Reno Gabrini: A Man in Full (26 page)

His heart was still pounding.  He thought he was going to have a heart attack getting over here.  He missed so many signs.  He should have seen this coming like a Mack truck, but he didn’t see shit.

“You’re going to be fine, babe,” he said as she looked up to him with such innocent, bewildered eyes.   “We’re going to be fine.”

“I called for you,” she said, “and you came.”  The tears returned.  “You came,” she said again, and then fell into his arms again.

She looked down, at Melita, as Reno’s men rolled her in a rug to prepare to discard her.  And then she remembered. 

Oh my Lord
, she thought, and quickly looked at Jimmy.

Reno was already looking at him.  He was just standing there, looking lost, Trina thought.  And she and Reno walked over to him, and pulled him in their arms.  They expected him to ask why.  They expected anger, sadness, bitterness from him.  But they got nothing.  He said nothing.  He hugged his parents, but he didn’t say a mumbling word.

Reno pulled back and looked at his son.  “I’m sorry, Jimmy, but I couldn’t allow her to be around to terrorize my wife.”

Jimmy finally nodded his head, and spoke up.  “I know that,” he said firmly.  “Bitch got what she deserved.”

He said it, and he looked tough when he said it, but then he broke down into tears and fell, once again, into his parents’ arms.

EPILOGUE

He ran to the elevator but couldn’t wait.  So he took the stairs.  Two at a time, three at a time, until he was on the third floor.  He rounded the corner, to the nurse’s station, but the only nurse back there was on the telephone.  He tried to get her attention, and kept demanding her attention, but she kept holding up a meaty finger.  He had to wait, she said.  But he couldn’t.

He ran down the corridor, looking in every room he passed, until he looked in the fourth room on the right hand side, and saw Jimmy.  Sitting there.  Like nothing never happened.

He hurried into the room and rounded the curtain that kept any passerby from viewing the patient.  When Jimmy saw him, he smiled.

“Hey, Pop,” he said.

“Hey, Pop?” Reno asked, looking at the empty bed in the room.  “How could you say a thing like that?  Where is she?  Is she all right?  They told me they rushed her to the hospital, that’s all they knew.  I said what are you talking?  But that’s all they knew.”

“I’m fine, Reno,” Trina said as she was coming out of the bathroom.  She wore the same pants and blouse she wore this morning.  And she looked fine to him.  Which puzzled him. 

“They said they rushed you to the hospital,” he said, “and here you come walking out like Miss America.”

Jimmy laughed. 

“I feel like shit,” Trina said.  “Does that help?”

“But what happened?” Reno wanted to know. 

Trina sat on the edge of the bed.  “Nothing happened.  I got a little dizzy.”

Reno frowned.  “Another one of your fainting spells.”

“No,” she started.

“Yes,” Jimmy finished.  “Only she passed out this time.”

Reno exhaled, opened his suit coat, and placed his hands on his hips.  “I knew it would come to this.  I knew if I let you keep that store where it was you were going to work yourself into the ground---”

“It’s not like that, Reno,” Trina said.

“It’s exactly like that.  I give you the green light to stay where you are, and you’re falling out and being rushed to the hospital and you expect me to believe that’s normal behavior.”

“I’m not working too hard.”

“Like hell you aren’t!”

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

“Every night you . . .” Reno stared at her.  Jimmy started smiling.  “You’re what?”

“Pregnant,” Trina said.  “I’m fine, but I’m pregnant.”

Reno’s heart swelled with excitement.  Another son?  Or maybe a daughter this time.  But then he remembered.  Wait a minute.  “But is it safe?” he asked her.  “At your age, I mean.”

Trina took the pillow off of the bed and flung it at Reno.  He ducked.

“Good move, Pop!” Jimmy said.

“I don’t mean it like that!” Reno clarified.  “I mean, when we had Dommi, and that was three years ago, the doctor said it was risky for a woman over thirty even then.  Now you’re three years older.  I just. . . I didn’t mean it like that.”

Trina smiled.  Being angry with Reno was an impossibility.   “Come here,” she said.

Reno went to her.  They clasped hands. 

“I want you to promise me something, Reno,” she said.

“Anything,” he said.

“Wrong answer,” Jimmy said.

“I want you to promise that you will not be crazy with this pregnancy like you were with Dommi.”

“Crazy?  Who was crazy?”

“I mean it Reno!” Trina said.  “I was contemplating murdering you back then!”  Jimmy laughed.  The Nurse entered the room. 

Trina looked at the nurse, then looked back at her husband.  “Will you promise me, Reno?”

Reno looked at his wife, and exhaled.  “I promise,” he said with a smile.

“Thank-you,” Trina said heartfelt.

“Here’s the prescription for your prenatal vitamins, Mrs. Gabrini,” the nurse said cheerfully.  “The only recommendation is that you follow up with your OB/GYN.”

“I will.”

“She will,” Reno said.

“We don’t have a wheelchair available now,” the nurse said, “but you should be fine.”

“I’m fine,” Trina said, grabbing her purse off of the bed and standing up.

“What are you doing?” Reno asked.

Trina looked at him.  “What do you think I’m doing? I’m going home.”

“Where’s the wheelchair?”

“I don’t need a wheelchair.”

“Yes you do!” Reno insisted.

“Didn’t you hear the lady?  She said they didn’t have one available right now.”

“Bet I’ll find you one,” Reno said and began hurrying toward the exit.  “No wife of mine is walking anywhere in that condition.   You’re pregnant, for crying out loud.  What wrong with these people!”

“Oh, Jesus,” Trina said, shaking her head, unable to contain her happiness and what she knew was going to be her frustration.  “That man is going to drive me up several walls!”

Jimmy laughed, but it was no laughing matter to him.  He’d give his right arm, and a leg and an ear beside, to have that kind of love, that kind of devotion, that kind of care in his own life.

But he knew Trina was right.  Reno, more so than the pregnancy, was going to be a handful.

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