Turn My World Upside Down: Jo's Story (23 page)

“You’re a Marconi, aren’t you?” Jo asked, smiling at him as if she weren’t really mad at all.

“Yeah,” Jack said, and winced as he reached out to lay his small right hand on top of his sisters’. “I guess I am.”

“Jack he will be fine, the doctor tells me,” Nana said as Jo pulled into the driveway.

“Yeah, I know. I just felt bad leaving him at the hospital overnight.”

“Is better he issa there, with the bump onna head.” True.

The doctors just wanted to be sure he wasn’t concussed or something, and hey, Jo was all for being careful. But leaving a little boy all alone in a hospital just didn’t feel right. Still, she couldn’t leave Nana alone, either, could she?

Man.

She bent over and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. Every inch of her body ached and pounded. Her brain kept racing with “what might have beens,” and to top the whole mess off, she couldn’t stop thinking about
Cash
.

Hell, he wasn’t even
Italian
and he’d picked up the guilt banner and was running with it. Key word there being “running.” He hadn’t been able to get away from her fast enough. So much for their little “moment” the night before. So much for her thinking that all of his flirting over the last year had meant diddly.

“Josefina.” Nana’s voice came as soft as the hand she laid on Jo’s back. “You are
praying
.”

She stiffened and turned her head to look at her grandmother. In the late afternoon shadows, every line and crease on the old woman’s face stood out in sharp relief. But her eyes were sharp and clearly pleased.

“Nana, would you just let it go?”

“What issa ‘let go’?”

She sighed. “Never mind.” Opening the driver’s-side door, she hopped down, slammed the door shut hard enough to rattle the window glass, then stomped around to the passenger side. She opened the door, looked in, and said, “Come on, Nana. I’ll make you some tea.”

“You’re a gooda girl, Josefina,” Nana said, gingerly
climbing down out of the truck as if trying to balance on raw eggs. “This I
always
say.”

“Thanks,” Jo said, steering her grandmother up the narrow walkway to the front porch. With one hand on the elderly woman’s elbow, Jo guided her up the steps, then opened the screen door and turned the worn, brass knob.

“I think we both have some tea, eh?” Nana asked, a dry chuckle grating from her throat. “Issa busy day for all.”

“I’ll say,” Jo muttered, following her grandmother into the living room. “And I could really do with just a little bit less drama for a while.”

“Josefina!” Hank Marconi’s booming voice preceded him into the room and he strode toward her, arms extended, inviting a bear hug, his wide, bearded face beaming with benevolence.

“Papa?”
She took a step forward—but before she could get that hug, Nana Coletti struck like a snake.

Jumping in front of her son-in-law, the old woman reared back and slapped him full across the face.
“Bastardo!”
she shouted, lifting both hands to heaven and shaking them as if she were calling down thunder and lightning. “You no here when
la famiglia
need you!
Bastardo!
Living inna sin! God issa
watching
!”

Had she really wished for
less
drama?

Hank winced, reached up and rubbed his cheek. “Hello, Maria,” he said. “Good to see you, too.”

He turned to watch the old woman stomp past him into the kitchen, still muttering in what sounded like vicious Italian.

“I called the hospital,” Papa said as he stepped onto the front porch with his morning cup of coffee. “They say Jack is okay and I can come and get him.”

“Good. I’m glad.” Jo took a sip of her own coffee. “Maybe Nana will ease up once he’s home again.”

“Maria has issues.”

“Issues?”
Jo laughed out loud as her father took a seat beside her on the top step. “Since when do you talk like Oprah?”

He shrugged, a little embarrassed. “Grace says everybody has issues. Maria more than most,” he added quietly.

Though things were still a little iffy between her and her father, Jo was glad to have him home. And grateful as hell he and Grace had caught an earlier flight. Even if it had meant listening to Nana rant and rave for hours the night before.

To give Papa his due, though, he hadn’t argued with his mother-in-law. He’d simply sat still and taken the abuse Maria Coletti seemed determined to heap on his head. She’d continued her one-woman assault this morning, too, standing outside Papa’s bedroom and
clanging two saucepans together as a hideous, homemade alarm clock.

