Rooted (Pagano Family #3)(90)

“I know what you gave up when your mother died. You think I wasn’t paying attention, and I know I wasn’t paying enough. But I do know what I asked of you. You more than Junior. I know, baby. I know. You gave up you, and became your mother instead. She was a wonderful woman. A wonderful mother. You are, too. But you aren’t you. I think you stepped into her shoes and got stuck in them. I think that’s why you were so mad when I married Adele and moved over next door.”

More than once, Theo had said something similar. It was a powerful thing to be understood. A fearsome thing, when that understanding eclipsed one’s own. Feeling like her heart was sitting in her lap, raw and exposed, Carmen couldn’t keep eye contact anymore. She let her eyes fall onto Teresa’s beautiful, sleeping face. Her dark hair, curling just slightly at the ends already.

“I think I’m right,” he continued. “Aren’t I?”

“Pop.” She hated the small sound her mouth made, and the way the word broke in the middle.

“Look around you, Carmen. You don’t have to be stuck in your mother’s place. You did right by the family you were born into. You did more than anybody. But now it’s time to do right by the family you made. It’s time to do right by yourself. It’s time to ask yourself what’s right for you. What will make you happy—you and this little girl in my arms.”

“I want her to grow up seeing you every day.” Her voice broke again, and behind that faulty dam, tears surged forth. She let them. After all these months, she was used to being drippy.

He chuckled. “I am going to spoil this beauty rotten. It won’t be good for her to eat candies and cookies every day. I need a chance to save up, too, for all the ponies and kittens. But it’s her daddy she needs to grow up seeing every day. Not Pop-Pop. You know what’s right, Carmen. Don’t you?”

Sobbing hard now, she nodded. “I love you, Pop.” She had to force the words through her knotted throat.

“I love you, too, baby. We’ll always be here. You won’t lose your roots, but it’s time you let yourself reach up.” The words sounded stilted and tight, and Carmen looked up to see that her father, big and gruff, was crying. She slid off the chair and knelt at his feet, laying her head on his lap.



oOo



Sixty-three days after she was born, Teresa finally got to go home with her mother and father. Well, not home, exactly. They took her to the cottage, which was mostly packed up. They weren’t leaving for Maine until after the weekend. The pediatrician wanted her to stay close for a few days, to make sure the transition to home went smoothly. And the Paganos were having a party at the house on Caravel Road. Though tensions with the Uncles’ business were high, and there were still bodyguards with everyone, Carmen’s family was not about to send her and her family off with a whimper. So a welcome/farewell bash was in the works.

But on this late afternoon, by their request and her family’s grudging acquiescence, they were alone. Theo opened the back door of his Cherokee and unlatched Teresa’s car seat from its base. Carmen let herself out of the other back door, and they went into the cottage together.

She really loved this little house. Sure, the beach got crowded in the summer, and the weekenders didn’t respect her property line, but she woke up every morning to a sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean, and she went to sleep every night to the crash of the surf against the shore.

Her little house had been just perfect for her, too. Exactly the right size, decorated exactly to her taste, an effort of years. Maybe she had not been happy in her life, but she had loved this house. Here was where she’d kept herself—her self—for safekeeping.

But now, it was down to its bare bones, just the furniture that she was leaving John and the things they would need for the next few days left. Everything else was already loaded into a moving truck and on its way north. The walls echoed strangely, a hollow, sad sound.

The movers had brought her bed down from the loft, and the room that had been her office was now the bedroom for all three of them. The simple maple crib she’d bought, which was going to her father and Adele’s house, where they were setting up a nursery for visits, stood right next to the bed. Carmen sort of wished she’d bought the co-sleeping crib Andi had championed.

Teresa was sound asleep in her car seat. Standing in the bedroom, Theo looked lost, not sure where to put her. Carmen didn’t know, either. Hell, he was the one who’d done this before.

“Should we take her out of the seat?”

Theo smiled. “Best to let sleeping babies lie. She could make us pay if we wake her.”

Honestly, Teresa didn’t cry much and hardly ever screamed. Part of that was the circumstances of her birth—her lungs had not been ready to make much noise. But she had been active from her very first day, and she made her displeasure known. She simply did so more quietly than most babies. “Well, what, then?”

He lifted the carrier and set it in the middle of the crib. Then he turned the baby monitor on. The house was so small, they probably didn’t need one, but Carmen wanted every precaution possible. It was just a good standard monitor—Teresa’s breathing had improved so much that they had sent them home without an apnea monitor.

Theo took Carmen’s hand and started to lead her out of the room. “C’mon. I’ll call for pizza.”