Turn My World Upside Down: Jo's Story Page 18

  “Josefina.” Nana’s voice came as soft as the hand she laid on Jo’s back. “You are praying.”

  She stiffened and turned her head to look at her grandmother. In the late afternoon shadows, every line and crease on the old woman’s face stood out in sharp relief. But her eyes were sharp and clearly pleased.

  “Nana, would you just let it go?”

  “What issa ‘let go’?”

  She sighed. “Never mind.” Opening the driver’s-side door, she hopped down, slammed the door shut hard enough to rattle the window glass, then stomped around to the passenger side. She opened the door, looked in, and said, “Come on, Nana. I’ll make you some tea.”

  “You’re a gooda girl, Josefina,” Nana said, gingerly climbing down out of the truck as if trying to balance on raw eggs. “This I always say.”

  “Thanks,” Jo said, steering her grandmother up the narrow walkway to the front porch. With one hand on the elderly woman’s elbow, Jo guided her up the steps, then opened the screen door and turned the worn, brass knob.

  “I think we both have some tea, eh?” Nana asked, a dry chuckle grating from her throat. “Issa busy day for all.”

  “I’ll say,” Jo muttered, following her grandmother into the living room. “And I could really do with just a little bit less drama for a while.”

  “Josefina!” Hank Marconi’s booming voice preceded him into the room and he strode toward her, arms extended, inviting a bear hug, his wide, bearded face beaming with benevolence.

  “Papa?” She took a step forward—but before she could get that hug, Nana Coletti struck like a snake.

  Jumping in front of her son-in-law, the old woman reared back and slapped him full across the face. “Bastardo!” she shouted, lifting both hands to heaven and shaking them as if she were calling down thunder and lightning. “You no here when la famiglia need you! Bastardo! Living inna sin! God issa watching!”

  Had she really wished for less drama?

  Hank winced, reached up and rubbed his cheek. “Hello, Maria,” he said. “Good to see you, too.”

  He turned to watch the old woman stomp past him into the kitchen, still muttering in what sounded like vicious Italian.

  Fourteen

  “I called the hospital,” Papa said as he stepped onto the front porch with his morning cup of coffee. “They say Jack is okay and I can come and get him.”

  “Good. I’m glad.” Jo took a sip of her own coffee. “Maybe Nana will ease up once he’s home again.”

  “Maria has issues.”

  “Issues?” Jo laughed out loud as her father took a seat beside her on the top step. “Since when do you talk like Oprah?”

  He shrugged, a little embarrassed. “Grace says everybody has issues. Maria more than most,” he added quietly.

  Though things were still a little iffy between her and her father, Jo was glad to have him home. And grateful as hell he and Grace had caught an earlier flight. Even if it had meant listening to Nana rant and rave for hours the night before.

  To give Papa his due, though, he hadn’t argued with his mother-in-law. He’d simply sat still and taken the abuse Maria Coletti seemed determined to heap on his head. She’d continued her one-woman assault this morning, too, standing outside Papa’s bedroom and clanging two saucepans together as a hideous, homemade alarm clock.

  The fact that it had also jolted Jo out of bed didn’t seem to matter. The point was, at least in Nana’s estimation, that she was making Papa suffer.

  Jo’d originally planned to move back to her condo as soon as Grace and Papa came home. But after having a ringside seat for the Nana-versus-Papa battle of the Titans, she’d decided to stay a while longer—as sort of a buffer. And though that argument sounded extremely logical, even Jo knew there was more to it than that. When it came right down to it, she really didn’t want to be alone at the moment. Even putting up with Nana’s rants was better than being wrapped up in silence so thick that the only thing to do was think.

  “Papa,” she said, before she could change her mind, “if you want me to, I’ll just stay on here with you and Jack until Nana goes home.”

  His whole face lit up. If she’d needed reassurance that her decision was the right one, she’d just found it.

  “Thank you,” he said, and took another hesitant sip of his murderous coffee. He shuddered visibly, then added, “I know you’d rather be at your own house—”

  “It’s okay, Papa.”