The fact that it had also jolted Jo out of bed didn’t seem to matter. The point was, at least in Nana’s estimation, that she was making Papa suffer.

Jo’d originally planned to move back to her condo as soon as Grace and Papa came home. But after having a ringside seat for the Nana-versus-Papa battle of the Titans, she’d decided to stay a while longer—as sort of a buffer. And though that argument sounded extremely logical, even Jo knew there was more to it than that. When it came right down to it, she really didn’t want to be alone at the moment. Even putting up with Nana’s rants was better than being wrapped up in silence so thick that the only thing to do was
think
.

“Papa,” she said, before she could change her mind, “if you want me to, I’ll just stay on here with you and Jack until Nana goes home.”

His whole face lit up. If she’d needed reassurance that her decision was the right one, she’d just found it.

“Thank you,”
he said, and took another hesitant sip of his murderous coffee. He shuddered visibly, then added, “I know you’d rather be at your own house—”

“It’s okay, Papa.”

From inside the house, a pan clanged hard against the stove and Nana shouted something unintelligible.

Papa winced. “She’s very angry.”

“Yeah.” And maybe
because
the older woman was so determined to inflict punishment, Jo felt more inclined to be understanding than she had been before. “Nana shouldn’t keep on you like this.”

Sighing, he took a sip of coffee, and scowled as he chewed.

Jo hid her smile. Nana had made
two
pots of coffee. An excellent one for Jo and another, complete with coffee grounds, for Papa.

He stared out at the raggedy-looking front yard, the street beyond, and over to Mrs. Sanchez’s house, where Precious was outside, walking the perimeter. The little dog looked hungry.

“She has a right to hate me. Sylvia was her daughter.”

“And my mother.”

He nodded and stroked one hand across his almost snow-white beard. “And you, Josefina? Can you say that you forgive me?”

When she didn’t answer, he patted her knee and sighed again. “It’s okay. I know you are ashamed of your papa, and I understand.”

“How can you?” she whispered, wanting the ache inside her to dissipate. “When I’m not sure even
I
understand me anymore?”

Henry studied his oldest daughter and wished that he could hold her. That she would welcome his embrace. That she could tell him what caused the pain he saw in her eyes. Because he knew it wasn’t just his own disgrace that had caused it. He’d known for years that his oldest girl had troubles that she wouldn’t share.

And if he hadn’t known before, he would have now. Between trying to break his eardrums and burning his morning coffee, Maria had taken him to task on his parenting skills just a few minutes ago.

“Josefina is no happy. Is something wrong. Her heart is hurt and you must fix this. You are a
bastardo
still, but you are her father. Josefina, she needs you now. Go. Be a papa.”

The trouble was, he didn’t know how to reach her. Josefina had always been the strongest of his girls. The most self-contained. She was always ready to listen to someone else’s troubles, but her own she kept locked away, so no one would see. And now . . . she’d somehow slipped so far from him that the road back to where they’d once been looked impassable. Still, he had to try.

“Josefina,” he said, his voice caressing her name as his hand itched to stroke her cheek. “When your mama was sick—”

Instantly, a shutter dropped over her eyes and her back went as stiff as a two-by-four. “No, Papa . . .”

She tried to get up, but he laid one hand on her knee to keep her in place. Facing her, he waited for her to look at him. Then he tried again to find his way back into his daughter’s heart.

“When your mama was sick, I was scared. More scared than I’ve ever been before in my life.” He closed his eyes briefly and remembered the bone-wracking terror that had crouched inside him during those lonely days. He’d had no one to tell his fears to. He couldn’t burden his children. His wife was already suffering. A priest? What did a man of God know about losing the woman who meant more to you than your own soul?

He shook his head, opened his eyes again, swallowed the bitter taste of his own shame, and looked deeply into Jo’s wary eyes.

“My Sylvia was in such pain. And every day, she became
less. Less herself. Less of this earth. It was . . .” He paused and searched for the words, even knowing there were none sufficient to explain. “Like watching her die with every breath. I worried. For her. For you girls. For me. And alone at night, I cried. There was nothing for me. No comfort. No way to ease the emptiness coming for me.”

