Sabina answered that. “I put a movie on in the cellar for Elsa and him. I thought it would be better if he weren’t under foot—until Joey is ready, that is?”
“Good thinking. Okay. Come on, let’s break up the traffic jam. The boy doesn’t need an audience.”
~oOo~
That night, Sabina put Trey to bed while Carlo helped Joey get set up for the night. As they performed the nightly chore of picking up his toys and putting them away, Trey peppered her with questions.
“What’s on his finger? It glows like Rudolph’s nose!”
“That’s a machine that tells if Uncle Joey’s breath is getting all through his body.” She wasn’t sure how else to explain the ‘pulse-ox’ machine. But he was satisfied with all her answers.
“Why is he sleeping downstairs? That’s not his room. He sleeps with Uncle John when he lives here.”
“I think it makes him too tired right now to go up the stairs. The bedroom downstairs is easier.”
“Mommy made a loud boom with a cowboy gun and Uncle Joey fell down and went to sleep. Do the stairs make him tired like that?”
Her stomach clenched. She took his hand and pulled him to sit with her on his bed. “No, Trey. Not so tired as that.”
“But she made him really tired.”
“She did, yes. But he’s better. He’ll keep getting better.”
“He wouldn’t read me a story. Is he too tired for stories?” He had wanted Joey to read his bedtime story, and he’d brought his book of shark facts downstairs in anticipation of it. But Joey, self-conscious of his struggles for speech, had told him no and sent him away.
Perhaps Sabina had been wrong about Trey’s healing abilities. But it was still early.
“I think today, yes, he was too tired for stories. But maybe not always. I would like to read you a story tonight. May I?”
“Okay. Daddy and me stopped at G for Goblin Shark.” Trey sat up sideways on his bed and opened his big book of sharks at the place marked with a piece of folded blue construction paper. They got all the way to the Japanese Wobbegong before Trey’s eyes started to droop and Sabina closed the book.
She got him tucked in and turned on his undersea projector. Then she kissed his forehead. “Goodnight, Trey. I love you.”
“Love you, Misby.” His voice was faint, following him into sleep.
Sabina blinked. Every time he called her that, her heart filled a little bit more. He’d said once that she was his. She felt that, too, that he was hers. She stood in the doorway and watched him settle totally, his room awash with fish swimming in blue light.
Carlo was sitting in bed, working, when she went into their bedroom. It was their bedroom now; she thought of it only in that way. The only reason now that she had not given up her little attic was that they hadn’t had a chance to pack her things and move her out of it.
He was wearing black boxer briefs and his glasses, and he had his laptop and papers, some of them large building plans, strewn across the comforter. He looked up as she began to change into a nightgown.
“He go down okay?”
“Of course. He had many questions about Joey, though. I hoped I answered them well.”
She got into bed, and he closed his laptop, set it aside, and dropped his glasses on top of it. Then he leaned over and kissed her, slow and sweet. “I’m sure you did. You’re so good with him, Bina.”
He started to push his hand under her nightgown, but she circled his wrist with her hand and stopped him. “May we talk first?”
With a crease down the middle of his forehead, he sat back a little. “Sure. Everything okay?”
“Yes. But something’s in my mind, and I’d like to talk about it. I worry that you’ll be angry, though. That maybe I would step over.”
“I can’t imagine you overstepping anything. What is it?”
She was anxious despite his assurance. “Shouldn’t Rosa be home more for Joey?”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s hardly seen him since he was hurt. She wasn’t here today. Only she was missing. Is it right?”
“Rosa…she’s young. She and Joey have never gotten along very well, and her priorities are…”
“Wrong,” Sabina finished for him. He cocked his head, and she could tell by the subtle change in his posture that she had, in fact, made him angry.
“Not wrong. Young. Maybe you’re right, Bina. Maybe this isn’t a place for you to have an opinion.” He turned and sat back against the headboard, pulling his laptop back onto his legs and sliding his glasses on, as if the conversation were over.