Sabina didn’t think she agreed. She’d spent some time with Joey in the hospital, and he was very much changed. The cocky boy she’d met in May had been replaced by a hesitant, lost young man. He seemed often bewildered. It wasn’t that he couldn’t think as well as before—he was as sharp as ever. It was more like he couldn’t quite make sense of how his life had become what it now was. It made Sabina sad to see.
She didn’t think a pretty blonde with a perky bottom and blue eyes would be motivating for Joey. She feared it would be the opposite. She hoped Carlo had not made this hiring decision on such flawed logic.
But she had great hope that Trey would be motivating for Joey. Trey, as exuberantly young as he was, was an old soul. He healed, as if by magic. By his very presence he seemed to make sense of the world. He’d even healed himself.
~oOo~
It was past dark before Joey made it home on the day he was released. Paperwork snafus and assorted incompetencies kept everyone waiting until the evening. Louisa had come and gone and called three times, but she was there when he arrived.
He came in using the walking stick that Carlo Sr. had bought him—a tall, burled stick with a dragon carved into the head—and with Luca holding his other arm and dragging the oxygen tank behind him. Sabina knew he hated that thing fiercely. It made him feel like ‘some stupid old guy in saggy shorts and a humpback.’
Carlo and their father came up behind, carrying Joey’s things. Carmen and John had been at the house, waiting with Sabina and Trey. Rosa, again, had elected not to join in the welcome. Again, her excuse had been school. She had only come home for a visit one time in the weeks that Joey had been in the hospital, and she’d only stopped in for a fifteen-minute visit when she had.
Rosa’s behavior was a frequent topic of family conversation, but every discussion ended with what amounted to a group shrug. That’s Rosa for you, they all said. Sabina was growing irritated and impatient. Yes, Rosa had been neglected, in a strange, loving way, when Teresa died. And yes, Sabina thought she could see how it might have formed her into the young woman she was now. But this—what they were all doing now—was exactly the problem. No one held her accountable, and as a result, she was on the outside. The whole family had gathered, and where was Rosa? In her dorm at Brown. Family experiences were being had, and she was absent from them, just as she was all but absent from the hall of family memories.
It was the same thing that Joey had experienced, though he had never left the fold. This love without support. This expectation without consequence. It had finally broken Joey, a little, at least. Sabina found it vexing. But she had said nothing so far. She wasn’t sure it was her place. And she was quite sure if she said anything directly to Rosa herself, it would be taken amiss.
But Joey was home at last. The ride seemed to have tired him. He was pale, with a shine of perspiration over his forehead. Luca led him straight to the guestroom.
Louisa was standing at the intersection of the front hall with the side hall. She smiled and said, “Hi, Joey. I’m Louisa. I’m going to help you out for a while.”
Joey stopped and stared. After a couple of seconds, he said, “W-what?”
From behind him, Carlo said, “She’s a nurse. Joe. I told you. I hired a nurse—just part-time, until you’re stronger.”
“Y-y-you hired…that? …F-fuck…no!” He jerked his arm free of Luca and walked the rest of the way on his own, right past Louisa, not stopping when he bounced off the wall near the door to the room that was now his.
Sabina bit back the urge to tell Carlo she’d told him so. She’d mentioned her concern the night after she’d met Louisa. Carlo had said that he’d simply hired the most qualified person, someone Natalie had recommended highly. She believed him. But he’d discounted her concern that Joey would be self-conscious in his weakness around such an attractive woman.
Louisa, however, seemed unmoved. She followed right behind him. He told her to get out. She told him that he wasn’t her boss, and she needed him to sit and be quiet so she could get his vitals. He told her to get fucked. She told him that her plans later were none of his business.
The whole family—except Rosa—was standing in the hallway. Carlo and his father still had Joey’s bags in their arms.
Luca, at the front of the group, turned back and grinned. “Oh, this is gonna be fun. I might move in, too. Just for the show.”
“Oh, no, you won’t,” Carlo Sr. groused. “Okay, people. Break it up. Where’s Trey?”