by Lisa Duffy
“Quinn didn’t know that. She thought you were missing.”
“Yeah? Well, missing’s a state of mind, I guess. She knew I was reenlisting. I’m not the one making the choice here.” He takes a puff of his cigarette.
I don’t want to ask the question, but it sits heavy in my throat, threatening to crush my lungs if I don’t get it out.
“And Bent? He knew?”
“He was the first call I made when I left that night. Drove straight through to the base and called your father. Told him to keep an eye out for her. That I wasn’t going to be reachable until I came back.”
“Why didn’t you just tell Quinn where you were?”
“Because she doesn’t want me to go. Thinks I need to get some sort of mental help. That’s not exactly the type of thing you want going around. I didn’t want her tracking me down, talking to my superiors about how I should stay home, when home is the last place I want to be.”
“So why come back?”
He takes a drag of his cigarette, blows it out. “Because I took a vow. And I’m not going to desert her. I’m not going to get some shitty desk job and put on a tie every day, but I’ll stay if she wants me to.”
“Stay in Paradise? Like in our house?”
“I’m shipping out for a fifteen-month deployment.” He cuts his eyes at me. “I meant stay her husband.” He puts the bottle to his lips, tilts it back.
The cigarette between his fingers is burning so low it’s touching his skin, and I know he must feel the heat from it.
It must be starting to hurt. To burn. Maybe it’s even unbearable.
But he doesn’t move. Just sits in the chair, as though he can’t feel anything at all.
24
Quinn
She was worried with the puppy sleeping so much in the day that it might be a long night—and turns out, she was right.
Quinn had put him in the crate after Libby left and brought him into her bedroom. He was still sleeping when she closed her eyes, but he woke hours later, whimpering at first, and then high-pitched barking that seemed impossibly loud coming from his tiny body.
Which is how they’re in the backyard after midnight—the puppy on a leash that Sally lent her, prancing around the backyard with Quinn following along.
She brought a flashlight, not wanting to wake anyone by turning on the outside light, and she tries to keep the beam on the puppy as he darts between bushes and tumbles in the grass. He stops every so often to look up at her, almost tipping over backward once, making her smile even though it’s the middle of the night and she wants nothing more than to be asleep in her bed.
The ground is wet under her feet, the smell of freshly cut grass strong. She follows the puppy to the dim corner under the oak tree, and when she turns toward the house, she sucks in her breath, the silhouette of a man appearing from the darkness.
She points the flashlight at him just as a beam of light blinds her. She shrieks and nearly drops the flashlight on the ground.
“Quinn? Is that you?” she hears Bent say.
“Yes! Can you turn that thing off—I can’t see!” she hisses, aware that the yell she let out has probably woken up the entire neighborhood. She squeezes her eyes shut, white spots dotting her vision.
When she opens her eyes, Bent is standing next to her.
“You scared the crap out of me,” she says, and he twists his face at her.
“Me? I’m just driving by, checking that the street’s quiet, and there’s someone sneaking around in my backyard with a flashlight!”
“I wasn’t sneaking around—”
“Quinn, I didn’t know it was you. What are you doing out here? What the hell is that?” He points the light at the lawn.
“Isn’t he the cutest?” Libby interrupts, suddenly appearing next to them, as if it were the middle of the afternoon. “Did somebody yell? I heard something and looked out the back window and saw you guys.”
She picks up the puppy, kisses it on the head, and holds it out to Bent.
“Come on,” she teases. “You know you want to hold him.”
“Where did you get him?” He takes the puppy from Libby, turns him on his back, and scratches his belly before placing him on the ground.
“From the address you gave me,” Quinn says. “I didn’t know she was a breeder.”
“I didn’t either. I used to see Steve at this charity golf event, but he stopped playing. Too busy with the kids probably. He texts me dirty jokes sometimes. We keep saying we want to get together, but you know how it goes.”
“Well, you were right, they’re really great.”
“Who’s great?” Libby asks.
