Rooted (Pagano Family #3)(64)
He slept heavily every night, and sometimes half the day, cocooned in a boozy haze. But he’d gone an imposing stretch of time now without either sleep or drink. “It’s been a rough fall. And I haven’t slept since two mornings ago, I guess, the last time I woke up in Paris.”
“Are you coming to Thanksgiving with me? Will you? Or is that unspeakably awkward—meeting my family today, after all this?”
He laughed. “I was there already. I went there first this morning, to talk to Eli and get your address. I think I’m expected. I met everybody. I hope that was everybody. There were a lot of people.”
Carmen’s eyes were wide with shock. “Yeah, that’s unspeakably awkward.”
Theo only shrugged. Those were her consequences for keeping all this from him.
She sighed. “Okay. Well, we have a little time. I’ll text somebody over there and say we won’t show up until dinner, and then we can stay here and nap if you want. A couple of hours, anyway.”
He could have wept with relief. “That sounds amazing. Yes.”
She got up and went for her phone. When she came back, she had a large, fluffy, colorful blanket. She crawled back in and settled again on his chest. Theo pulled the cover over them and was asleep within seconds.
He slept more deeply, more restfully in those two hours nestled with his beautiful girl than he had in nearly four months of boozy, ten-hour comas.
oOo
“What kind of drunk are you, Theo?”
Standing behind the sofa in Carmen’s brother’s house, watching the game, Theo turned and faced Carlo Sr.—Carmen’s father. “Excuse me?”
“I’ve been watching—no, not watching. Noticing. You’re not drinking. But you watch other people drink, and when you do, you look damn thirsty. So I figure you got a problem you’re trying to get over on.”
They were alone in the room, but probably wouldn’t be for long. Everybody was involved in either cleaning up the kitchen or unpacking Christmas decorations, which was apparently a family tradition. Theo had come into the living room from the front yard, having worked with Luca and Joey to hang lights on the eaves of the house, and gotten caught up for a minute in the game. Carlo, Eli, and John were doing the lights next door, where Carmen’s father and stepmother lived. The Paganos had themselves a little compound.
When Theo didn’t answer, Carlo Sr. went on. “Don’t mean to offend you. But you’re no kid, and I’m not *-footing around. I’m feeling thirsty myself, but that little splash of scotch I had after that half-inch slice of pie is all the wife will allow since my heart gave out. You got a heart problem, Theo?”
“No, I don’t.”
“But you got a booze problem.”
Yeah, he did. Until today, he hadn’t had to face how far he’d slid down that slope. But he was working on two days without a drink now, and booze had been flowing around him since he and Carmen had arrived for Thanksgiving dinner. Even the wine was looking good, and he hated wine. When his hands had started shaking while they were hanging lights on this not-especially-cold day, he’d finally admitted it to himself. He was an alcoholic. But how did he say that to Carmen’s father, whom he’d met hours before? He didn’t. “I’m just cutting back.”
“That’s a yes, then. I’m asking what kind of drunk you are. Are you a party drunk? A drown-your-sorrows drunk? A mean drunk? What I’m getting at here is do I have to worry about my girl around you? Or the grandchild she’s carrying?”
“No!” He took a breath and confronted the question head on. “I’m not violent. Sober or not, I’m not violent. And I’m quitting. No more booze.”
“That’s good. Don’t be stupid about it. Get help. Carmen’s going to make you work for what you have with her. She’s like her mother, all mouth and fight.” He stopped and laughed. “I guess you already know that. She’ll drive you to drink”—at Theo’s responding chuckle, Carlo Sr. laughed harder—“I guess you know that, too. So get help.”
Theo nodded. “Yeah. I will. But you don’t have to worry about Carmen, or the baby. I love them. I’d never hurt them.”
“Good intentions pave the road to perdition, Theo. But I’ll trust you. You raised a fine boy in Eli. I wish those two would get married instead of shacking up, but I know that’s my Rosa as much as it is him. Eli’s a solid young man. He speaks well of you. With respect. Admiration. So I trust you with my girl. She’s a special one.”
“I know. She changed my life.”
oOo
When the decorating was finished, all but the Christmas tree and fresh greenery, which Sabina and Rosa planned to get the next day, some of the family started a board game in the dining room. Others were in the cellar, watching the eighty-inch television down there. Carlo Sr. and his wife, Adele, had taken their leave. Carmen, though, seemed to have disappeared.
Theo was feeling tired and overwhelmed at the end of this day. He’d enjoyed her family, and they’d welcomed him almost as if he were a long lost relative and not someone they were only just meeting. But it was loud everywhere he went. There were so many of them—Carlo Sr., Adele, Carlo Jr., Sabina, Trey, Luca, Manny, John, Joey, Rosa, Carmen, and Eli and him. He’d kept a running list in his head, trying to keep faces mated with names. And there was a horse-size dog wandering around—Ella, or something like that. This was not the kind of family he was used to, and his nerves, seeking bourbon, jangled harshly.