The Inconceivable Life of Quinn

by Marianna Baer

  Blessed Virgin,

  People think you are lying but those of us with true faith are willing to open our hearts to the idea you are who you say you are. We send you love and we send your miracle baby love. In the end truth will be revealed as it always is. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the sacrifices you are making for us all.

  With love, Michelle DiGustera

  Quinn set it aside and opened another, a drugstore-type card picturing a bouquet of roses. Inside, the handwriting was spidery and slanted, hard to make out.

  My life is full of trials today. It gives me strength to know you are near. I wish you will pray for me & pray for my children, and the good outcome of my medical tests this week. And that my brother passes his exam. Knowing I can ask you this I feel full of more hope in tomorrow. Thank you so much. Love, D. Matthes.

  The third card was handmade—a child’s drawing of a big person and a small person and an unidentifiable type of animal. In kid’s writing it said: My cat is sik. That was all. Quinn felt a twinge in her chest. She slipped the envelopes into her waistband and shoved the box back under the bench.

  Later in the day, she heard raised voices coming from out front. Then a dog barking and a woman saying something that sounded like “Watch out!” Quinn eased back one of the curtains in the living room a couple of inches and cracked the window so she could hear better. The Cutlers’ neighbors, a burly older man named Dave and his tiny wife, Georgia, were standing in front of the house with their Rottweiler. The people had backed up a few steps, forming a space around them. “You don’t like it?” Dave said, waving an arm. “Get off the block! Go make a mess of your own blocks, assholes!” He stomped off with the dog. Georgia looked around and said, “This isn’t the dark ages you know. They’ll test that baby and find DNA from a father. How’re you going to explain that? Huh?”

  “God created DNA!” someone shouted back. “He can create whatever he wants!”

  Georgia shook her head and followed her husband.

  The people moved forward again. Around twenty of them. More women than men, mostly middle-aged; a couple of elderly; three children standing around a man in a wheelchair. A variety of races. No press at the moment—not that Quinn could see, at least. And while there wasn’t anything outwardly pathetic about most of the people, there was still an obvious exhaustion . . . desperation . . .

  She wondered if any of them had written the letters she had read. You’ve got the wrong girl, she wanted to tell them. I wish I could help you, but I can’t.

  She shifted her gaze and unexpectedly met the eyes of one of the women. A youngish woman in a vibrant red coat and blue scarf. For a moment, Quinn was locked into eye contact. The look the woman gave back wasn’t crazy or desperate. Her expression was calm and aware, like Quinn could have asked her any questions and she’d explain everything to her. There was something familiar about her, too. Quinn recognized her from somewhere else.

  Footsteps echoed from the stairs up from the kitchen.

  Quinn quickly closed the drape and moved away.

  GABE CUTLER

  Heading upstairs after getting a cup of coffee, Gabe was reminded by the noises from out front that he should make a sweep of the “offerings” on the fence. He was annoyed to see that Katherine had left the box full of the last batch of crap in the foyer. How long had it been sitting there? He hated the idea of those things lingering, as if they had some sort of disease that would spread into the air of the house. He carried the full box up to his office.

  After putting the objects into a trash bag, he sat at his desk, sorting through the cards and letters and notes, setting aside ones to pass along to his connection in the police department. The first bunch were harmless, as most of them had been since this all started. Pathetic, but harmless.

  He unfolded a dirty piece of paper. One side was a printed flyer for a car wash. On the other side was handwritten: Duderonomy 22:20–1 If however the charge is true and no prove of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her fathers house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death.

  Jaw clenched, he set it in the “Don’t shred” pile, along with other threats and screeds about his disgusting, devil-worshipping daughter.

  His shredder was jammed. He took the letters—the unthreatening ones that didn’t need to be saved—into the living room and set them in the fireplace in a teepee arrangement. It was a damp day, though, and he had trouble lighting them. As he tried, he remembered another fire, lit years ago with a similar intent.

  He’d lit the fire down on the beach at Holmes Cove, so there’d be no chance of it spreading. Had nestled the two thick envelopes—one meant for him, one meant for Quinn when she was older—in the middle of a group of stones. He’d gone through a whole box of matches. None would stay lit for more than a second, as if the fire was in cahoots with his mother. (You must be the one to tell her, Gabriel! My father died before he could tell me. Listen to me, Gabriel!) He’d gone up to the house and gotten the lighter for the fireplace, which had done the trick. Flames had eaten up the paper. Gone, as if the words inside had never existed.