“Old friends of mine. So . . . this?” He gestures to the puppy.
“A gift,” Quinn says. “I told them I needed to think about it. And check with the landlord, of course.”
Libby lets out a snort. “The landlord is the biggest softie around.”
“Lucy’s no pushover,” Bent replies.
“I meant you. You think she should keep him, don’t you?”
He doesn’t answer, but Quinn feels his eyes on her, and when she looks over, he’s watching her, waiting for her to look at him.
“I think Quinn needs to do what’s best for her,” he says.
They’re all quiet until Quinn says she needs to get some sleep before the dog wakes her up again. Libby hands her the leash and makes Quinn promise to call her later in the day so she can see the puppy—maybe take him for a walk.
Quinn goes inside, puts the puppy back in the crate, her eyes closing before her head is even on her pillow.
When she opens her eyes next, it’s almost ten in the morning and the puppy is still asleep. She has a cup of tea and showers and at noon, Libby is at the door.
She lets the two of them play while she cleans the house. They spend the next hours blocking doorways with empty moving boxes to contain the puppy to the one room without a rug.
He chews on the lamp cord and licks the electrical outlet. At one point, Libby looks over at Quinn after they childproof the room and says in an offhand way that it’s good preparation, eyeing Quinn’s middle, and Quinn feels her stomach flip—the mention of the baby reminding her that she’s been avoiding John.
In her mind, she’s tried all week to sort out her emotions, but in the end, the entire process amounts to her feeling as though she’s wandering through a dense maze. Each step twirls her in a direction she isn’t sure she wants to go, leading her to an opening here and a dead end there until she’s paralyzed, unable to move.
Finally, she decides, it’s time.
So, while Libby sits across from her on the floor, her back against the wall on the other side of the room, the puppy rolling over her outstretched legs, Quinn texts Bent.
Can you tell John I’m ready to talk? Tonight at 9?
Three gray bubbles appear on the screen and disappear. Seconds later, they reappear, and she thinks he must be typing a long response, but when his message shows on her screen, it’s simply yes.
Quinn picks the late hour for two reasons: the puppy will be asleep if he follows the pattern from the previous night, and she’s sure he will, as they’ve kept him busy all day.
More importantly, she wants to see what sort of shape John is in at that time of night. Before he disappeared, she couldn’t remember the last time he was sober past dinnertime.
Now it’s nighttime again, and Quinn is sitting on the front steps, waiting for John, flinching every time a car passes, her body tense.
It’s the same way she used to feel when she was young and a nor’easter threatened to take out the power lines and damage houses and flood the streets, the ocean rising over the sea wall. Her parents would stock up on milk and bread and candles, and they’d all wait—her mother saying how much she loved storms.
Quinn would nod and smile, but inside, her heart raced, the palms of her hands cold from the storm that might make her world go dark. The wind threatening to make her house shake and tremble and moan.
Bent’s truck isn’t in the driveway, but she knows he’s home—earlier they borrowed Quinn’s car so Libby could follow Bent to the repair shop. Something about a leaky radiator.
When they returned, both Bent and Libby disappeared upstairs.
The light from the full moon gives the darkness a hazy glow, and she listens to the crickets sing instead of concentrating on the minutes ticking past nine, then nine thirty, then ten o’clock.
She’s about to call Bent to double-check that John said he’d be here, even though Bent had texted back all set hours ago, when she hears a door open inside and footsteps on the stairs.
Libby steps out onto the porch. She walks down the stairs and stands on the front lawn, leaning against the railing, looking down at Quinn.
“I probably should pretend I don’t know your husband was supposed to be here an hour ago, but Bent’s been pacing the living room, and I finally got it out of him.”
Quinn smiles. “It wasn’t a secret. I didn’t say anything because I’m sure you’ve had enough of my annoying drama as it is.”
Libby shrugs. “I think of annoying drama and Desiree comes to mind. Not you.”
