Rooted (Pagano Family #3)(85)

22



Eli met Theo in the main lobby of St. Gabriel’s Hospital. Theo grabbed his son by his arms. “Are they okay? Talk to me!”

“Let’s sit down.” Eli took his father’s arm and led him to a quiet nook, where four squared, leatherette armchairs faced each other around a low, round table.



“Eli, please. What the hell is going on?” Cell reception had sucked most of the drive, so he hadn’t heard anything more since Eli’s first call. The call had come through while he was giving an Intro to American Classics lecture, and he’d let it roll to voice mail. The message Eli had left—Carmen’s been shot. Call me right away—had caused Theo to drop his briefcase and papers right in the middle of the corridor in Hershey Hall.

When he called Eli back, standing there with his papers still piled around his feet, all his son had known was that she’d been shot in the belly. She was in surgery, and they were taking the baby.

Almost ten weeks early.

He’d gone back to his office to grab his coat and then he’d raced to his Cherokee and headed for Quiet Cove.

“She’s out of surgery. She was shot in the chest, I guess, and the bullet came out her belly somehow. She’s still out, but the doctor said her prognosis is good.”

“And Teresa? The baby?”

Eli dropped his head, and Theo fought back the urge to hit him. “Eli! What?!”

“She’s alive, Dad. I saw her. She’s so little and skinny, and there are tubes and wires everywhere. The doctor said the bullet hit her butt, took a gouge out. She’s alive, but she bled a lot, and she’s so little. They’re giving her blood and air and everything, but all the nurses and doctors look serious around her. I don’t know.”

Theo dropped his head into his hands. “I don’t understand what the f*ck is going on.”

“You know who the Paganos are, Dad. I know you know that.”

“But not Carmen’s family, right? She said they were separate from that.”

“Yeah, that’s what Rosa said, too. I guess they always were. But they’re getting twisted up in it now. I don’t know a lot—I don’t think Rosa knows much. But I was there today, and it was like something out of a Martin Scorsese movie. It was a drive-by, same kind of thing that killed their Uncle Lorrie. Three people are dead. Six people, including Carmen, are hurt. At his funeral.”

“Seven people.”

“What?”

“Seven people were hurt. Teresa was hurt.”

“Right. Yes.”

“I need to see them.”

“Okay. Carmen is still unconscious. I guess she got pretty agitated when she came out of surgery, so they put her under again. She and the baby are on the same floor, but different wings. Teresa is in the NICU.”

“Teresa. I want to see my little girl.”

Eli stood. “Let’s go.”



oOo



When they got to the NICU, there was a large cluster of Paganos standing outside the viewing window. Luca saw Eli and Theo coming and made a path for them to the glass.

What Theo saw on the other side of the glass turned his fear and heartbreak into fury. “What the hell is he doing in there?”

Luca was at his side, his big hand on Theo’s shoulder. “That’s Father Michael, from our church. He’s baptizing her.”

Standing at the little clear isolette was a priest in a cassock, flanked by Carlo and Sabina. They were all covered in filmy, yellow gowns.

“What? Here? Why? Who said?”

“It has to be now, Theo.”

He turned and glared at Carmen’s brother. He was taller, but Luca was broader and brawnier. Still, Theo wanted nothing more than to punch him in the face. “Why?”

Luca faced him calmly. “You know why, man.”

“Because your stupid f*cking religion thinks my daughter is already tainted and is damned to hell if she dies before she’s baptized.”

“Not hell. Limbo. I know you don’t believe what we do. But what harm is there? It’s just a couple of drops of water. Just a symbol.”

“It’s the symbol that’s such bullshit! That you believe that crap! That you see that tiny”—his voice broke, and he stopped and collected himself. “That you see my daughter as tainted. Look at her.” He turned back to the glass and ignored the adults standing over his daughter. Instead he focused on the tiny body inside the isolette. He recognized some of the machines. There was a tube down her throat, taped to her face—a ventilator. Another tube, filled with red, went into her leg—blood. And another, with a syringe attached to it, fed into her belly—food and meds. Little leads were affixed to her chest, arms, legs—heart monitor. A gold foil heart on her belly—he didn’t know what that was for. Her tiny chest heaved. Her eyes were closed. She had a dense mop of black hair already.

There was a diaper under her bottom and between her legs, but it hadn’t been closed. Theo could see part of a white bandage around her hip. Covering a wound left by a bullet. She’d been shot before she’d drawn her first breath.

His daughter. Teresa. Teresa Joy. Unless Carmen had taken it upon herself to change her name.

“How can she be tainted? What kind of god would turn her away?” Emotion overwhelmed him, and he leaned his head on the glass. “I need to be in there.”