by Alice Ward
She looked over her shoulder at me. “Does your dog need some water?”
“I’m sure she would love that, thanks.”
We set Starlet up in the kitchen with a bowl of water and one of the chewing bones I’d brought for her then took the door that led from the kitchen down into the basement. The musty air hit us before we got to the last step. I wrinkled my nose and peered into the darkness. Ellen hit a switch and the basement flooded with light, showing a washer and dryer, a couch, and lots of boxes on shelves.
“I don’t know about the washer and dryer,” Ellen said.
“Have you tried them out?” Seth questioned.
“Not yet.”
“Don’t worry. If they’re broken, I’ll get you new ones.”
We went to work moving the couch out of the basement, which took forever. It was just a loveseat, but it was heavy with all the water it had wicked up. The stairs and doorway were so narrow that I wondered how the couch had gotten into the basement in the first place. The floor was still damp, so we set about mopping it up with old towels. Once they were all used, Ellen threw them into the washing machine, which, it turned out, worked just fine.
“Now those boxes,” she said, pointing up at the shelves.
“Are you sure?” Seth asked.
“Just the ones with the pictures. I don’t want the damp air to ruin them.”
He nodded, his face grim. “Okay.”
Seth stood on a chair and retrieved the boxes then handed them down to me. The three of us carted them upstairs and into the kitchen. The time above the stove read twelve forty-five.
Ellen sighed and sat down heavily in a chair. “Thank you for coming. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“It was no trouble,” I told her.
“Would you like something to eat? Or some coffee?”
Seth jumped in. “We should really be going. Thanks, Mom.”
“Well you’re not driving back to Chicago tonight, are you?”
“We’re going to stay in a hotel.”
“You don’t have to do that. There are rooms upstairs...”
“I already booked a room at the Hilton.”
I looked at him. When had he done that?
“Oh. All right then.” She pulled the nearest box on the table near her and opened it up. “Let’s see what’s in this one.”
Seth put his hand on my lower back. “We need to get going. I’ll call you soon, Mom.”
She nodded. “All right. Bye, Quinn. Thank you for your help.”
“Bye. It was good to meet you.” I scooped Starlet up.
Seth’s hand still on me, he steered me out of the kitchen and into the hallway. As we passed the dark rooms, I peeked into one and saw the shape of a fireplace. “What’s your old bedroom like?”
“My old bedroom?” He opened the front door and waited for me to go through.
“Your old bedroom is upstairs somewhere, right?”
We stepped onto the stoop, and he shut the front door firmly behind us.
“I would have liked to see your childhood room,” I explained, not liking how rushed I felt.
Seth shook his head at the ground. “No, you wouldn’t. There’s nothing there worth seeing. Mom’s gotten rid of all my stuff anyway.”
“Really? That’s too bad.”
“Yeah.”
His palm, which he hadn’t moved from my back since he put it there in the kitchen, pressed even more firmly, urging me forward. Seth set the pace, rushing us down the walkway and for the Jeep.
I glanced over my shoulder at the brick house. One upstairs window glowed with light, but the rest were dark.
We climbed into the Jeep. Starlet jumped down onto the floor and laid on top of my bag.
“When did you book the hotel?”
“What?” Seth rested his arm over the top of my seat and backed the Jeep out of the drive and into the road.
“When did you book the hotel? You told your mom that you already made a reservation.”
“I didn’t. I just don’t want to impose.”
“It seemed like she wanted us to stay. I don’t think we would have been imposing.”
Seth shook his head and put the car into drive. “I know she wanted us to stay, but it would have been stressful for her in the end, and she doesn’t handle stress well. Trust me. She would have had to get the room ready, then wash the sheets tomorrow… and she’d worry about us nonstop. She’d want to make us breakfast in the morning. Mom’s one of those people who runs themselves thin without trying to.”
“Hmm. Okay.”
His eyes flicked toward me, but he didn’t say anything else. We drove in silence for the nearest hotel, leaving Ellen and the house behind. I tried to ignore the strange feeling in my gut. I tried to tell myself I’d been reading Seth wrong.
Was it just me or had it seemed like he wanted to get me out of the house as soon as possible?
And when we first got there, when he suggested that he go inside first… that was just too weird.
Was he hiding something in that house?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The next day, Seth and I sat on my back patio sipping lemonade in the sun. Early hints of autumn had begun to creep in after the sun set, but the days were still warm and full of summer. I’d already begun to make plans for the upcoming months, looking for cool hiking spots Seth and I could make day trips to.
Starlet ran around the yard, her nose following an invisible trail.
“Gophers?” I wondered out loud. “Moles?”
“Have you seen any rows or bumps in the dirt?” Seth asked.
“No.”
“Maybe it’s gnomes then.”
I eyed him. “Don’t tell Heather that.”
“What?” he spat, laughing.
“She’s basically afraid of anything that doesn’t actually exist. Bigfoot, gnomes, giant birds...”
“Giant birds?”
