Miracle (The Pagano Family Book 6) (19 page)

Into that miasma, while they’d all been picking at Sunday brunch, Carlo had announced that Pop’s lawyer had sent the paperwork regarding his will. Now they were all sitting at the dining room table, the site of many thousands of family meals and nearly as many family discussions, which almost always descended into family fights.

Carlo had suggested they have the house appraised and he would buy it, paying the rest of them their portion of the appraisal price.

He’d lived rent-free in the house for a decade. He’d also, however, paid fully for its maintenance during that time, including a new roof and a full replacement of the plumbing. Of course, he was a big deal architect with a fancy office in Providence. He could afford all of it.

But it was the family house.

“I don’t want to sell it, either, asshole, not to you
or
anyone else. This is
our
house. We
all
grew up here. I hated that Pop moved out in the first place and handed it to you like some kind of gift, but I will
not
allow you to take it over completely. I
fucking knew
this would happen.”

Adele whimpered quietly at Carmen’s language.

“Guys,” John interjected. “Don’t turn this into a fight already.”

Carmen turned on John. “Don’t play the fucking peacemaker. I can’t be the only one who thinks this is a shit idea.”

Theo laid his hand on his wife’s leg. “Carmen. Go easy.”

She wheeled on her husband. “You too?
Fuck
you! You know what this place means.”

“Yes, I do. I also know that once you let your emotions loose, you’ll turn this discussion into a free-for-all, so go easy. We just got started.”

Carmen glared at Theo and crossed her arms.

Manny got up and left the room. She really struggled when people got angry.

Joey was tempted to follow after her. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d bailed on a hot family argument and hung out with Luca’s wife in the cellar. They all tended to forget he was there anyway, and he couldn’t keep up with the yelling, either as participant or observer.

But this one was important, and he was making a mighty effort to be part of his own life.

Especially now. He felt invigorated, like the day before had given him an infusion of hope. Tina had spent the night with him. They’d fucked again, twice more, naked and writhing together. He’d learned quickly that he did better when he was upright than when he lay down, but once they’d figured it out, they’d had fantastic, enthusiastic sex. The cannula didn’t matter at all.

He was glad she’d gone home after Mass with her father this morning. He wouldn’t have wanted her to see this—though perhaps she, of all the Pagano partners, would have understood. In Joey’s experience, this was how Italian families just
were
.

This fight, though, about the very heart of their family, could get truly ugly—which was a shame, because he knew none of them wanted to lose this house. They wanted everything to stay the same. Carlo taking the house over hadn’t changed their traditions. The thing was not to sell it, to keep Paganos in it. But it was time to settle Pop’s estate.

“Rent,” Joey said. Everybody turned to him, and they all looked surprised to see him there.

“What, Joe?” Carlo asked.

Fuck. Now he had to make himself understood, and he’d barely thought the idea out himself before he’d spoken. “Rent. You…us.”

Everybody stared. They hadn’t understood him.

But as he geared himself up to try again, Luca said. “You mean Carlo pays us all rent?”

Relieved, Joey nodded. He had no clue if that was a good idea or even workable—wait. He did have an idea. “Trust.”

Another confused pause, but it was Rosa who picked it up this time. “Pay into a trust, rather than write us each checks every month? That could work.” She turned to Carmen. “Everything stays exactly the same, as far as how we live, and the house remains the family house. We work out a reasonable rent amount, and Carlo pays that less his own portion into a trust in our names—or he pays the full amount, including his share, and is also a beneficiary of the trust. I know some people who can put us with a good manager. They invest, and the trust grows. When it does come time to sell this house, or when it’s time for our kids to fight over it, whatever, Carlo’s share takes into account the appreciation of the house, commensurate with the growth of the trust. We write the terms so that our shares remain equal. None of us needs the cash right now, right?”

Again, everybody looked at Joey, and this time, he felt a burst of anger. He had a fucking job, good insurance to cover most of his medical expenses, and few living expenses. They all saw him as their lost cause, but he wasn’t. “Don’t need.”

“What’s your plan, Joe?” Carlo asked.

His anger flared defensively and then dissipated. He didn’t actually have a plan. Not a well-developed one. He had a dream, and in the past day that dream had taken on shape and weight: he wanted to be with Tina. Marry her someday. Maybe have kids with her.

But that wasn’t anything he was prepared to share with his family now.

He was saved from answering and provided with the answer all at once when Adele turned to him and said, “Please don’t leave me, too. I don’t want to live by myself. I’m afraid to be alone.”

“You’re not alone, Adele,” John said, reaching across the corner of the table to squeeze their stepmother’s hand. “We’re all here for you.”

“Thank you. I love you all. But that house is full of ghosts. My two loves died there, and they are everywhere I look but nowhere, too. I don’t want to leave it, but being alone in it feels so lonely I think it could crush me.” Crying quietly, she turned back to Joey. “I know you’re young, and you have a new love. You’re making good things happen, and I’m so happy for you. But please stay, at least for a little while.”