  From inside the house, a pan clanged hard against the stove and Nana shouted something unintelligible.

  Papa winced. “She’s very angry.”

  “Yeah.” And maybe because the older woman was so determined to inflict punishment, Jo felt more inclined to be understanding than she had been before. “Nana shouldn’t keep on you like this.”

  Sighing, he took a sip of coffee, and scowled as he chewed.

  Jo hid her smile. Nana had made two pots of coffee. An excellent one for Jo and another, complete with coffee grounds, for Papa.

  He stared out at the raggedy-looking front yard, the street beyond, and over to Mrs. Sanchez’s house, where Precious was outside, walking the perimeter. The little dog looked hungry.

  “She has a right to hate me. Sylvia was her daughter.”

  “And my mother.”

  He nodded and stroked one hand across his almost snow-white beard. “And you, Josefina? Can you say that you forgive me?”

  When she didn’t answer, he patted her knee and sighed again. “It’s okay. I know you are ashamed of your papa, and I understand.”

  “How can you?” she whispered, wanting the ache inside her to dissipate. “When I’m not sure even I understand me anymore?”

  Henry studied his oldest daughter and wished that he could hold her. That she would welcome his embrace. That she could tell him what caused the pain he saw in her eyes. Because he knew it wasn’t just his own disgrace that had caused it. He’d known for years that his oldest girl had troubles that she wouldn’t share.

  And if he hadn’t known before, he would have now. Between trying to break his eardrums and burning his morning coffee, Maria had taken him to task on his parenting skills just a few minutes ago.

  “Josefina is no happy. Is something wrong. Her heart is hurt and you must fix this. You are a bastardo still, but you are her father. Josefina, she needs you now. Go. Be a papa.”

  The trouble was, he didn’t know how to reach her. Josefina had always been the strongest of his girls. The most self-contained. She was always ready to listen to someone else’s troubles, but her own she kept locked away, so no one would see. And now . . . she’d somehow slipped so far from him that the road back to where they’d once been looked impassable. Still, he had to try.

  “Josefina,” he said, his voice caressing her name as his hand itched to stroke her cheek. “When your mama was sick—”

  Instantly, a shutter dropped over her eyes and her back went as stiff as a two-by-four. “No, Papa . . .”

  She tried to get up, but he laid one hand on her knee to keep her in place. Facing her, he waited for her to look at him. Then he tried again to find his way back into his daughter’s heart.

  “When your mama was sick, I was scared. More scared than I’ve ever been before in my life.” He closed his eyes briefly and remembered the bone-wracking terror that had crouched inside him during those lonely days. He’d had no one to tell his fears to. He couldn’t burden his children. His wife was already suffering. A priest? What did a man of God know about losing the woman who meant more to you than your own soul?

  He shook his head, opened his eyes again, swallowed the bitter taste of his own shame, and looked deeply into Jo’s wary eyes.

  “My Sylvia was in such pain. And every day, she became less. Less herself. Less of this earth. It was . . .” He paused and searched for the words, even knowing there were none sufficient to explain. “Like watching her die with every breath. I worried. For her. For you girls. For me. And alone at night, I cried. There was not
hing for me. No comfort. No way to ease the emptiness coming for me.”

  “Papa . . .”

  He’d been understanding. He’d given her nearly a year to come to grips with his slip from grace. He hadn’t wanted to push—to risk shoving her even further away from him. But the time had come at last. There’d been enough hiding.

  “No. It’s time, Jo.” He tightened his grip on her knee and let the tears flow unchecked down his face. He wasn’t ashamed of them. When a man loves with his whole heart, what are a few tears? “When I met Jack’s mother, Carol—”

  “I know the story,” she interrupted, holding up one hand, trying to make him stop.

  “Fine. You know. Then you know how I met her. She was kind and alone and I was more alone than I’d ever been.”

  “You had us, Papa.”

