True to Me

by Kay Bratt

  She didn’t turn to look at the vase on the bedside table where her mother’s ashes sat waiting. Quinn still didn’t know what she was going to do with them. That was one thing Ethan would be happy about—that the ashes were no longer in their home.

  They hadn’t had much conversation about the change in plans since that first phone call. He’d been away more than home in the few weeks leading up to her trip, and most of their communication had been through voice mail or text. The icing on the cake was when she’d emailed him the link to a house on Maui that she’d decided to buy.

  “You’ve really lost it now. No one buys houses on a whim,” he’d said, calling her immediately and begging her to tell him she wasn’t serious.

  “That’s not what the Realtor said,” Quinn argued. “Most of his properties are snatched up, sight unseen, within days after they’re listed. It’s a tight market on Maui, and I had to move fast. Now, when we go together, we’ll have a place of our own.”

  She could practically hear him simmering with anger on the other end.

  “Look, this is how I want to invest my money, Ethan. Maui is where my mother is from, and I’ve always dreamed of going there. We can set it up for short-term vacation rental, and it’ll be a great source of income.”

  “Who’s going to manage this great source of income?”

  “A property manager,” Quinn replied calmly. “I’ve already researched all of it and have a list of them to interview.”

  He took a long, audible breath and changed his tone to one of calm patience.

  “You need to at least go see the house first, and if you still want it, attend the closing in person.”

  “It has to be done before I can get there, so they’re doing a mail-away closing,” she said. “They do it all the time.”

  “This is not the time to have a debate,” he told her. “I’m trying to save you a lot of headaches.”

  “You’re right, Ethan. It’s not debatable. It’s my money, and I’m doing it.” They’d ended the phone call without even exchanging goodbyes. Since then, they’d barely had a chance to talk. It made her sad that their communication had changed so vastly over the years. Once upon a time, they never would’ve spoken to each other that way.

  Quinn felt sorry for Ethan, because part of her knew that she was behaving abnormally. However, she’d spent years being guided by first her mother, and then by Ethan. Even at work, she had a power-hungry district manager, and she rarely got to call her own shots. All her life she’d been the epitome of a responsible person, listening to, and taking guidance from, those around her, even when it meant putting her own wants aside. Using part of the money her mother had left her to buy a property where her mom had been born just felt right. It would ensure that Quinn would always have a place to come back to on the island where she’d laid her mother to rest.

  If Ethan had been home more often since her mother’s death, maybe she wouldn’t be doing out-of-the-ordinary things and making rash decisions on her own. He sold software to high-tech companies, and the travel was brutal but mandatory. There was no denying the long absences had put a strain on their relationship.

  She’d always let him do his thing. So now it was her turn, and she hoped he’d give her the same consideration. He’d be angry for a while, but eventually he’d see she’d made a sound decision—a profitable one, even—and he’d get over it.

  Relationships were that way—you had to take the bad with the good. Ethan wasn’t perfect, but he did love her. There were other perks in their relationship too. For one, he still looked like he’d stepped from the pages of a magazine. He’d learned how to put his appearance to good use too. His chiseled looks and gregarious personality had made him a lot of money. The bottom line was that when other men thought of the most successful men in their lives to emulate, Ethan was probably at the top of their lists. On the other hand, women were attracted to him like bees to honey. He could have his pick from just about anyone, and Quinn still couldn’t believe he’d chosen her.

  He wasn’t always easy to live with, but she knew he was a catch. She’d been shocked when he showed interest in her over the many prettier girls he could’ve chosen in college. He was the best option she was ever going to have, and she’d told her mother just that after their first date.

  But will he love you when the beauty fades? A question her mother had asked too many times, her disapproval of Ethan seeping out in quiet words during the difficult times when Quinn had run home to lick her wounds.

  She and Ethan always worked things out, and her mother’s question was one Quinn didn’t want to explore but also one she’d never forgotten. Pushing her own doubts aside and biting her tongue on a regular basis had thus far been the key to their longevity. She didn’t know a lot of couples who had made it as long, and, for their endurance, Quinn was proud. Ten years was no small feat and, as their friends teased them, was probably the longest engagement of anyone in their small or wide circle.

  Quinn looked down at her ring, a symbol of their promise to be together forever, but one that had yet to be formalized. The ring no longer sparkled. The newness had worn off, and now it just felt like a familiar piece of her. Would it be different once they were married?

  A rumble in her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten a real meal in nearly a day. She turned and went to the bed, sitting cross-legged on it before picking up the leather-bound hotel guide. She flipped to the “Room Service” section, then called in an order of garlic rice with a side of French fries and a cold (fully and guiltily caffeine- and sugar-loaded) Coke with ice.

  Screw the protein, greens, or fruit she’d normally be ordering.

  Sometimes having such a healthy partner was tough. Along with Ethan’s good looks, he was exceptionally fit. He found time for his workout regimen no matter where he was. He’d worked hard to develop a six-pack that he could wash clothes on and biceps that made an admirable bulge under his perfectly ironed, tailored shirtsleeves. Secretly, Quinn thought he was terrified of middle age and what could happen to his body if he relaxed even for a minute.