  As he watched the flames here in his living room fireplace, his phone buzzed.

  “What’s up, Taylor?” he said, tired of seeing her name on his screen. It was never good news. And the way things were going, probably never would be.

  “That producer called again.”

  “Ben’s?” Gabe began to pace, not wanting to think about the email he’d sent Ben that had likely ensured he wouldn’t see him for a long time. Not that he wanted to see him anytime soon, but still . . . it didn’t make him happy.

  “No, no,” Taylor said. “From The Preston Brown Show.”

  Gabe closed his eyes and rubbed them. “What if we get out now? Would that stop it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Taylor said. “Gabe . . . it’s going to be bad.”

  QUINN

  The next day, her father’s tech guy, Hassan, came over to configure Quinn’s laptop. Thank god. Contact with civilization. She needed to get in touch with Sadie.

  “So I’ll be able to go online like normal?” she asked him as he worked.

  “Huh?” he said, not looking away from the screen.

  “You know, email and stuff?”

  “Oh,” he said. “No, not like that.”

  “No? Don’t I have to be connected to Wi-Fi to stream my classes?”

  He peered over his shoulder at her. “Sure, you’ll be connected. But it’s just going to be set up so you can access your classes and the message board. That’s it.”

  “Seriously?” Quinn blurted. She’d have no way to contact Sadie. No way to connect with anyone outside the house. For months.

  “Sorry,” Hassan said with a shrug.

  Her world was going to be as small as a drop of water.

  She was taking an early evening bath trying in vain to soothe both her frustration and her skin, which felt like it didn’t even fit on her body anymore even though her belly wasn’t that big yet, when her mother knocked on the bathroom door. “Sweetie?” she called. “Jesse’s here.”

  “He is?” she said, shocked. “Tell him to wait. I’ll be right there.” Jesse is here? She quickly got out of the bath and rushed through drying off and slipping into the same clothes she’d had on before—yoga pants and a hoodie, pretty much the only things she wore now. She towel-dried her hair but didn’t bother brushing it, scared he’d leave if she took too long. Jesse is here!

  She hurried downstairs, telling her feet not to outright run even though they wanted to, and took a moment to smooth down her damp hair and compose herself before going into the kitchen. He was standing with his arms crossed, a manila envelope in one hand, shifting from foot to foot. Her chest ached at the sight of his messy waves of brown hair and warm eyes. Like always, all she wanted was to kiss him and wrap him in a hug and smell his Jesse smell. She wanted to hug the breath out of him and never let go.

  “Hey,�
�� she said. “What’s up?” You still love me? You miss me?

  “Hey.” His expression was frustratingly neutral. “Mr. D asked if I’d be your ‘liaison’ for anything that can’t be emailed. Books, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh.” Quinn swallowed her disappointment that he wasn’t here of his own accord. But at least this meant she would get to see him occasionally. That was huge. “Is that . . . Do you mind?”

  “Whatever. It’s fine,” he said. “Makes the most sense, since I can come in the back way.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

  “No problem. You wouldn’t want anyone coming in the front door. Man.”

  “You walked by?”

  He nodded. “I was glad there was a police car. Anyway, this is what Mr. D gave me for you.” He reached forward to hand her the envelope.

  “Thanks.”

  He hesitated, lips slightly parted, like he had something else to say.

  “What?” she said.

  “You . . . you smell like you.”

  The words squeezed her heart. “Shampoo,” she said, pointing stupidly at her hair.

  They stood, silent, awkward, until he said he better go.

  After he left, she waited at the kitchen door and watched him make his way across the backyard. He usually bounced when he walked, like gravity had a hard time keeping him down. Today, gravity seemed to have won. Once he was out of sight, she opened the envelope with an irrational hope that there’d be something inside, a note from him, something he couldn’t say out loud. There wasn’t.

  But there was an envelope from Sadie.

  Sadie had gotten into Marco and Foley’s accounts and found one thing: a photo that Foley had sent to someone of Marco, passed out and shirtless, with a paper crown on his head and graffiti scrawled on his torso, and the caption: “Behold, Prince Marco. A worthy farewell to his kingdom!”