  “I know that,” he said, and wondered how to make her understand what it had been like for him to face losing her mother. “But you were children. How could I worry you more than you already were?” He shook his head again. “You were still in school then. Sam had just come home and Michaela was running away every time I turned around. Your mama was leaving us and my family was crumbling around her.”

  Jo scowled and her dark eyebrows drew together as they always did when she was thinking hard about something. It gave him hope.

  “It was wrong, Jo. I know that. I knew that then. But I—needed to feel alive. To be reminded that life would keep going on. That the whole world wasn’t dying along with my Sylvia.”

  Taking a chance, he reached out, cupped her chin and turned her face to his. “And as much as I’m ashamed and sorry that I hurt you and your sisters, I can’t regret Jack. I can’t wish him out of existence to change things between us.”

  “I know that,” she whispered, and carefully covered his hand with hers. “Neither can I.”

  A fragile bubble of hope expanded within him and Henry clung to it desperately. He needed to be right with his daughters. He needed to reach Jo to be able to help her with whatever it was that was tearing at her so.

  “Losing your mama like that made me crazy. I couldn’t run away like Michaela. So I ran away the only way I could. Can you try to understand, Jo? Try to forgive me for failing you? For letting you down?”

  Jo swallowed hard and a single tear streaked down her cheek, but she quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand. She did understand. Finally and completely.

  Sylvia Marconi’s illness and death had shattered them all in different ways. Mike had run away almost weekly until the night she hitched a ride with the wrong guy and ended up in a hospital bed. Sam had given away her own child in an effort to not burden their already broken family.

  And Jo had run from the man who’d destroyed her trust. She’d taken her mother’s illness and used it for her own purposes. She’d buried her heart and her shame and her fears in the care of her mother. How could she possibly blame Papa for running in the only way he could?

  “I do understand, Papa,” she whispered as tears choked her, tightening her throat until oxygen became a serious issue. “Better than you know.”

  “Ah, Josefina,” he soothed, “can’t you tell me what’s hurting you? Can’t you take me back into your heart?”

  “Oh Papa, you never left my heart,” she said through her tears. “Not really.”

  “Then tell me, Josefina. Talk to your papa.”

  She smiled to herself as she heard the slight flavor of Italy in his voice. Only when he was most moved, most overcome with emotion, did the accent he usually buried arise to color his words. And somehow, that was enough to splinter the rest of the ice around her heart.

  She set her coffee down and leaned into her father. His beefy arms came around her instantly and his big hands stroked up and down her back while she talked, while she spilled her heart and emptied her soul of the blackness she’d hidden for too many years.

  She felt him stiffen, felt the outrage bubbling within him, and then sensed when the anger gave way to sorrow as he held her tighter, closer. And she wondered how she’d managed to live nearly a year without losing herself in one of Papa’s hugs.

  “If I could,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head, “I would go back in time to tear this man apart with my bare hands.”

  “I know, Papa,” she said, smiling into his shoulder. Papa and Cash both had wanted to beat her attacker into the ground. She only wished that she’d had the courage to handle it herself ten years ago. Maybe if she’d faced him down then, she wouldn’t have had to wait so long to feel . . . free. “And I love you for it. But it’s over now.”

  “Is it?” Her father eased back, his gaze sweeping over her face, checking her eyes, studying her features carefully. “Is it? Or is he still deciding how you should feel?”

  “What?” All those nice warm fuzzy feelings evaporated instantly. Hurt, she tried to pull away, but her strength was no match for her father’s.

  “Jo,” he said softly. “You’ve been ashamed for years, when the shame was always his. You’ve done nothing wrong and yet you hide while he goes on about his life.”

  “But—”

  “You left school because of him. Gave up on your dreams—”

  “Yes,” she argued hotly in her own defense, “but I went back! The last year and a half, I’ve been going to night school. I picked up my credits. I’m going to graduate, Papa. In three weeks.”

  “This is good and I am so proud of you.” His eyes sparkled madly and Jo understood completely why the kids of Chandler were so convinced her father was really Santa Claus.

