Footsteps(94)
He’d fallen asleep halfway through his first story. Carlo kissed his forehead and gave Elsa’s head a pat. Before he pulled the door to, he stood in the doorway and just watched as the waves of light from the new projector rolled over Trey’s sleeping form.
Things were coming back together. Trey was happy here. Carlo had signed him up for part-time preschool. His design had made the second round for the Connelly job, and that had backed Peter off from his snit-induced intent to kill their company. They’d had a decent—or, at least, not hostile—conversation when Carlo called him with the news. And Ken Jeremy had gotten the office work done in four days.
And Bina. He’d had a moment of insanity this evening, proposing to her out of the blue, but she hadn’t been overly freaked out. He’d just been so overwhelmed by the simple, astonishing beauty of her choice to learn a skill just to make Trey a gift. Maybe it was silly, but it had moved Carlo in ways beyond description. That and her silly cake—she was trying, without seeming to know she was trying, to learn to be his son’s mother.
She didn’t seem to see it, but Carlo certainly did. He loved her all the more for trying, and for not knowing she was.
If Jenny fucked with any of it, he would tear her into pieces and throw the chum into the ocean to attract Trey’s beloved sharks.
When he went downstairs, Rosa and Carmen were cleaning the kitchen. His father was taking out the trash. Carlo was surprised not to see Bina—she was usually in the midst of the work that there was to be done. “Where’s Bina?”
He felt a low-grade jolt of worry that she had left. She had her car here, so she could have gone. Why she would have, though, he didn’t know. In their brief, whispered discussion about his confrontation in the living room, she had seemed more concerned for him than anxious about Jenny.
Rosa turned from the cabinet where she was putting glassware away. “She was out back, last I saw, collecting wrapping paper and stuff.”
He found her sweeping the flagstones, her little skirt swaying with her hips, and he walked up behind her. “Hey, Cinderella. Got a date for the ball?”
Holding the broom in one hand, she turned in his arms and blinked coyly at him. “I was hoping the handsome prince would ask me.”
“He did, baby. You told him to wait.” Damn. His fucking mouth. Her sweet smile faltered a little, but she recovered quickly. She dropped the play, however.
“Is Trey asleep?”
“He is. All sharked out. He’s going to boil in all that gear tonight, but he was blissed.” A breeze kicked up, and in it Carlo smelled the rain that had threatened since the morning. “Think it might finally let loose.”
“Yes. I felt a drop or two already. I should go.”
“Bina, stay tonight. Just tonight. After everything, I want to be with you tonight.”
“Does Trey know?”
“No. But you’re his, too. Remember? He’ll be okay if you’re here in the morning. He’ll be happy.”
The rain started, dropping gentle beads on the canvas tenting over the patio.
“And if I’m not here every morning? Carlo, you tempt me. Do you know how much I want to say yes? To everything? Every day you offer me this life that I love. But I’m not ready. I want to be strong enough. You say you’ll give me time for this, to be strong, but—”
He kissed her quiet. The events of the evening had focused some things in Carlo’s head, things he needed to say. When he pulled back, he took her hands in his. “Come sit with me. We need to talk.” He led her to the settee and sat with her. “Bina, why do you say you’re not strong enough?”
She looked down at their twined hands for a long time. Without looking up, she finally said, “Not so long ago, I didn’t understand even how to make a phone contract. I’m only learning how to live.”
“I don’t think that’s true. Stuff like apartments and phones—that’s minutia. I think you know better than most how to live. I think living the life you lived and coming through it and being who you are shows that your strength is practically superhuman. Bina—you still trust. You’re still quick to love. You’re kind, and you’re not suspicious or cynical—all things you have every fucking right to be. Do you understand how miraculous that is?” He wanted her to understand. He willed it at her.
But she shook her head. “I let him do those things to me. For years, I let him do those things—to hurt me, to control me, to take my body from me. To take motherhood from me. I thought I was strong to live it, but I feel now so much that I missed. So much of myself had to die to live that way. I don’t want to join with you before I recover what I lost. I’m sorry, Carlo. I need that. You say I am yours, and Trey’s, and my heart…my heart swells at that. It’s so much of what I want. But I want to be mine, too. Do you see?”