Chapter Twenty-Two
Carina
“The wedding is coming up fast. Is Erin getting excited?”
Josh’s fingers slackened around the steering wheel and his knuckles went from opaque to a pinkish hue. He seemed a little tense. “I called her last night, anticipating her to be a jumble of nerves over her upcoming nuptials. Instead, Erin was as calm as I’ve ever heard her sound. She is more than ready to become Mrs. Chase Montclair.” A wide smile had spread across his face as he talked about his friend.
“And Mia is next! I’m going to love helping her plan her wedding. I already told Luke to pencil her in.” Carina realized she probably sounded like a girly girl, talking about weddings and whatnot, but discussing friends seemed to be a safe subject.
“Luke owns the winery, right?” Josh pulled onto the turnpike, promising a straight stretch of eighty miles. Hopefully, they wouldn’t hit too much traffic. Noon on a Saturday didn’t seem like a busy time to travel. But New York could often throw commuters a curveball. You could whisk into New York with little difficulty one minute and find yourself in a sea of taillights the next.
“He co-owns it with my dad. It was a risky venture, but the two of them were determined to make it work. The winery is thriving now, allowing my dad to play more of a silent partner and event coordinator these days…thank goodness.”
Josh looked over at her, but quickly put his attention back on the road. “Thank goodness?” he asked.
Carina had wondered just how long her father would last in the trenches. Now, she no longer had to worry. “My dad was a police officer in his former life, a stubborn, hard-headed Irishman in blue who refused to quit even when he was shot three times. The last incident left him with a bit of a limp.”
“So that’s where you get your sass?” he asked, smiling. But he didn’t take his eyes off the road.
“You haven’t met my mom, Lucrezia McGinnis,” she said, remembering all the times Carina had tried to give her mother a run for her money as a teenager and failed miserably. “My dad retired from the force after he was injured, sending him into a depression of sorts. He had loved being a police officer. It was ingrained in him. So one day, to get him out of his funk, my mother gathered her husband and kids in the family room and announced that we were all going to Italy for a month…that we needed a reboot. My mother’s sister still lived on the Amalfi Coast and was more than happy to let us shack up with her and her family.”
“So, you all just up and left?” he asked.
“I imagine that my parents drained their savings to do so, but yeah, we went to Italy. It’s what our family needed. It’s what my mother thought would make our family healthy again.” Carina smiled. “And she was right of course. Because we all found ourselves in Italy, with the exception of Jake, that is. He knew he wanted to be a football player from as early as birth. But for Gabe it was love at first sight when he saw that beautiful blue ocean. As for the other two, Brennan discovered his knack for cooking and Luke was instantly fascinated over the labor-intensive but satisfying process of turning grapes into wine.”
“And what did you find, Carina?” he asked.
Until that trip, Carina didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life. She knew she should have at least started to give it some thought, given that she was thirteen at the time, but she really had no idea. Just two days into her stay at her aunt and uncle’s lovely home, surrounded by a half-dozen cousins under the age of seven, she found her niche. “My aunt and uncle’s six children helped me find my way. I became their big sister overnight. But my most coveted role during those four weeks was teacher. I don’t know how many storybooks I went through. They wanted to know the English word for everything. I couldn’t teach those kids fast enough. I loved the way they looked at me when something I taught them finally clicked. I wanted to feel that way all the time.”
Carina smiled to herself as she thought about her cousins. She glanced at Josh. He appeared to be deep in thought or…maybe he was tired of hearing her family saga. They drove in silence until the next exit, which was seven miles away. “You’re fortunate to have such a close-knit family. Your mother sounds amazing. Picking up her family and taking them across the globe to help your father heal emotionally was brave and selfless.” His knuckles grew white again as he gripped the leather steering wheel.
Carina knew she had a strong-willed mother. Lucrezia McGinnis was the matriarch, the glue that kept everyone together. She was also the woman who had kept the five McGinnis siblings from killing each other on a daily basis. But she hadn’t thought of her mother as brave, the way Josh had just described.
“Well, that’s what mothers do, right?” she asked.
Carina knew the moment the words escaped her that she had assumed incorrectly. Josh’s back grew rigid against the driver’s seat. Through a clenched jaw he uttered, “Not all mothers would do that, Carina.” The tension in the air was smothering her. She needed to make this right. But before she could get the opportunity to stick her foot in her mouth once more he said, “But I can see Lady Jane doing something courageous like that.”
“She seems like a very special woman.” Her simple words made him smile, and that made them worth their weight in gold.
“She raised me and Julia.”
Carina’s heart sank. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Josh. I didn’t know that your parents had passed away. Here I am talking a mile a minute about my gigantic family and…”
“My parents are alive and well, Carina.” Josh switched lanes and accelerated past two vehicles. His eyes, as always, remained fixed on the road. “They’re just dead to me.”
Carina didn’t know how to respond. She couldn’t imagine what would cause such a permanent rift between a child and his parents. As a child and teenager, Carina could never stay angry at her parents for long. But then, the arguments she had with her parents were over normal, everyday crises.
“I’m sorry.” She meant those words. She was sorry that Josh hadn’t had the same experience she had while growing up. Yes, her family was loud, bustling and at times over-bearing, but they were hers. And they would do anything for each other. Josh’s parents were no longer in his life. She couldn’t help but wonder if they even cared, if they wondered how their son was doing or what kind of man he had become. For whatever reason, Carina grew angry. Josh Graham was working his way through med school, was a devoted friend, and adored his grandmother. How could a mother not be proud of a son like that?
Carina must have been in her own head too long because Josh broke the silence and said, “Don’t be. I’m the one who should be sorry. It was wrong of me to make such a comment.” Carina’s heart ached for him.
“Tell me how a tough Irish guy like your dad met and married his sassy Italian bride?” His question surprised her, but she knew that the story she was about to tell would somehow coax the demons he had unleashed a moment ago back to sleep. Everyone loved hearing how her parents had met, of the fairy tale that had its share of ups and downs, but always love.
They were crossing into New York when her parents’ story caught up to real time. As she had anticipated, the atmosphere in the car had shifted for the better. But no matter how many times he smiled or allowed a chuckle to escape his full lips, she couldn’t erase the image that had taken residence in her mind. The one of a small boy, a boy who thought he was better off living without the two people who had brought him into this world, and a man who would forever mourn his sister.