Joey nodded. He would stay. He was glad to stay. It felt good to be needed.

~ 14 ~

Come after you close, and I’ll make you come after you close.

Mmm. Tempting. But I should go home tonight. I’ve been neglecting my mom. And my dad, too, actually.

But I need you tonight.

You need me every night.

This is true. But look.

The next text was a photo of Joey’s hard cock, his hand around it. Instantly guilty, Tina pressed her phone to her chest and looked around. The market was empty but for Matt, who was hanging red, white, and blue decorations from the ceiling. The middle of June meant Flag Day and then Independence Day shortly thereafter, so the whole town was all about the patriotic décor.

Typically, the store went quiet in the last hour before closing, and then there was usually a burst of several people who dashed in a few minutes before they locked the doors. They were in the midst of the lull now, and Tina was closing out the second register and getting as much of the close done as she could.

Well,
now
she was blushing and staring at a photo of her boyfriend’s big, hard cock, but she
had
been closing out the register.

Since the day he’d fucked her against the door at his brother’s house, Joey had been more playful. More like his old self, but without the obnoxious façade. There was just something about him now that seemed like a careful confidence.

And jeez, the way he fucked her. Not just that day, but since. Usually, he needed a minute to gather himself and focus on taking air from his tank, and a couple of times, he’d needed to use his mask for quite a while, but they had achieved a full and healthy sex life.

There was nothing tentative or careful about it, either. Sometimes it was still slow, and occasionally sweet, but mostly, it was wild. He took the lead almost every time now and did things that she would never have expected. He had this fierce concentration about him, this determination, and he left her breathless.

She’d loved their sweet connection, but this Joey was a revelation. Now that he had decided that his tank wasn’t a problem—and oh boy was that true—now that he had taken control of that part of his life, he had taken control of that part of their life. Without being demanding or forceful, still devoting his attention to her and her desire, he had claimed his power and his joy.

Across the market, the ladder rattled as Matt closed it up. “Time to turn the sign,” he called.

Surprised, Tina checked the time. Yeah—two minutes past close. No last-minute shoppers tonight. She set her phone down and dug her keys from her pocket.

They’d already pulled in the produce carts from the sidewalk, so she turned the sign and locked the door with her key. Then she dug out the crank and rolled the security gate down. That gate had been a reluctant addition to the front of the shop about eight years earlier, when a crowd of rowdy summer teens had broken the glass and partied in the market in the middle of the night.

Her father hated what the crosshatched metal said about the market and about Quiet Cove, but the insurance company had demanded greater security under threat of cancelling their policy.

In reality, Quiet Cove was a ridiculously safe place, excepting for the occasional mischief that drunk summering teens got into, or their equally drunk parents. The don of the Pagano Brothers organization made his home here, and everyone knew it. Nobody did anything that might draw his notice. He was like a lion sitting on the top of Greenback Hill.

The only time real violence came to Quiet Cove, it came for Don Pagano himself.

“Oh holy God, my eyes! I am never gonna unsee that. My whole life, this is all I’m gonna see when I look at Joey.”

Tina turned and saw Matt holding her phone away from him like it might explode in his face.

“Butthead! What’re you doing snooping on my phone?”

Matt set the device on the counter and stepped away, a dramatic show of horror playing across his face. “It was buzzing, so I checked. You been staring at it all day. Now I’m shocked you didn’t go blind.”

Back at the register, she snatched it up. “Forget about it, nosy jerk. Like you’ve never sent anybody a dick pic.”

“I’ve got more class than that.” He paled. “Please, please,
please
tell me my baby sister isn’t texting naked photos of herself. Oh God, please.”

She hadn’t. Joey had asked, but she was too shy. He’d wanted to take pictures when they were together, too, but, again, she’d been too shy. She didn’t mind how she looked, but she wasn’t sure she wanted photographic evidence, either.

To her brother, though, she merely lifted her eyebrows and curled her lips in a coy smirk.

His playful shock changed to something more serious. “Shit, Teenie. You don’t want something like that out in the world. People get hacked all the time.”

“I haven’t. Relax. Anyway, who’d hack me? I’m nobody.”

He moved behind her and began the close on the main register. “You’re with a Pagano now. They’re not nobody.”

“Yeah, but Joey’s not like Nick.”

“I know, but the name has pull. Just…just be smart, okay?”

Her phone buzzed in her hand, and she looked down to see that Joey had texted her three times since the dick pic.

I left you speechless, huh? It’s impressive, I know.
With a winky face.

T? Hellooooo?

Okay. I’m sorry. That was low class. Forgive me?

“I’m being smart, Matt. I
am
smart. I wish everybody would see that I’m almost twenty-nine years old and a competent, responsible adult who’s about to get a PhD. I know how to make choices for myself.”

To Joey, she texted:
Hey, sorry. Had to close up. I’m not mad. I’m going to save it forever. You have a great cock.
She added a series of hearts and eggplants, then looked up at her brother.

