Chapter Six
"Thanks for the lift, Mrs. Wittener," said Tony, turning to help Angela, then Mona, then Sam out of the car in succession. "And thanks for staying with my daughter last night," he added softly, once Sam was out of earshot. "I felt awful about leaving her behind, alone, scared as she was."
"That's what neighbors are for, Tony," said Wendy with a genuine smile. Then, perhaps trying to lighten the mood, she waggled her eyebrows flirtatiously. "Although if you really wanted to thank me, I can think of a couple of ways—"
"Wendy!" Angela cried in exasperation. "You're married. And Tony's—"
As she cut herself off without finishing the thought, he wanted nothing more than to shake her and scream at her to finish the damned sentence, What?! Tony's what?! Spoken for? All mine? A really lousy kisser, don't waste your time fantasizing about him? "In no shape for lovin' right now, lovely as you are, Mrs. Wittener," he finished for her, once it became clear that Angela's lips were going to remain sealed.
Wendy eyed Angela with blatant curiosity. Angela just shook her head imperceptibly. A doll as always, Wendy simply shrugged. "Your loss, Tony. Call me if you change your mind, huh?" Then she sobered, getting out of the car to hug Angela. "And you call me if there's anything else I can do for you. A hot meal, company in the waiting room, a crash pad for Samantha if you guys need to stay over with Jonathan—you name it, okay?"
"Thanks, Wendy." Angela squeezed her friend gratefully.
Walking through the front door of 3344 Oak Hills Drive felt wrong, somehow. Off. In his frazzled state, it took him a few minutes to figure it out. The last time they had stood here, there had been five of them. Now, they were only four. "Dad, please tell me you're not gonna make me go to school today?" Samantha begged him. The so-called whites of her eyes were as pink as a couple of strawberries, both from exhaustion and tears.
"Nah. How could I? I never did finish helping you with your homework…" Tony found himself staring at the array of books on the coffee table. Jonathan's earth science book, multiplication tables, and tidily-written short answer questions on the poetry of Gary Soto, were stacked in a tidy pile on one end. Samantha's geometry book and the worksheet they had been laboring on when they'd heard those first awful screams had been dropped on the floor. They weren't even dusty. So much had changed in so little time.
"You can work on that later, Samantha," said Angela, putting an arm around the girl's shoulders. "After you've rested. Come on, let's get you to bed."
"No, I need to take a shower first. Badly. The Novaks' baby spit up on me." She wrinkled her nose. "And changing a baby boy's diaper is like being in front of a firing squad. Remind me to have girls when I grow up, huh?"
Sam was visibly swaying on her feet, and Tony didn't like the idea of her trying to navigate a slippery shower stall. Angela didn't seem to either. "I think you've earned a little bit of luxury, after the night you've had. How about a nice hot bubble bath instead? I'll even let you listen to my wireless headphones."
"That…actually sounds really nice," Sam admitted.
"Good. I'll get the tub ready. Go get yourself some pajamas." Angela gave her mother a worried look. Tony shared her concern. Mona was a fair-complected woman, but her normally pale skin had faded to the hue of chalk, her eyes as vacant as a zombie's. "And as for you, sister of mine, as grateful as I am for your contribution, I think you've been a little too generous with your blood. Why don't you lay down on the couch for a while, instead of trucking up all those stairs to get to your place?"
"I'm fine," Mona insisted. "I'm not an infant. And if I could make it up those stairs the morning after Party Till You Heave Night at Ridgemont, I can certainly handle this." She headed for the side door, stumbled over the chair beside the fireplace, and fell on her face. "Ow. That's not nearly as funny when it happens to me as it is when it happens to Dick Van Dyke."
"Mother!" Angela cried in alarm.
"Mona!" Tony groaned. They converged on her as one, each grabbing an arm to hoist her to her feet.
"I'm okay. I just want to lie in my own bed for a while. I've got a lot of happy memories in that bed, and they'll lend me strength."
Good old Mona. Nothing dampened her spirit. "I'll give her a lift, Angela," he volunteered, slipping a hand behind the older woman's knees and sweeping her into his arms.
"Tony, be careful. Don't hurt yourself," said Angela worriedly.
"Relax. She doesn't weigh much more than the kids, all told." Mona had such a big personality, it was easy to forget how physically small she was. "Just get the back door for me and go get Samantha's bath ready. Before she gets reckless on us and decides to brave the shower after all."
"Hm. Good point." Angela held the door open as requested.