Quinn’s happy to have some company. She’s about to tell Libby how the puppy didn’t even fuss when she put him in his crate when a black truck careens around the corner, the windows open and the radio blaring.
It passes them and stops several houses down, the rumble of the engine loud as the truck sits motionless on the street.
The rear lights turn white, and Libby glances at Quinn as the truck reverses until it’s in front of them, the cab high off the pavement from the massive oversize tires holding it up.
“Plural!” a man’s voice yells from inside the truck, and Libby takes a step forward.
“Libby,” Quinn says softly, reaching her arm out, something in his voice making her heart speed up.
“It’s just Flynn,” Libby tells her.
But Quinn stands up and follows Libby to the curb, stands right next to her.
The passenger door swings open to show three guys packed into the bench seat. Flynn, sitting in the middle, climbs clumsily over the passenger seat, elbowing his friend in the face, who shoves him out of the car, both howling and swearing as he tumbles to the street, the smell of alcohol surrounding them.
He gets up slowly, his eyes slits, and steadies himself by grabbing onto the mirror on the door.
He blinks at Libby and stumbles onto the sidewalk next to her, and Quinn takes a step closer.
“Plural—I was just thinking about you, and here you are—what the hell are you doing?” he slurs.
“I live here, Flynn,” Libby says. “Remember?”
He covers his mouth with his hand and laughs as if someone has just told him a hilarious joke.
Libby sighs. “Go home, Flynn. You’re wasted.”
He looks as though he might get back in the truck, but his expression changes when he glances past them to the driveway.
“Wait a second—where’s Officer Winters? Maybe he wants to come out and harass me some more.”
Libby scowls at him. “Oh, will you get over it? Stop acting like such a victim. You can’t even give your own brother a break without being a crybaby about us hanging out together.”
“A crybaby—she just called me a crybaby,” he shouts to his friends, who don’t seem to be paying any attention to them until a beer bottle comes flying out the window and smashes on the sidewalk behind Flynn.
He stumbles, almost bumping into Quinn. Quinn grabs Libby’s arm and tries to pull her away, but Libby won’t budge.
“You’re just mad because I took Prince Charming away from you. Well, you can thank me later. You have no idea what a fuckup he is.”
“Well, at least he’s trying, Flynn. At least he’s doing something. Look at you—you’re just a stupid drunk,” Libby yells.
Quinn pulls Libby’s arm again, trying to get her in the house, when there’s a whoosh past her head.
Bent appears before Flynn realizes someone is next to him, and suddenly Flynn’s arm is behind his back, and he’s wincing, standing on his tiptoes, Bent’s arm around his neck.
“Listen carefully,” Bent growls. “Sit on that curb and put your hands behind your head, or I’m going to beat the living shit out of you.”
Flynn makes a gurgling noise, and Bent slams him to the ground, where his body lands in a sitting position, a stunned look on his face.
“Hands up!” Bent says, and Flynn obeys, his eyes wide.
“Get out of the truck,” Bent barks, walking over to the passenger door.
The two in the truck turn to look at him, and it’s clear they have no idea what’s just happened. The one in the passenger seat jumps back when Bent reaches through the window, his eyes wild.
The massive tires squeal as the truck lurches forward, the engine screaming as the driver guns it, the smell of diesel fuel filling the air.
Bent pulls his arm back just as the truck peels away from the curb and races down the street.
He pulls his phone out and gives it to Libby.
“Call the station and tell them to send a cruiser to the house.”
“Wait—”
“Do it!” he barks, and she stares at him for a minute before she looks down at the phone, presses the screen, and puts it to her ear.
“You’re going to fucking arrest me?” Flynn slurs, trying to arrange his legs underneath him to stand. “I’m going to sue you for police brutality. You have no right to keep me here.”
Bent looks down at him. “You’re on my property. And you have my kid, who never raises her voice, yelling at you. And you see that dog?” He points to the window upstairs.
They all turn and look up at the second-floor window. The top half of Rooster’s body is looming in the window, his teeth bared, a series of ferocious barks making their way down to them.