  She appreciated his commitment, but his diligence could also be irritating when it came to his watching what she put in her body.

  They didn’t fight about it, but she knew he wanted her to be slimmer than she was. It was in the way he raised his eyebrows if she ordered anything but the healthiest dish on a menu, or the way he’d once held up a pair of her slouchiest pants she’d left at the end of the bed and said he’d almost mistaken them for his own.

  He knew they weren’t his. He’d just wanted to make a point. Get her to work harder to lose the extra weight she’d put on that year. The pounds, that no matter how hard she worked out or how little she ate, refused to budge.

  Or was she just being paranoid—too sensitive, even?

  Why couldn’t men understand that some women were simply wired for curves? That no magic pill or amount of exercise would transform them into the phantom willowy creature that society strove for, an elusive goal that drove many women to years of self-doubt and hatred?

  On the other hand, it showed that he cared about her health, so how could she be resentful?

  But today—she swore to herself—just today, she’d indulge in what she wanted instead of what she needed. She kicked off her shoes and lay back on the comfortable white pillows, releasing a long, pent-up breath of exhaustion.

  She reached over and grabbed her laptop, opened it, and signed in to her Lineage account. The screen popped up, and there stood her very own ancestral tree, looking about as lonely and forlorn as a tree could look. The main box bore her name, but it was still connected to only empty boxes around it.

  Her imagination conjured up dozens of nameless figures rushing to jump ship, snipping themselves from the branches as they slipped away, eager to avoid being discovered by her.

  She slammed the screen shut. Her thoughts went immediately to Ethan. She could call him, but if he didn’t answer, it would deflate her mood even more.
And if he did answer, there wasn’t much she could tell him at this point. She didn’t want to argue with him about the house, and that only left her plans for her mother’s memorial, of which she had none yet. His attitude about even that would probably make her sad. He’d never understand the loss her mother’s death was to her and probably thought it was as simple as finding a beautiful lookout and scattering her ashes over a cliff and into the ocean.

  Quinn felt a catch in her throat. She and her mother had been closer than most. Growing up, it was just the two of them, moving from place to place and scrimping to make ends meet. She had to give it to her mom—even without an education, she’d always found a way to provide a decent home in a semisafe neighborhood. Over the years she’d worked as a nanny or a housekeeper, and sometimes both at one time. Those positions paid the rent and put food on the table with enough money left over for Quinn to have the things she wanted.

  Yes, her mother had rocked it as a single parent, and they were fine with it being just the two of them. Or at least that’s what they both pretended. When Quinn thought about her birth father, wondering if he’d loved her at all, she never let those feelings out. In those first years, undocumented in a time of no cell phones or social media, absent of photos, had he ever held her? Rocked her to sleep? Whispered things a father would say to a soft, tiny girl?

  When social networking took off, Quinn had spent hours trying to track him down. Searching his name and going through every hit to see if that Wesley Maguire had any connection to California or Hawaii. Or carried a resemblance to herself. But she’d always come up empty.

  After college she tried not to obsess about what it was that pushed her mother into leaving her family and culture—discarding it like wet boots after a heavy rain. It was curious. Her mother had traded all she’d ever known for a man who would prove to be disloyal, and a life on the mainland, in a small town where everyone thought Hawaii was a foreign country or simply a scene on a postcard.

  Why?

  She didn’t want to hurt her mother, so she held her questions inside, letting them burrow there and grow thorns.

  Then the cancer came. Soon they were battling two long years of sickness that led to the confession, then death.

  Her mother’s passing had only opened the door to more questions. Like where did the inheritance money come from? The money was one of the biggest surprises of Quinn’s life. She’d expected the estate attorney to tell her there was next to nothing left after paying the medical bills. Instead she’d been given a small fortune. She should’ve been really happy at such a windfall, but it was perplexing why her mother hadn’t used some of the money over the years. While their lifestyle had been comfortable, it was modest, to say the least. Quinn wanted to find out more about the inheritance. Needed to find out more.

  The note her mother left her was such an unusual action from a woman who had never wanted to talk of the past, but it pushed Quinn into endless hours of online research that led to nothing. She thought of the photo. She’d found a Carmen Crowe on Facebook—actually, about seventeen of them. But none of them from Hawaii or who matched the projected age. She knew it was most likely that Carmen had married and dropped the name Crowe.

  Sending her DNA off was really a last resort. So far nothing had happened. No magical leaves appeared on her bare-limbed tree. No long-lost relatives popped up willing to embrace her. It was as though she and her mother had been dropped onto the earth without the cumbersome, yet sometimes needed, support of family. Something just didn’t add up, and Quinn was determined more than ever to find out just what.

  A knock at the door startled her. Her food had arrived, and that meant dinner, a bath, then a fall into what she knew would be a restless sleep. There were big things looming ahead of her, and if Quinn knew her subconscious, it would be a night of dreaming about them.

  Chapter Three

  Some women were born with natural beauty, the kind that allowed you to roll out of bed, run your fingers through your hair, and face the world without reservation.

  As much as it saddened her, Quinn wasn’t one of them. It would take her some time to get her face on and look appropriate for the public. She sat up, stretched her arms over her head, and tried to blink away the grogginess. Feeling heavy with fatigue from a restless night, she slid out of bed and crossed the room.