  Then the twinkle in those pale blue eyes faded. “Graduating is wonderful. But you have a full life to live. You cannot allow one evil man to color how you look at your whole world, Josefina.” He stared directly into her eyes and the kindness she saw there softened his next words. “There is only shame if you continue to hide the truth.”

  Mike sneaked through the living room and into the kitchen—feeling pretty much like a hippo trying to tiptoe through a river. But now that she’d been up on her feet, she so didn’t want to go back to lying on her ass.

  The cool blue tiles felt cold against the bottoms of her feet and the morning sunlight glanced off the surface of the lake and sliced into the kitchen like a spotlight sent directly from God. Gorgeous. She only wished she could be outside to enjoy the day. Maybe ripping out someone’s sink.

  “No offense, guys,” she whispered, stroking her hand across her belly, “but if you don’t get out of there soon, mommy’s gonna go to a nuthouse and then where will you be?”

  “Will you at least lie down in the nuthouse?”

  A deep voice, right behind her.

  Mike shrieked and turned around. “You know, if you’re trying to scare me into labor, you’re doing a great job of it.”

  Lucas shook his head. “You’re pitiful, you know it?”

  Guilt rose up and took a nip at her, but she gamely bit back. “Geez, Lucas, give me a break.” She lifted her left hand and ticked off her fingers, one by one. “Jack’s in the hospital, Nana’s making everybody nuts, something’s bugging Jo—she hasn’t growled at anybody in at least a week, Sam’s back to work without me, and I’ve been pregnant for freaking ever.” She leaned in at him. “I’m a woman on the edge, Rocket Man.”

  He tipped her chin up with his fingertips. “Jack’s going home today, Nana’s been bugging you for years, Jo will growl again as soon as she has the time, you’ll be back at work making some poor homeowner crazy in no time, and you’re supposed to be lying down.”

  Here came the guilt again. Mike wondered idly if she’d have the same capacity for guilt if she’d been raised Protestant. Then she figured that being Italian would have been enough.

  “Ah, come on, remember that edge I was telling you about? I just wanted to sit up to eat some ice cream.” She blinked her eyelashes furiously and tried a smile.

  “Is that supposed to convince me?”

  Mike blew out a breath and gave it up. “Fine. Se
xy I’m not.” Then she perked up. “Can you be bribed?”

  “Depends on the bribe.”

  “Ah,” she said, getting into the spirit of the thing now, since at least he hadn’t pushed her into a chair yet. “So you can be had, you’re just not cheap.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I can respect that.”

  “Glad to hear it,” he said, moving past her to the freezer. “Chocolate chip?”

  Victory! “Is there any other kind?”

  “Not according to my lovely wife,” he said and grabbed the carton. Then tugging on a brass parrot pull, he opened a nearby cupboard, took down two bowls, and carried them to the kitchen table. “Sit.”

  “You joining me?”

  He went back for spoons. “Somebody has to keep an eye on you.”

  “Great,” she said, enjoying the sensation of warm sunlight spraying across her back. “Don’t forget the whipped cream.”

  He nodded, opened the fridge, grabbed a red and white can, and said, “Just got an e-mail from Bree.”

  Mike took the spoon and bowl he handed her. Bree Gallagher, Lucas’s late brother’s widow, was back in Ireland, living with her family and raising her son. Good thing Mike liked her or she’d be pretty pissy about Bree’s already having gone through the whole birth thing.

  “How’s she doing?”

  Lucas scooped ice cream into her bowl and grinned. “She says little Justin is smiling and rolling over now. Wants us to visit after the babies come.”

  Mike frowned at the ice cream that had seemed so important a minute or two ago. “The babies are never coming, Rocket Man. They’re gonna be in there forever. Bree’s already skinny again, I bet, and here I sit looking like the Plumber Who Ate California.”

  “Just southern California.”

  “Gee, that makes me feel better.”

  Lucas dropped to one knee in front of her. Lifting the hem of her shirt, he bent his head and kissed her belly, sending a shiver of something warm and delicious moving through her.

  Then he looked up at her and smiled. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. And you humble me every day.”