Mona's head lolled drowsily against his shoulder. "Tony, has anyone ever told you that in the right light, you look a lot like Rhett Butler?"
Though he knew he shouldn't, he found himself looking over his shoulder at Angela. The heat in her eyes and the hint of a smile on her lips made it clear she remembered their drunken exchange on her birthday two years ago as vividly as he did.
Angela stacked plush pink towels and washcloths on the bathtub's carpeted steps, then filled it with a fragrant soup of hot water, bubbles, and lavender oil. When Samantha walked in, a warm flannel nightgown in hand, a little of the tension seemed to fade from her body as she drew in a deep breath. "Mm. Smells like Dad's herb garden in the summertime."
"Chamomile bubble bath and lavender oil. They're both supposed to be natural sleep aids." Hopefully they would help the poor girl rest easier. Get her sleeping too deeply for nightmares. Angela couldn't imagine how scary it must have been for her, seeing Jonathan lying broken and bloody on the pavement. Seeing his condition after seven hours of expert repair work had been traumatic enough. "You need a good night's rest, even if it's technically going to be a good morning's rest."
"Thanks, Angela," said Sam with a yawn.
As she exited the perfumed bathroom to give Samantha some privacy, she could smell herself again, and it wasn't pretty. She'd spent the last twelve hours drenched in terror sweat, and her deodorant had keeled over in defeat long ago. Tired as she was, she didn't want to dirty the sheets in her bed and make extra work for Tony. Grabbing her bathrobe and a nightgown, she crossed the hall and took a quick speed shower in the bathroom Tony shared with the kids. The familiar smell of Tony's Irish Spring soap, and the Perma Soft shampoo he always pretended he was buying for Sam, was oddly comforting, so she borrowed some of each.
Even with the head start she'd had, Samantha didn't emerge from the bathroom for a good fifteen minutes after Angela had finished with her own ablutions. Angela's mission had been accomplished. The girl looked sleepier than ever, sagging like a balloon that had lost a substantial portion of its air. "Thanks, I'm feeling and smelling a whole lot better now. I'm gonna hit the hay. You'll wake me up if you guys hear anything, right?"
"I promise." She escorted Samantha back to her room, both because she didn't fully trust the child to make it without falling on her face, and because she didn't want to be alone, herself.
Tony was in the bathroom as they passed by, the door hanging open, his mouth foamier than a rabid dog's as he scrubbed his teeth with what must have been a half a tube of toothpaste. "Don't wook at me wike dat. Jona'fin frew up in my mouf when I was giffing him CPR."
"Ew!" Angela and Samantha gagged, fleeing in disgust.
"Even while comatose, Jonathan's still on a mission to gross me out," Samantha muttered as she climbed into bed.
"His legend lives on," said Angela wryly, closing the drapes and turning off the lights, before perching on the side of Samantha's bed. "And Sam, about that fight you two had, right before all this happened?"
Samantha tensed. "Yeah?"
"When he wakes up, you've got the comeback of a lifetime lined up. You can call him out for being so scared of facing off with you that he went outside and threw himself in front of a truck."
Samantha managed to laugh. "Okay. Thanks, Angela."
"Come here." She leaned down to give the girl a hug. "You're an amazing big sister, related or not. I'm glad he has you. And I'm glad I do, too."
"Love you, Angela," the girl mumbled, already half-asleep.
"I love you, too."
Angela meant to head back to her own room and finally collapse into bed, but somehow, she ended up standing in front of Tony's bedroom door instead. She rapped tentatively at the door. "Tony, are you awake?" she inquired softly.
"Yeah." Tony opened the door and looked her over with an odd sparkle in his eye. "This reminds me of the day we met."
Indeed. Between his tending to Mother and his frantic bout of tooth-brushing, he hadn't had a chance to change into pajamas yet. So, like last time, he was fully clothed. Her hair was even wet from the shower, as it had been when they'd met, though at least she'd had a chance to comb it this time. "How's Mother?"
"I managed to get some juice and crackers down her throat before I tucked her into bed. Help her get her blood volume back up a little." He waved her into his room and, as one, they sat down on the foot of his bed. "Speaking as a guy who used to sell his blood for extra cash when money was tight, two pints is a pretty hefty donation. Especially for a small woman like her. It's going to be a few months before she can or should do that again."
"I need to find some way to thank her properly." As soon as she found a way to thank Tony, Samantha, Isabelle, and all the others who had saved her son's life. Everyone's coming through for him but me… Another tidal wave of guilt rose up in her soul, threatening to drown her.
