Page 71 of Remember When We
“Don’t go.” He said.
I had to get up when I saw that. “Sweetie come here. Your da—”
My God, I must have lost my mind. I almost said Dad. In my head I’d already had the conversation, but not in real life just yet.
Now was definitely not that go with the flow time, or even playing it by ear.
It wasn’t any of that.
I looked to Gio.
“You guys stay in here okay?” He told me, then looked to Dad. “Paul, so help me God you keep them in here and you stay together. If you go to the kitchen, all of you go together, if you go to the bathroom you go together. Capisce?”
“Yeah capisce, I promise.” Dad nodded.
“Gio, I’m not liking that you haven’t told me much. You went out earlier and now this.” My lack of knowledge was scaring me.
He went out for a few hours and came back here just after lunch. Then even more guys came to the house and it was clear they were setting up some kind of operation.
He looked down at Matthew and lifted his gaze back up to meet mine.
“I have some leverage that these guys want. I don’t want any trouble here. It shouldn’t come, but if it does … I want to be ready. Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay. We stay together.”
“If anything happens you run to the basement. Saul’s changed the lock, so it locks from the inside. The doors metal so it’s safe on that front. You guys get down there if you hear anything weird no matter what it is.”
God, I hoped nothing like that would happen.
I hugged him and he put his arms around Matthew and me.
“It sounds dangerous. Come back to me.” I whispered.
“You know I will.” He promised. He kissed me then placed a kiss on Matthew’s forehead. He then crouched down and smiled at him. “Little guy I want you to take care of your mom for me. Make sure she’s not scared. If she gets scared get her to laugh. It’s a good trick.”
Mathew smiled at that idea.
One last look over us and he was gone.
He closed the door behind him leaving us in the sitting room.
While Matthew curled up on the armchair reading his Spiderman comics I hugged a cushion to myself. Dad sat still holding his head down.
“Are you okay Dad?” I asked.
I knew he wasn’t. If anything the way the last week played out had to highlight just how helpless he’d become.
“I’m not Lyssa. There was a lot I should have done that I didn’t do. And, a lot that I did back then that I regret.” He shook his head. “I’m going to talk to Gio when he comes back. I can’t let you talk to him about something I did.”
“Dad,” I straightened up. “You know he probably won’t take the truth too lightly.”
“I know, but that’s something I have to worry about. You’re always taking care of me. You put your life on hold for me, you took charge when I fell apart. Lyssa, I couldn’t express the grief I felt over losing Marshall. I felt like a failure to the both of you and I literally lost my mind. I lost my damn mind and it wasn’t until you made that deal with Frankie that I actually came back to myself. Back to my senses, but it was too late. This morning I contacted a friend of a friend of mine who works for a property development company. He said he’d be interested in the house. It’s one of those cut the red tape deals so it won’t be something that drags out. I will take care of Frankie Santora myself.”
I swallowed hard and moved over to hug him.
“Dad, I’m so glad. Thank you for sorting that out.”
It was great news, but I understood why he looked the way he did.
