Rooted (Pagano Family #3)(59)

Most saw spring as the season of hope, but Carmen thought they got that wrong. Hope wasn’t necessary when things were turning green. Hope was for the season when the green faded. Autumn was hope.

While she was sitting on the patio in her coat, watching Elsa roll around in a pile of leaves, Sabina came outside, pulling her sweater tightly around her and sitting down in a chair near Carmen.

“I think hiding in the yard is not a very good plan, Carmen. Frostbite will happen.”

With a wry shake of her head, Carmen laughed. “I know. I’m being a *. Everything’s just so out of control right now.”

“You are brave and strong, Carmen. You will find your way.”

“I would like to have your faith in me. I love you, Sabina.” The baby moved again, and she put her hand on her belly.

“And I love you. He is moving again?”

“Or she, yeah. It’s been more like kicks today.”

“May I?” Sabina nodded at her belly.

“Sure. I don’t know if you’ll be able to feel yet, but sure.”

Sabina came over and sat on the settee next to Carmen. She hesitated, looking a little nervous, and then laid her hands on Carmen’s belly, spreading her fingers. Carmen lifted one of her hands and moved to the spot she’d felt the kicking.

For a few minutes, they sat just like that, not speaking, Sabina’s attention so acute it was like she was trying to hear the baby as well as feel it. But it didn’t matter whether the kicks were strong enough yet to be felt; the baby was quiet. Eventually, Sabina sighed and sat back.

“Sorry.” Carmen felt vaguely and irrationally guilty.

Sabina’s smile was sweet and loving. “Not to be sorry. I hope you’ll let me do that another time, though. I would like to feel the baby kick someday.” She blinked, and Carmen realized that Sabina was nearly overcome with emotion.

“How are things with Anna and your baby?” The baby they were set to adopt was due on New Year’s Day.

“It frustrates Carlo that I cannot think of Anna’s baby as mine. But I’m afraid. If she changes her mind, it will be hard. Her grandfather is very angry with her and her parents. She could change her mind.”

“Has she wavered at all since your agreement?”

“No. She is sad, but she hasn’t wavered. It’s a great deal of trust to give, for all of us. Trey doesn’t understand, too. He thinks a baby comes only like yours is coming.” She chuckled quietly. “He’s quite insistent that I’m not fat enough for a baby to be coming to us soon.”

“Sabina, can I ask—have you thought of having what was done to you reversed? Having one of your own?”

“Of course. Carlo and I spoke much about this. But I can’t. I have fear that…” She sighed. “It makes no sense, I know. So to explain is…difficult.”

“You don’t have to. Your choice is your own.”

“Carlo doesn’t understand, either. But then, too, he does. He accepts. To give a child a home is a good thing, yes? And to give his mother help, as well?”

“It is. It’s a very good thing.” Anna’s baby would be loved beyond all reason by a family with bountiful heaps of love to give. Carmen prayed that the girl would not change her mind.



oOo



Carmen got a slow start the next day. Though the evening, when Sabina had finally coaxed her back inside, had been fine, and Eli and Rosa hadn’t been overtly hostile to her—not exactly chatty, but not hostile—Carmen was overwhelmed and depressed. She’d slept badly, rehearsing over and over in her head what she should say to Theo when she could put it off no longer. Every scenario she played out had her humiliated, guilty, and alone. She couldn’t manage to get up much enthusiasm for a day with her raucous family, in the midst of which sat Theo’s son.

By ten o’clock, she’d fielded three calls—from Sabina, Adele, and Luca—wondering where she was. The Pagano family tradition had the day starting early, with brunch and the Macy’s parade. Then football the rest of the day. Thanksgiving dinner was on the table by two in the afternoon, and by six o’clock, Carlo Sr. would have Christmas with Johnny Mathis on the turntable and the family would be mobilized for Christmas decorating.

It all made her feel hollow and weepy this morning. Maybe all this weak, weepy bullshit was hormones. God, she really hoped so. The thought that she was turning into some kind of emotional gardenia infuriated her. Or, no. She wished it infuriated her. This morning, that thought made her cry instead. Jesus. She hated herself right now.

She dragged herself out of bed and took a shower. Not showing up for Thanksgiving would be more of a family scandal than getting knocked up and not telling the father.

As she finished drying her hair and pulled her robe over her shoulders, she heard a knock on the glass of her front door. Great. Now they were going to drag her over there. Jesus Christ, give a pregnant woman five minutes to pull her act together, would ya?

She hadn’t closed the bathroom door—she lived alone; no point—so she wheeled angrily around the open doorway, figuring it was probably Luca, and prepared to lay into him for being an * and not giving her half an inch of space.

But it wasn’t Luca standing outside her door, on her sandy, windswept porch.

It was Theo.