when they stopped, that you were happier and could sleep. But over the years, I’ve thought about that, and about us, and I’ve wondered if it didn’t get under my skin in some way, that I wasn’t enough to make you feel safe.”
“Dad …”
He held up his hand. “You asked a hard question, so let me work my way to the answer. I loved the days when you were my pal. God, you were such a cheerful, sweet kid. Even when your sleep was so bad, during the day, you were the happiest, funniest little guy. You ran at every part of your life headlong, and it was something to watch. When Bina came to us, you loved her right off, and you gave her a special name. When we brought Ben home, you climbed up on the sofa and held him and loved him.
“I remember that day—it was a night, I think—when Ben came home. It’s one of my oldest memories.”
That made some of the nostalgic pain ease from his father’s face. “You were happy. And we were a team. While Ben was a baby, you and I used to take him out on Saturday mornings so your mom could sleep in, and you helped me build his first tricycle. You … cleaved to me, when Ben was little and demanded so much of your mom’s time. And you wanted to follow in my footsteps. For years, we talked about it. You liked building, and drawing, and all the things I did. And then, one day, you just … didn’t.”
“I was a kid, Dad.”
“I’m not blaming you, Trey. I’m trying to explain. It felt like I was enough for you, as a dad, because you wanted to be like me. I wasn’t pushing you the way my dad pushed me”—Trey tried to interrupt at that, but his father put up a preemptive hand again—“I know I did push you like that, but not at first. At first, you wanted it. And I felt rejected when you didn’t want it anymore. I swear, it was like you woke up one day and not only didn’t want to do or be anything you’d wanted the night before, but you were angry, too. I felt … I don’t know. Confused. I tried to reason you out of it, but that just pissed you off more, and you got belligerent. And then I felt disrespected, and I got angry, and … fuck, pal.”
He let out a long, sorrowful breath. “You asked what I would do differently. I’ve thought about it a lot, actually, and I’ve never come up with one good answer. Maybe it’s your mom you should ask, because she’s the one that kept me from doing and saying the really stupid shit when things were bad. But I will say that in those years, I didn’t do my best. I thought I was, but I was trying to get my little pal back. I wasn’t seeing the son in front of me. So I guess that’s what I’d say: see the son in front of you. Don’t try to keep him the way he was, or make him the way you want him to be. Teach him to be good and strong and honest—with himself and others. Teach him honor. Teach him the value of work. But don’t expect him to be like you molded him from clay.”
He picked up his nearly empty glass and let the dregs drip into his mouth. Trey caught the server’s eye and gestured for another round now; this talk needed more alcohol.
Trey waited to respond until he had hold of something real to say. “I wish things hadn’t gotten so fucked up between us. You know, I think about it kind of the same. I remember feeling weird in those days, like I woke up one morning and was just a different person. It made me feel like I was wearing somebody else’s skin.”
“You’ve said something like that before. I think I understand.”
The beers came, and they both took long, restorative drinks.
His father set his half-empty glass on the cardboard coaster and wiped the foam from his trim grey beard. “While we’re having this incredibly painful heart-to-heart, I want to tell you something else.”
Trey blew out a breath like he was preparing for a punch. “Shoot.”
“This shit with Nick, and you going to the other side of the pews? It’s not the work, Trey. I don’t like that you put yourself in harm’s way, and I don’t like to think of you caught up in the shit Nick gets into, but I’ve got no moral quandary about the work. I want you safe, that’s all. But your mom made me see why it hurt so goddamn bad when you went over, why it still hurts when I see you dressed in a three-thousand dollar suit, walking side by each with Don Pagano.” He stopped, picked up his glass, and drained it. “You picked another father, Trey.”
The shattering power of that blow knocked Trey back in his chair. “Dad! I didn’t. Nick’s not … that’s not how I feel about him. I swear. You’re the only father I have. The only one I want to have.”
“I’m glad.” He smiled wearily. “That’s good. That’s how it’s felt. That I wasn’t enough. It hurt, and it hurt more to think I pushed you that way because I didn’t see who you were. So … I’m sorry, for all the good that does now.”
“It does a lot of good, Dad. I’m sorry, too.”
His father reached across the table and gripped his hand hard. “I love you, Trey. Every day since I first heard your heartbeat, I have loved you.”
~oOo~
Trey got home that afternoon to a quiet house. He found Lara curled in bed, napping on top of the comforter, wearing yoga pants and a sweatshirt stretched over the small ball of her belly. A pair of fluffy socks covered her perpetually icy feet. He stripped to his underwear and slid behind her, pulling up the knitted afghan Misby had made them as a wedding gift.
She woke and sleepily purred, “Hi,” nestling closer to him. “Good day?”
He’d been demoted, told that the weight of the entire Pagano Brothers family might someday rest on his shoulders, and had a painful, wound-rending conversation with his father.
“A very good day. You?”
“I had a good day, too.” He could tell by the tone of her words that her eyes were closed, and she was ready to sleep again. “I want to get the puma a puppy. He should grow up with a dog.”
Trey thought of Elsa, his beautiful, giant dog, who’d taken such good care of him for so long, and his eyes went blurry. “Yes, he should. But maybe a young dog instead of a puppy. At least old enough to be housebroken. Two babies at once would be a lot to
deal with. One baby will be a lot to deal with.”
“I’ll have lots of help. We will.”
“Yes, we will. And Lara?”
“Hmmm?”
“Carlo Francesco Pagano IV. That’s his name. We’ll call him Frank.”
She looked back at him over her shoulder. “What changed your mind?”
“It’s a good name. Good men have had it.”
“Yes.” Smiling, she looked up at the ceiling. Trey imagined her writing the name on the white surface. “Frank. I like it. It’s strong.”
He cradled her belly in his arm. “I love you.”
She squeezed her arms over his. “And I love you.”
~ 24 ~
“It doesn’t hurt. It just feels …” Lara searched for a word to describe the steady sensation she’d had between her legs since the night before. “Full?”
“Pressure?” Dr. Edison asked. She liked her obstetrician. He was in his sixties and white-haired and entirely non-threatening in any way that might trigger her. Like Santa Claus with short hair and without the beard. He even had a nose like a cherry.
‘Pressure’ didn’t seem right, so she shrugged. ‘Full’ was better, in her mind.
Trey, sitting next to her, squeezed her hand. “Last night, she said she felt swollen.”
Okay, yes. ‘Swollen’ worked, too.
The doctor looked through his trifocals at her chart. “You’re thirty-four-plus-five.”
Thirty-four weeks and five days pregnant. “Yes.”
“Well, it’s probably nothing, just a growing baby in a petite mama. But let’s do a check, okay? Just to be on the safe side. I’ll step out, and you take everything off below the waist.”
He stepped out and closed the door. Trey helped Lara off the examining table, and held her steady as she worked her way out of yoga pants. She hadn’t bothered with underwear.
Simple Faith (The Pagano Brothers Book 1) Page 31