“She read some accounts in a book about giant bird sightings in the United States in, like, the nineteenth century. She thinks if she stands in an open field, they’re going to come and get her.”
“Hah. Tell her just to put on some weight so the birds can’t pick her up. Problem solved.”
“Right? It sounds like a great plan to me.” I stretched my legs out and sighed in pleasure. With fall coming so soon, enjoying the warm afternoons as often as possible was one of my top priorities.
After getting to the hotel last night, we’d crashed hard, then woke up just in time to check out. The drive back to Chicago had been smooth enough. Several times I considered asking Seth about his behavior the night before, but I also thought maybe I had just been imagining it.
You wanted to get me out of there, I would say.
I could already hear his response. It was late. She didn’t need people around.
I didn’t have a whole lot of evidence to back up my suspicions, other than the sneaking feeling that being in that house put Seth on edge.
I ran over the night in my head once more. Other than the minute before we got out of the Jeep and went in, he’d seemed most nervous whenever Ellen mentioned the boxes she wanted brought up.
The boxes… she said they contained photos.
My phone beeped, and I sat up and searched for it.
“It’s mine,” Seth explained.
“Oh.” I settled back down in the chair and closed my eyes. I was over reacting. Seth had been acting tense because it was late. He wanted to be in a basement moving furniture at midnight about as much as anybody else. Maybe I was more high strung than usual because the whole situation reminded me of what had gone down with his dad.
I wasn’t used to having a boyfriend. The sudden change was doing weird things to my head, turning me into a woman with the kind of anxieties I had previously made fun of.
This relationship wasn’t a board meeting. It wasn’t work. I needed to take a chill pill and turn my attention to other things. So far, Seth and I were working out. Maybe Type A Q
uinn was great for at work, but when I left the office, she needed to stay. Type B Quinn could dominate at home.
I needed to think about things that didn’t make me nervous. Like, how long had the front of my legs been sunning? Twenty minutes? Thirty? Now there was something to mull over. Since this might be one of the last days I would get to lay out, I needed to think about such a matter. All the ice in my glass was melted, a clue to how long we’d been outside.
“What time is it?” I asked casually, thinking another dip in the pool might be called for.
Silence.
I opened my eyes and peered at Seth through my sunglasses. His shoulders were hunched over as he stared down at his phone. His lips grew tight as he eyeballed the screen. My throat constricted. Something was wrong. The first sign that something wasn’t right with Seth was always silence; after that came a loss of eye contact.
“What is it?” I asked quickly, not ready for more tension.
“My dad wants to see me again.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t able to keep the note of apprehension at bay.
We hadn’t spoken about his father since the weekend of our fight. I still knew next to nothing about the man who had raised Seth. I’d purposefully not broached the topic, though I burned to know more. He and Ellen were divorced. I’d gotten that much info.
Judging merely from the change in Seth’s posture whenever he mentioned his father, it didn’t seem like they had a very positive relationship.
“So he’s coming back to town?” I asked. “Where does he live anyway? Did he stay in the area after the divorce?”
Seth rubbed the back of his neck and kept his eyes on the patio tiles. “Where does he live now? In Wisconsin. At least that’s his story. Really, who knows? He moves around a lot.” There was a hint of resentment in Seth’s voice. Clearly, he didn’t want to see his father. “He’s kind of a drifter. He wouldn’t use that word to describe himself. It’s not like he travels around the country in a van or anything, but he never stays in one place long.”
I swung my legs over the side of the chaise and sat up straight. My knee brushed against Seth’s, and I pulled my sunglasses off so we could make eye contact.
“Was he always like that?” I asked, carefully selecting the question.
“No,” came his tart answer. “He was pretty square when I was a kid. It wasn’t until… I grew up. Then my parents got divorced. After that, he kind of went on this...” Seth sucked in some air. “I don’t have the words to describe it.”
I lightly squeezed his leg. “That’s all right. When did they get divorced?”
“A few years ago. Not even three, actually. It hasn’t been that long.”
“Damn,” I breathed. “How’s Ellen doing with that?”
“She’s just great.”
I nodded. The woman I met last night seemed more “all right” than “great.” In fact, she seemed a tad lonely. She’d been pretty eager for us stay.
“Do you really want to see your dad?”
Seth rubbed the stubble along his jaw. After checking out of the hotel, we’d arrived back at my place around noon, then spent an hour preoccupied in the sheets. After that came the shower we took together. In between, he skipped shaving, leaving himself with the look I liked best on him.
“I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “No. Probably not.”
“Then don’t.”
He looked at me like I was crazy.
I lifted an innocent shoulder. “It really doesn’t sound like you’re excited about him coming, so why put yourself through having to see him again? I mean, when it comes down to it isn’t it really that simple?”
Seth’s eyebrows knitted together. He gazed down at where our knees met. “He’s my father. I can’t just push him away.”
Why not?