“Papa . . .”

He’d been understanding. He’d given her nearly a year to come to grips with his slip from grace. He hadn’t wanted to push—to risk shoving her even further away from him. But the time had come at last. There’d been enough hiding.

“No. It’s time, Jo.” He tightened his grip on her knee and let the tears flow unchecked down his face. He wasn’t ashamed of them. When a man loves with his whole heart, what are a few tears? “When I met Jack’s mother, Carol—”

“I know the story,” she interrupted, holding up one hand, trying to make him stop.

“Fine. You know. Then you know how I met her. She was kind and alone and I was more alone than I’d ever been.”

“You had
us
, Papa.”

“I know that,” he said, and wondered how to make her understand what it had been like for him to face losing her mother. “But you were children. How could I worry you more than you already were?” He shook his head again. “You were still in school then. Sam had just come home and Michaela was running away every time I turned around. Your mama was leaving us and my family was crumbling around her.”

Jo scowled and her dark eyebrows drew together as
they always did when she was thinking hard about something. It gave him hope.

“It was wrong, Jo. I know that. I knew that
then
. But I—
needed
to feel alive. To be reminded that life would keep going on. That the whole world wasn’t dying along with my Sylvia.”

Taking a chance, he reached out, cupped her chin and turned her face to his. “And as much as I’m ashamed and sorry that I hurt you and your sisters, I can’t regret Jack. I can’t wish him out of existence to change things between us.”

“I know that,” she whispered, and carefully covered his hand with hers. “Neither can I.”

A fragile bubble of hope expanded within him and Henry clung to it desperately. He needed to be right with his daughters. He needed to reach Jo to be able to help her with whatever it was that was tearing at her so.

“Losing your mama like that made me crazy. I couldn’t run away like Michaela. So I ran away the only way I could. Can you try to understand, Jo? Try to forgive me for failing you? For letting you down?”

Jo swallowed hard and a single tear streaked down her cheek, but she quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand. She
did
understand. Finally and completely.

Sylvia Marconi’s illness and death had shattered them all in different ways. Mike had run away almost weekly until the night she hitched a ride with the wrong guy and ended up in a hospital bed. Sam had given away her own child in an effort to not burden their already broken family.

And Jo had run from the man who’d destroyed her trust. She’d taken her mother’s illness and used it for
her own purposes. She’d buried her heart and her shame and her fears in the care of her mother. How could she possibly blame Papa for running in the only way he could?

“I do understand, Papa,” she whispered as tears choked her, tightening her throat until oxygen became a serious issue. “Better than you know.”

“Ah, Josefina,” he soothed, “can’t you tell me what’s hurting you? Can’t you take me back into your heart?”

“Oh Papa, you never left my heart,” she said through her tears. “Not really.”

“Then tell me, Josefina. Talk to your papa.”

She smiled to herself as she heard the slight flavor of Italy in his voice. Only when he was most moved, most overcome with emotion, did the accent he usually buried arise to color his words. And somehow, that was enough to splinter the rest of the ice around her heart.

She set her coffee down and leaned into her father. His beefy arms came around her instantly and his big hands stroked up and down her back while she talked, while she spilled her heart and emptied her soul of the blackness she’d hidden for too many years.

She felt him stiffen, felt the outrage bubbling within him, and then sensed when the anger gave way to sorrow as he held her tighter, closer. And she wondered how she’d managed to live nearly a year without losing herself in one of Papa’s hugs.

“If I could,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head, “I would go back in time to tear this man apart with my bare hands.”

“I know, Papa,” she said, smiling into his shoulder. Papa and Cash both had wanted to beat her attacker into the ground. She only wished that she’d had the
courage to handle it herself ten years ago. Maybe if she’d faced him down then, she wouldn’t have had to wait so long to feel . . .
free
. “And I love you for it. But it’s over now.”

“Is it?” Her father eased back, his gaze sweeping over her face, checking her eyes, studying her features carefully. “Is it? Or is he still deciding how you should feel?”

“
What?
” All those nice warm fuzzy feelings evaporated instantly. Hurt, she tried to pull away, but her strength was no match for her father’s.