“That dog wants to eat you alive, and he only does that when someone acts like an asshole to the people he loves. So, your best bet is to shut your mouth until you sober up and be happy I came down here instead of him.”
Flynn shakes his head. “I only came by to say hello—Libby was standing outside. I was on the sidewalk until you laid me out on your property. And she’s the one who started it. But you don’t know that, either, right? Because you don’t know anything. Ask your perfect angel daughter about my brother. You know, the one she was sleeping with the other night while you were busting my nuts.”
Bent’s expression doesn’t change—Quinn wonders if he’s even heard what Flynn said, but she knows he had to—he’s standing right next to her, his hand still on Flynn’s shoulder.
“Go upstairs,” Bent tells Libby in a quiet voice.
Libby glares at Flynn, and he must feel her eyes on him because he looks up, slumping over drunkenly with the movement.
“I hate you,” Libby whispers, and Flynn’s head jerks back, as though he’s been slapped.
“Libby—” Bent chides, but she’s gone, up the porch stairs, slamming the door behind her just as the police cruiser pulls up.
An officer gets out of the car and walks over to them.
“What’s up?” she asks.
“Give me your cuffs,” Bent says, and she takes them off her belt, hands them over.
“Get up.” Bent pulls Flynn up by his arm. “Hands behind your back.”
“Come on, Mr. Winters,” he says, crying now. “Please.”
Bent doesn’t speak, just clicks the cuffs on his hands. He leads Flynn to the car, puts him in the back of the cruiser, and walks back over to them.
“Got a pen?” he asks the officer.
She takes a pen out of her chest pocket and hands it to him. He pulls a scrap of paper out of his pocket, holds the cap between his teeth while he writes, and hands the paper to her.
“Get out an APB on this plate. Black Chevy. Left taillight out. I think it was the Walsh kid in the passenger seat, but I didn’t recognize the driver. We’ll get a n
ame out of Flynn at the station. I’m going to grab a ride with you. Just give me a minute,” he says, and she nods and walks back to the cruiser.
Quinn remembers the bottle smashing on the sidewalk and bends to pick up some of the glass, but she feels his hand on her arm and straightens.
“Leave it, Quinn. I’ll clean it when I get back.”
“No—it’s okay. Go. I’ll check on Libby when I’m done. Make sure she’s okay.” She pauses. “What’s going to happen to him?” She looks at the cruiser.
“Flynn? Nothing. I’ll put him in a holding room. Let him sober up. He’s a good kid hanging out with the wrong crowd. I just want to scare him.” He turns and pauses, looks back at her. “Do me a favor and stay inside. At least until I’m home.”
“Are you worried about the guys in the truck? That they’ll come back?”
His eyes slide past her to the street, to where the truck sped off, but he doesn’t answer. “I’ll just feel better if I know you and Libby are inside together,” he says finally, and walks to the car.
She watches as they drive down the street, disappear around the corner.
She leans down and fills her hand with glass from the broken bottle and rushes to the side of the house to the trash barrels, where she empties her hand quickly, making sure all the tiny slivers are gone, thinking of her hand running through the puppy’s fur. Even though she’s hurrying, it’s several minutes before she’s putting the lid on the barrel.
Her heart is racing—her hands shaky. The night suddenly seems darker than usual, the smell of beer and diesel fuel thick in the humid air. Rooster’s barking still ringing in her ears from his spot in the window above and the hollow sound of Flynn’s body smacking the ground.
She hurries across the front lawn, heading for the porch stairs, when she hears her name. She jumps, blinking into the night, stepping away from the voice until the bushes lining the front of the house brush the back of her legs.
John is standing on the sidewalk, his truck idling behind him, the driver door still open, jutting into the empty street.
Quinn crosses her arms, stays where she is, and he walks forward, stops in front of her.
“I didn’t know if you’d still be awake. I meant to come earlier, but it got late.”