  She opened the door to the balcony, and suddenly the quiet was gone, sucked out in an instant. In its place, birds chirping and the sound of the surf crashing against the beach filled the room, shifting the solitude into something bearable.

  At the desk, she pulled out the chair and sat, then turned on her computer and opened Facebook.

  She typed “Elizabeth Senna” into the “Search” field.

  Hundreds of women sharing her mother’s name showed up. She changed her search to “Elizabeth Ellen Senna Maui.” It didn’t do much to narrow the choices. Obviously, Senna was a popular family name.

  Moving on to the ancestry website, she logged in and opened the messages box. She hoped for at least a distant connection to show up.

  Nothing.

  She looked at her watch, then closed the laptop and headed for the bathroom, still perplexed that in this age of technology and loss of privacy, she’d unearthed absolutely nothing helpful. Was the universe against her finding her heritage?

  After a quick shower, Quinn dried her hair before coaxing it into a low-hanging twist. She expertly applied her makeup, her hands graceful and nimble, nearly moving without any thought.

  One of the valuable lessons that Ethan had taught her was that one’s appearance was the first tool that could be utilized to achieve success. When they met, it was easy to always look her best with minimal effort. But later, when she’d noticed the telltale signs of the end of her twenties—a few crow’s-feet and a not-so-enviable difference in the elasticity of her skin, she contacted a makeup artist and took lessons until she learned to make herself completely presentable, even on barely a half hour’s notice.

  Now people told her all the time she didn’t look like she was in her thirties, but she knew they were just being kind.

  Quinn followed her usual regimen, the familiar routine soothing her nerves. She tried to ignore the way her eyes strayed to her neck and the looseness that was beginning there. Another ten years and she’d be looking into a neck lift, and that was a depressing thought.

  Once her makeup was done, she dressed in her freshly ironed slacks and a billowy white shirt, slipped into some low heels, and strode out to her car.

  She hit the road, excited yet anxious.

  Driving out of Lahaina, she clutched the steering wheel and followed the curvy, scenic highway. The rented Jetta felt small and insignificant beneath her in contrast to the unending and breathtaking views she passed: majestic mountains on her left and the bluest blues of the rolling ocean to her right.

  Hawaii truly was a paradise, and she felt a rush of guilt for leaving Ethan behind, for not allowing him to experience this with her.

  The beauty around her couldn’t be described in words, though she’d texted him when she stopped for a coffee at a local shop, letting him know she missed him and was thinking of him.

  He didn’t respond.

  Her friend Gina had tried to call and then texted her during the night: Why did you skip spin class? You aren’t answering your phone. I’m worried . . .

  Oh, God forbid she miss spin class. Quinn rolled her eyes, but she did consider calling her or at least texting. In all honesty, though, they weren’t that close. Gina was her friend only because her husband, Kevin, and Ethan had gone to school together. Sure, they did a lot of “couples things” together, and Ethan was always on her about going to spin class so she didn’t disappoint Gina, but Quinn had never felt a genuine connection to her. She hadn’t really had a close friendship since Maggie, her best friend.

  With Maggie, Quinn could be herself and never have to worry about how she came across. And Maggie had the big family that Quinn had somet
imes dreamed of having. When she spent time at Maggie’s house, she felt like she was one of them.

  Maggie was feisty yet playful—especially around her brothers. Quinn couldn’t count how many practical jokes they’d played on them. Maggie had a knack for thinking up crazy but harmless ways to repay them for being too protective or just downright irritating.

  In junior high, Quinn and Maggie had shared the view from the outside of the popular crowd. Then high school came, and Maggie blossomed, quickly transforming from the redheaded pixie she was to a beautiful young woman. Her long hair turned into a much deeper red, and she suddenly had legs that Quinn would die for. Her transformation from tomboy to beauty queen landed her in a different crowd, but Maggie was loyal. She made it known that Quinn was her best friend and that would never change. So Quinn was in, too, and treated with a certain respect, though she never quite felt welcomed by the popular girls.

  She and Maggie had headed off in different directions after that, attending different colleges. Quinn had tried to keep in contact, but when Ethan came along, he monopolized her time—and thoughts—to the point that the guilt of letting their friendship wane finally propelled it into total obscurity.

  And Maggie stopped making an effort too. But Quinn missed her. She missed having a friend she could be open with, confide in.

  She looked at her phone peeking out from her bag.

  Other than from Gina, her screen remained ominously empty of messages or missed calls. One would think that as the corporate director of sales and marketing for a high-end resort, Quinn would have made hundreds of contacts. And she had. Just none close enough to call friends—at least not ones she had contact with in real life, as opposed to just on social media. Her work required a lot of travel, but when she had time off, it was usually burned up planning her schedule, working out, and spending time with Ethan. There wasn’t really time for anyone else.

  She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. It wasn’t the time for indulging in a self-pity party. She winced when a Jeep went around to pass her, top down and music blaring. The driver was a thin reed of a girl, her long blonde hair whipping in the wind as her head bobbed to a beat that reverberated through the Jetta.