"No, don't do that," Tony urged. "It'd just embarrass her. Mona knows how you feel. How's Samantha?"
"Squeaky clean, exhausted and asleep," Angela reported.
"Good. We should follow her example." Tony observed.
"We really should." But instead, she sat stock-still, staring at Tony's lips. Either he took the hint, or he had the same thought at the same time, meeting her halfway in another frantic, desperate kiss. She let out a soft moan of relief as his mouth closed over hers, reaching up to caress his face in thanks. His arms went around her, his hands gently stroking her shoulders and flanks, but the thick terrycloth of her robe was blunting the feel of his touch. Irritated, she pulled away.
Tony mistook her pulling away for a protest. "Angela, I'm sorry, I…" He trailed off in mid-sentence as she impatiently tore off her robe and resumed her place in his arms, trailing hot kisses along the side of his neck. He shivered. "Angela," he squeaked, sounding for all the world like he had at eleven, right after they'd shared their first kiss. "Did you notice what you're wearing?"
She couldn't understand why he was asking her something like that at a time like this, but the sound of his voice was soothing, and made his throat vibrate pleasantly against her lips, so she didn't protest. "My nightgown?"
"Angela, that's not just…oh, that's good, right there…any nightgown." One of his hands came up to cradle the back of her neck, holding her in place. "It's the one you wore the first time we slept together. Not that we slept together! We just slept…together."
She rested her forehead against his jaw, glancing down at her nightgown. He was right. She was wearing the same green satin number she had worn during their accidental sleepover in Samantha's bed a few years ago. A coincidence? An indicator of intent? A drowsy attempt at subliminal flirtation? Even she didn't know. "Do you object?"
Tony swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bouncing visibly. "I think it's pretty obvious that I'm on board, here." He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her hips against his, so that she could feel just how much. "You, on the other hand, are worried about your kid and looking for a distraction."
The feel of his arousal pressing against her lower abdomen made her arch her back involuntarily, causing them both to groan. "I'm not the only one," she accused, slipping a hand under his shirt to caress his broad back. "You love him like your own son, and you're as terrified as I am. That's why you kissed me in the hospital." And why, despite his halfhearted words, he was holding her closer instead of pushing her away. Why he was nuzzling her ear between protests, and why the hand resting at the back of her neck was gradually roaming toward her breasts. The pain and fear were written all over his face, as plainly as if they'd been carved into his forehead in bloody red capital letters.
She had done what she could to keep her love for Tony locked up in a cage, deep in her heart, only letting it out on a tight leash for the occasional fantasy, or session with her therapist. Right now, however, she had more important worries to devote her energies to, and the bars on that cage were getting rusty. Meanwhile, his unwavering support during these dark, miserable hours had fed the monster in that cage, making it grow bigger and stronger than ever. Yet, in comparison to the monster that Jonathan was facing, it didn't seem so scary anymore. She was having trouble remembering why she had ever been afraid of it in the first place.
Something wet splattered on the top of her head. She looked up at him and noticed his eyes were glistening. A tear? Her skin crawled unpleasantly, unable to tolerate another ounce of suffering in the people she loved. The need to chase the shadows from his eyes was overwhelming, her heart aching, and a pang of desire stabbing her between the legs. She kissed the salty trail the tear had left down his right cheek, then tilted her head to capture his lips again, murmuring softly between kisses. "Make it stop hurting Tony." Tony had a compulsive need to take care of others. If putting the request that way didn't win him over, nothing would. "Just for a little while. Make it stop hurting. For both of us."
When he pulled his lips away from hers, she thought she'd gone too far. Then he nestled them against her ear instead, whispering. "We'll have to be quiet."
Did he mean in the practical sense of no screams of passion that might wake Samantha, or in the more general sense of keeping the incident to themselves? Either way, it seemed to be more of a suggestion than an actual demand, as he was dragging her nightgown over her head without waiting for an answer.
The funeral home had done a good job. Marie's makeup must have been applied by a true artist. The sickly pallor that had taken over her skin after the radiation treatments had rendered her anemic was gone, replaced once more by the warm olive complexion she'd born in their youth. Her dry, flaky skin had also been thoroughly moisturized, taking at least a decade off her face. Put a few pounds on her and give her back her hair, and she would have looked like herself again. It was a shame that this was what it had taken for him to get one last look at his wife's face, for Sam to get one last look at her mother's, as it should have been. He leaned down to press one last kiss to her lips and whisper one last I love you into her ears. It should have been a comfort, but the realization that he would never do so again hit him like a punch in the gut.
