Deep (Pagano Family #4)(61)

When she was finished, she washed her hands in the sink and then stared for a minute into the mirror. The woman who stared back at her was a victim, mowed down by trouble, crushed under its weight. She looked familiar.

Incongruously, the lights at the sides of the mirror caught the diamonds in her necklace and made it sparkle and flash. They hadn’t taken the necklace from her. They hadn’t been there to rob them. Not of things.

Nick had told her she was his sunshine. His light.

No. Not anymore. They’d left her her necklace, but they’d taken her sun.

When she opened the door, he was standing just outside. Startled, she jumped, and then winced as the pains throughout her body were agitated by the clench of muscle.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’ll help you back to bed.”

He took her hand, but she pulled it away. He took it back and held on. “No. I won’t push you to be close, but I won’t let you push me away. I’ll help you back to bed. I’ll get you some breakfast—Aunt Angie was talking last night about some chocolate breakfast drink. You’ll take your pills. And then I’m going to talk to you, and you’re going to listen.”

For a moment, they just stood there, staring into each other’s eyes. Then Nick raised his hand and cupped her cheek. “Let me help you, bella.”

Bella. It meant beautiful. But nothing was beautiful.

He pulled gently, and she let him lead her back to bed and help her back in.



oOo



When she was finished with the chocolate shake, Nick took the empty glass from her and set it on the dresser. Then he sat on the side of the bed. He took her hand, and Bev stared as his thumb lightly massaged the feathers tattooed on her wrist.

“You were fifteen when you made the scars here, right?”

Still staring at his thumb on her skin, feeling nothing, she nodded.

“Something happened when I was fifteen, too. I think the meaning of my ink started on that day, just like yours. I only told one person about that day. Brian. I told him because he was my best friend when it happened, and I needed him to help me make sense of it.”

Bev’s eyes shifted to Nick’s face. He was staring at his hand on her wrist. When he began speaking again, his gaze didn’t shift.

“I loved my father. I still love him. He loved his family. He wasn’t perfect, but most of the mistakes he made were normal mistakes. But he was a hothead, and he was a drunk. Until I was fifteen. After that, he and I were both different.”

He paused again, but his hands still caressed her.

“I came home from school one day. I went to a Catholic high school, the kind where boys wore uniforms with ties. My parents were fighting. That wasn’t unusual in those days—like I said, he was a hothead and a drunk. He had other women, too. That was something he did all his life, actually—kept a comare. But back in the day, he wasn’t discreet about it, and my mother didn’t like it in her face. So they fought. It was all just yelling. Every now and then, Ma would throw something against a wall. Not at my father. Just…an exclamation point. I was used to it. So I rolled my eyes and went into the kitchen, looking for something to eat.

“I was eating a peanut butter and blackberry jam sandwich. I remember that because when I heard the crash, it was timed perfectly with a blob of jam falling onto my pants, and I laughed. And then the sounds coming from their bedroom were different. No more yelling. Thumping. And this strange sound I couldn’t place—like a jingle. I put my sandwich down and went upstairs. They were on the floor. My father was straddling my mother, beating her with the white phone that sat on her bedside table—do you remember those old ‘princess’ phones? It was red. With her blood. She was unconscious.”

He stopped and lifted his eyes to hers. She got the sense that he was searching inside her, trying to see how she was dealing with the story, if he was pushing too hard. He wasn’t. She felt nothing more than mild curiosity.

“I ran and pulled him off, and then he went for me. He grabbed my tie and choked me. He wouldn’t let up. I think he would have killed me. He would have killed us both. But I was bigger than him already, and strong for my age. I fought him off, chased him out of the room. I locked the door. I checked on my mother—she was still breathing. Then I checked to see if the phone still worked. It did. On a phone coated in my mother’s blood, I called my Uncle Ben.

“He came right away and took control of the situation. He took care of my mother, got her to the hospital. He sent men out to find my father, who had run off. He told me that something had happened in business that my father was having trouble coping with, but that that was no excuse, that a man didn’t bring his business home to his family. He told me he was proud of me. And then he asked me if I wanted to help my father be a better man. I said yes.”

This time, it was a long time before Nick spoke. He lifted her hand and kissed it, his lips lingering on her skin. It was one of her favorite things that he did, a sweet gesture that spoke of real, unguarded affection for her. She felt a tiny twinge of feeling, and it was that affection, reflected.

“Two days later, my father was strung up on a hook in a warehouse. My uncle cleared the room, and then he told me to teach my father his lesson. I did. With what he did to my mother in my mind’s eye, I used everything I had in me to teach him. My father was the first man I ever hurt for my uncle. From that day, I never saw my father lose his cool. I saw him struggle, but never lose. I never again heard him raise his voice to my mother, or to me. On that day, I began to be the man I am now.”