Maybe I didn’t get it because my relationship with my own father was pretty decent. I did know enough to acknowledge that parent and child relationships weren’t always so black and white. Even if a parent was extreme enough to be outright abusive, there were still ties to that person. You didn’t just grow up and sever them with one quick cut. Even if people managed to break free, they still went off in the world and repeated the same bad cycles they’d learned in their childhoods.
“Can I ask you more about this?” I pressed.
He didn’t say anything but looked up at me. His face seemed open enough, so I went on.
“Did something happen between you two? Is this bigger than a difference in lifestyles?”
Seth shifted in his seat. “I told you about my grandfather, right?”
“You told me he left you an inheritance and that there was some kind of a falling out with your dad before you were born.”
“Right. The two of them never made up.”
“What do you mean? They never talked again?”
“Barely. At least that I know of. I think my grandfather tried a few times to repair things, but my dad shut him down. That’s the story from most of my relatives, at least. I know they communicated a small amount when I was a kid, to arrange stuff with me and all. But it was strictly business. If it wasn’t for my mom, I might never have even met my granddad. She’s the one who insisted I have some kind of relationship with him.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “Did that have anything to do with the divorce?”
“Probably not. By the time they got divorced, I was a grown up, so I don’t think so. Then again… maybe.”
“Resentments can stew for years.”
“Yeah… Anyway, years after all of that, just a couple years ago, my grandfather got sick, and my dad didn’t get a chance to see him before he died.” Seth paused. “I know he regrets that. He wishes he had said he was sorry before it was too late.”
My stomach twisted. “That’s awful. That’s a lot to carry.”
Seth’s face contorted as he stared at the ground. He was off somewhere else, probably experiencing a memory.
After a moment, he nodded and looked up at me. “It’s not that whole thing that’s the issue between me and my dad, though. Since I was a teenager, I was closer to my grandfather than to my dad. Me and my… well, it was just easier. My grandmother died when my dad was in college, and that’s when the rift started between the two of them.”
“What happened?”
His lips pressed tightly together. “They had a disagreement over life support. My dad wanted to take her off it, and my grandfather wanted to leave her on it.”
“Oh my God,” I gasped.
“She had a boating accident and was in a coma for a while.”
“What happened? I mean with the life support?”
“While they were arguing, she passed away. Literally. They were out in the hallway or something when her system started failing.”
I bit my bottom lip, so I wouldn’t curse. This story was turning out to be way heavier than I’d anticipated. Each new piece seemed crazier than the last. “Wasn’t it up to your grandfather though? If there had been time to make a choice, as the spouse he would have had first say.”
Seth’s head inclined in acknowledgment. “That just speaks to the complexities of their relationship. My granddad loved my dad. A lot. And he respected his ideas and wishes. Even after my grandma died, Grandpa wouldn’t talk about Dad a whole lot, but when he did it was always positive things.”
“Man… and what about your mother? Where does she fit into all this?”
“Not really at all. You saw she’s still there, living in the house I grew up in, though she’s not holding onto my dad, that’s for sure.”
“She seemed really happy to see you,” I added. “I think it made her day, and not just because she needed help moving all that stuff.”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “We’re good. I should go see her more.”
I took Seth’s hand in mine. He squeezed it lightly, and I pressed his hand in return.
“So you agree with your grandfather?” I asked. “Is that why you don’t like seeing your dad?”
Seth took in a long breath. I waited for his answer, but it didn’t come. Abruptly, he stood and walked to face the pool, his back turned to me.
“No,” he said to the backyard. “All of that happened before I was born. I don’t have much of an opinion on the issue. I can see both sides. My father… he can be…” Seth turned to look at me, his face hard. “He has a penchant for blaming things on me.”
I snorted. “Don’t worry, a lot of parents can be that way. People just expect the best out of their kids sometimes, I think. It’s because they believe in them so much.”
“No, it’s more than that.” Again, he looked at the ground, withdrawing.
“What is it? He has a grudge against you? He just doesn’t like you?”
Seth ran a hand from the back of his head to the front, making his hair stand straight up. “I need to hit the gym before I meet up with him.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Just like that, it became hard once more to tell myself I’d imagined his odd behavior the night before.
Push and pull. Expand and contract, just like a rubber band. That was Seth. One moment he could be pouring his heart out and the next he was running for the hills.
Were things supposed to be like this between the two of us? We’d already professed our love for each other, and that only happened two weeks ago. Wasn’t it fair to expect things to settle down for a little bit before the first real relationship issues reared their heads?
Did most boyfriends withdraw this way? My friends certainly didn’t. They shared everything with each other, putting all the trials and tribulations — the ups and downs — out onto the table for inspection. It was how they connected. How they healed. How they made sense of the world.
It didn’t seem to be that way with Seth. Again, I got the sense he hid something when it came to his parents. The whole thing with his mom the night before, and now this. Together the incidents were too much to ignore. Maybe whatever he hid wasn’t big but certainly important enough for him to feel like he needed to keep it in the shadows.
“Are you hiding something from me?” I blurted out. “Is there something else you want to tell me?”