He waved at his little girl, who was hanging back uneasily. "Come on, Sam. I know it's hard, but someday, you'll be glad you did it." She needed closure. She didn't want closure, any more than he himself did, but she was going to get it.
He motioned his daughter forward, yet again, but she continued to cling stubbornly to her grandfather's hand. "It's all right, amorina," said Matty Micelli gently, stroking Sam's hair. "Go on up and say goodbye to your mother."
Little Samantha, dolled up in her only black dress, and wrapped in a lacy shawl of Marie's that was much too large for her, shook her head adamantly. "No. She's dead. She'll turn into a zombie and eat my brains."
"Samantha, this is your mom. If she did come back from the dead, she'd be more inclined to hug you than eat you," Tony reasoned, knowing full well that trying to convince her there was no such thing as zombies was going to take longer than they had right now.
"Nuh-uh! Zombies don't work like that! The girl in Night of the Living Dead ate her own dad!" Samantha ran to her other grandfather, that smarmy bastard Nick, and wrapped herself around his leg. "Tell him, Grandpa!"
Tony turned on Nick with murder in his eyes. "I told you not to let her watch that stupid movie, Nick!"
"Maybe you could'a stopped me if you was ever around," growled Nick. "Always out on the road tossing a damn ball around a field while your wife was dying, leaving me to take care of her and the kid. And then you've got the nerve to complain you don't like the job I done? If I didn't know it would upset Sambina, I'd bury you right next to her, you coglione!"
As he had in real life, Tony's father came to his defense. "Angela, that's enough. I know you're hurting, but Tony's not to blame. He's hurting as badly as you are."
"Dad, what are you talking about? That's Nick, not Ang—" But as Tony looked back to where his father-in-law had been standing, he saw that his father was right. Angela was standing in his place. Samantha was plastered to her side, as she had been to Nick's, but she was older now, and wearing the same dress Angela had bought her on their first shopping trip together, the day before she'd turned twelve. As before, though, his daughter's eyes were full of unshed tears, sorrow mingled with outright panic on her little face.
And Angela was wearing the same look on hers that Nick had been; agonized, aggrieved, and above all, accusatory. "I trusted you to take care of him!" Angela yelled at him.
"I trusted you to take care of her!" Nick's voice echoed, somewhere unseen.
"He had his whole life ahead of him, till he met you!" Angela ranted on, hate oozing from every word.
"She had her whole life ahead of her, till she met you!" Nick's disembodied voice seethed.
"And where were you when he needed you?" Angela demanded.
"And where were you when she needed you?" Nick repeated.
"You're not fit to raise this child!" Angela wrapped her arms protectively around Samantha.
"You're not fit to raise that child!" Nick's disembodied voice agreed.
As he had all those years ago, Tony looked to the body in the casket, wishing he could beg his wife for absolution for all the many ways in which he'd failed her. But Jonathan had taken her place in the coffin, still dressed in his hospital gown, blood pouring from his nose to stain the coffin's white satin lining.
Then the lid of the casket slammed down, sealing Jonathan inside. "Sit down, Tony. It's time," said Father Costa with gentle finality.
"No! Open it back up, Father!"
"Tony, calm down. You need to be strong for your daughter. You're all she has now." Father Costa gave him a pat on the back.
Tony pushed him aside. "I'm not crazy! Open it up right now! He's not dead, damn it!"
"Watch your language, son. This is a church," his father reminded him, pulling him away from the coffin.
"No, lemme go! Stop! Stop!" Tony woke in his bed with a start. The clock on his beside table indicated it was just after noon. Angela was still passed out in the crook of his arm, her bone-deep exhaustion apparently strong enough to drown out his moaning and flailing. Her breathing was slow and even, and he could see her eyes flitting about under their lids, both signs of a deep and restful sleep, which he envied her for. Her brow was oddly furrowed, though, as if she were in pain or confused. What sort of nightmares was she having, he wondered? The kind where her son was in a coma, or the kind where her best friend took advantage of her sexually? Or, as in real life, was she dealing with both?
It had been so easy to justify in the moment. The woman he'd loved for the past three years jumping into his arms and asking him to give her what they both wanted, while his adrenaline-soaked body screamed at him not to look a gift horse in the mouth. He knew her. It wasn't like her to make the first move, on any man. And it certainly wasn't like her to make any sort of move on him. At least, not while sober. God help him, this was no better than accepting that drunken pass she'd made at him on her birthday would have been. She was certainly no more in her right mind.