“I get it. I’m the baby. But I’m not a baby. I’m good, I’m happy, and I know better than to text naked pictures of myself. Okay?”

Matt pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “Okay, Teenie. But I’m still going to worry about you. That’s how love works.”

Her phone buzzed again.
Had me worried for a minute. If you want, even though you won’t come over, I’ll still get you off. I bet I can sext you off.

She was having the strangest dual conversation of her life.

“God, I need to stop looking at your phone. The images that are seared into my brain now. Guh.”

She elbowed her brother in the ribs. “Yeah, you do. Serves you right.”

~oOo~

Tina knocked on the burled wood door at the end of the faculty wing. At the cheerily muffled “Come in!” she pushed on the levered knob and peeked in.

“Hi, Esther.”

“Tina! You’re early!” The woman with the wild white hair grinned and pushed her leather chair back from her desk.

“I know. My last appointment canceled. Do you have time now?”

“Sure.” Esther got up from her desk chair and moved to the ornate Victorian sofa stationed against the far wall. She sat and patted the cushion at her side. “Come in, have a seat.”

Tina sat. Dr. Esther Rosen was the Director of Graduate Studies for her department and the chair of Tina’s dissertation committee. Five days earlier, Tina had submitted what she hoped and prayed was her final draft of her dissertation. Three hundred and seventy-four pages, including more than one hundred pages of charts, graphs, figures, and other appendices. The rest of it was thousands upon thousands of her own words. The culmination of years of work.

When she’d gotten up that morning, she’d checked her email before she’d gone down for coffee, and she’d found a message from Esther:
So, I read it. Come talk to me after work. Say 4:30?

All day since, Tina had been fretting that there was news so bad Esther didn’t feel she could share it any way but in person. Now, sitting on the uncomfortably stiff damask of the period-piece sofa, she felt like she was waiting to receive a death sentence.

“What do you think of your work, Tina? What would you say you’ve accomplished with this research?”

Tina swallowed. Jesus, what did those questions
mean
? “Uh—I think the work is solid. I think I’ve developed a new protocol for animal-assisted therapy that crosses the boundaries of diagnoses.”

“You think?”

“I know. My research shows that animal contact assists pediatric patients, except those with specific animal-related anxieties, in the full range of therapeutic prescriptions. Specifically, non-communicative patients respond particularly well to therapy presented with animal contact.”

“We’ve know that for some time, haven’t we?”

“Yes. But I’ve shown that the previous assumption that a singular bond is required for a true trust bond, that an animal must be placed in a patient’s home in order to achieve a long-term therapeutic connection, doesn’t hold up. Patients will bond with an animal the way they bond with a therapist. Thus, several patients can bond with the same animal, requiring training only for the therapists and not for placement families. Previous similar situations have focused on teaching patients to care for the animals, or on anxiety management, but I argue for rehabilitative strategies. I’ve outlined a case for housing a selection of animals like we’ve arranged at the RTC, or placing them with trained therapists, and a training protocol for the use of creatures from snakes to dogs. I’ve also shown that adults exhibit almost exactly the same improvement axis as children with animal contact, though the improvement is more ephemeral in adults. I’ve posited several questions on that front for further research into adult protocols that might be developed.”

She stopped there and took a breath. She tried not to focus on how absurdly perky her voice had gotten as she’d rambled through that explanation that should have sounded smart and capable but instead had turned into some kind of freakish cheer.

God, what if Esther wasn’t happy? But she should be—Tina had addressed every single note anyone in her committee had given her. She’d answered every single question. She’d rewritten whole chapters to accommodate those answers. She’d conducted additional research. There was literally nothing else she could do to make her dissertation better.

When Esther smiled, Tina thought for a moment she might actually pass out. “Good. That should be the core of your defense. With the semester over and Dr. Korgen returning to Europe for the summer, we’ll have to schedule the defense for the fall, but that gives you the summer to work on formatting and to submit the document to the College for printing.”

“I’m…you mean I’m done?”

“I think you are. Dr. Allen has signed off. Dr. Korgen wants to speak with you in person before he does, but that’s his style, and he’s given me no indication that he’s anything but pleased. You’ve done excellent work, Tina—as a scholar and a therapist.” She leaned in. “I think the work you describe with the girl who was attacked in the park is the most persuasive evidence. Really impressive.”

Little Ava Greenborough. Three months had passed since those awful children had assaulted her, but after a period of careful, gentle intervention, whole sessions in which she and her mother had sat alone in a room with Sunny the bunny, Ava had begun to peep through a crack in her protective shell. Tina had rewritten a whole chapter and her conclusion to include Ava’s progress.

But she couldn’t enjoy Esther’s praise just at this moment. “Dr. Korgen wants to speak with me?”

“Yes. It’s typical for him—he likes to have a discussion much like we just had. In fact, what you told me should be ideal for him, too. He doesn’t like to simply sign off on such a momentous event as the completion of one’s dissertation.”