If she was capable of that while out of her mind with grief and exhaustion, just imagine what she'd be like in her right mind, some filthy part of his mind whispered. He shut his eyes and sucked in a deep breath through his nose, trying to drown out the memories of her sweet lips, muffled cries, and gentle hands. Her natural scent, mingled with traces of his own soap and shampoo, flooded his nostrils and made his blood run hot. He needed to get out of this bed before he ended up with another memory to cherish and regret.
He had wanted to wait until they were married to take this step. To prove to all the various neighbors and so-called friends who had been gossiping about them for the last several years that his Angela was a lady, and that he was no gigolo. Instead, he'd screwed her without even bothering to tell her he loved her first. He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead in a silent apology, then slowly eased his arm from under her head and rolled out of bed.
Hurriedly, he dressed himself, left her to sleep, and went downstairs to make himself useful. Hopefully, if he proved he could still do his job, could keep his hands to himself from here on out, and wasn't going to humiliate her by mentioning the incident again, she would be able to find it in her heart not to fire him.
"One Mississippi, two Mississippi," Angela counted with her father. In a reversal of their usual positions, he was sitting in the passenger seat, and she in the driver's seat.
Daddy gave her a warm smile. "Very good, Angela. When we get home, I'll show you how to parallel park. Now, slow down just a bit."
"You're so much nicer than Mother was when she taught me to drive," Angela sighed, pressing on her Jag's brake. For some reason, the car only sped up.
"Be nice to your mother, angel face. And I said to slow down, not speed up," he reminded her gently.
"I'm trying!" She stepped on the brake again, and again, the car only went faster.
"Angela, stop that!" her father yelled at her. "You're going to get us killed, and I don't want to die again!"
"I'm sorry, Daddy! There's something wrong!" She glanced down to confirm she was stepping on the appropriate pedal. Before she could get a good look, however, the car slammed to a halt. When she raised her eyes, her father's head was impaled through the windshield, his eyes glassy and lifeless, blood pouring from his shredded neck. On the ground before her lay her son, his limbs bent and twisted, his chest unmoving. "No!" she cried in horror, running to his side.
Then, somehow, Michael was standing next to her, looking down with disgust on the twisted corpse that had once been their son. "You should have let me have him when I wanted him. If he'd been with me, this never would have happened."
"Will you just shut up and get help, Michael?!" she screamed at her ex, gathering her son's lifeless body into her arms. "We can play the blame game later!"
"What's the point? He's already dead." Looking bored, Michael turned and walked away.
"No, he's not dead," Angela muttered as her eyelids mercifully drifted open. She looked down at the small corpse in her arms, but it had turned into a pillow. She took a deep breath, trying to get her bearings, and noticed the unmistakable scent of Perma Soft shampoo clinging to the pillowcase. She was in Tony's room, she finally recognized, as the events of the morning slowly crept back into her head. Tony himself was nowhere to be found, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why.
She had made a complete fool of herself, knocking on his door and all but begging him to make love to her. God, Angela, she silently berated herself. It's not enough for you that he saved your child's life. No. You had to go and pressure him into sex, too. To use your best friend for a quick, easy escape from your problems. A fine way to reward him for all his love and support! Although he hadn't complained at the time, which was some comfort, she supposed. He seemed to have enjoyed himself, physically. She suspected the hoarse, strangled gasp of ecstasy he'd made when he'd reached his peak would live rent-free in her head for the rest of her days.
Perhaps they'd been entitled to whatever pleasure they could find together, after the horrible night they'd had. But she'd wanted her first time with Tony to be something more. In her haste, desperation, and exhaustion, she hadn't even bothered to tell him that she loved him. Or how long she'd wanted him. Hadn't even bothered to ask him how he felt about her. Three and a half years of unspoken love and longing had ended in a round of pity sex that, based on his decision to flee his own bed, he apparently wasn't interested in repeating.
At least, she dearly hoped that was why he was missing. What if he'd decided to quit, after the way she'd treated him? Like the cheap gigolo the neighbors always made him out to be. No. All his stuff is still here. She glanced around at the walls. He wouldn't leave without his family photos. Though he could choose to pick up and leave at any time, if things between them got too awkward, after this.
Tears welled up in her eyes, and she stubbornly blinked them back. No. I won't cry. Not now. Not about this. Her child was in a coma. She had more important things to cry about.