  It’s from the day after the party, Sadie wrote in a note. I guess all it proves is that he was wasted that night. Sorry I didn’t come up with anything else. Love you. Hope you’re okay. Call me when you can. XOXO

  Quinn stared at it, pacing around her bedroom. Marco had been messed up enough to pass out. Maybe he’d lost his reluctance to hook up with her? Decided it didn’t matter he had a girlfriend? It still didn’t explain why he’d have told Ben he saw her down there at all, of course, instead of denying everything completely. But it could mean something. It definitely could. Ben had said that Marco said Quinn saw his flashlight. Maybe he was trying to cover himself by admitting that he had been down there?

  She needed to see Marco in person. She needed to judge her reaction to him, his reaction to her. And to ask him to do a DNA test, if it came to that. If he hadn’t done anything, he’d have no reason to refuse.

  Her mother was talking on the phone in her bedroom when Quinn found her. “Of course it’s not true,” Katherine was saying angrily. “How could you even—no, don’t bother. Don’t bother calling back if that’s what you think.” She hung up and looked startled to see Quinn. “Oh, hi. What do you need, sweetie?”

  “I need Ben’s number in my phone,” Quinn said. “Now. And Jesse’s and Sadie’s, too.” She’d asked a couple of times already.

  “Okay, but I can’t deal with it right now. I don’t know how to program that thing anyway.”

  “Mom, it’s important. I should be able to call my own brother.”

  “I know. I just . . . I’m sorry. When one of your dad’s staff is here, we’ll get them to do it.”

  Quinn felt the hum of panic beginning in her chest. “But I need to talk to Ben now. Today. You can’t cut me off from everyone.”

  “Quinn!” Katherine snapped. “Did you not hear me? I said I’d get it done. Just give me a break here! There’s more important stuff on my mind.”

  The unfamiliar sound of her mother yelling shocked Quinn into momentary silence.

  “I’m sorry,” Katherine said after a minute. “Here, use mine to call him.” She held her phone out to Quinn, whose hand trembled a bit as she took it.

  Quinn started out of the room.

  “Call him from here,” Katherine said.

  “I can’t have privacy?”

  Her mother rubbed her temples. “Don’t give me a hard time about this. We’ll get his number in your phone soon, then you can talk wherever you want.”

  Quinn realized that her mother didn’t trust her with a smartphone. Didn’t trust her not to go online, probably. And it was obvious she wasn’t going to give in. So Quinn called Ben as she stood there, hot with annoyance, not quite sure how she’d explain about Marco with her mother listening. She got his voicemail, anyway.

  * * *

  That night in her dream, Quinn was holding her baby in her arms as she swam down, down, down into the watery depths.

  Marco was waiting for them.

  “You have to go away,” Quinn said to him. “I’m not allowed to be friends with you.”

  “Can you call me?” he said.

  Quinn held tighter to her baby. “No. You’re dangerous.”

  And then, all of a sudden, Marco wasn’t Marco. He was her father. “I’m not dangerous,” Gabe said. “You’re safe down here.”

  As he said it, the lanternfish began to swirl around them. “You’re safe,” her father said again. And Quinn let go of the baby, and it swam away, and she hugged her father.

  Then, like the time before, Quinn realized that she wasn’t herself. She was her grandmother. And somehow she knew that the baby that swam away was her baby that had died, before Gabe was born.

  “You didn’t tell her,” she whispered to Gabe, her son, as she hugged him. “But don’t worry. I forgive you.”

  QUINN

  “You seem especially frustrated today,” Dr. Jacoby said, narrowing her eyes a bit. “Is something going on?”

  Quinn realized Dr. Jacoby was looking at where she’d scratched her arm raw. She pulled down her sleeve. None of the pregnancy books said anything about skin symptoms outside of places affected by pregnancy weight—belly, butt, hips—the places where Quinn was starting to see stretch marks. But Quinn’s skin symptoms went way beyond that. It was so uncomfortable everywhere that she wanted to wriggle out of it entirely.

  Not that that’s what she was most frustrated about at the moment. She was frustrated with her brother.

  He’d never called back on her mom’s phone. She’d finally gotten his number (and Jesse’s) programmed into her own and had spent the last couple of days texting him and leaving voicemails. She’d expected him to answer right away, but he hadn’t. His voicemail was one of those pre-set ones, so she had Hassan double-check that he’d put in the right number. He showed her the number Gabe had given him, and yes, he’d entered it correctly. Which meant that Ben was purposefully ignoring her. Either that or he didn’t get reception wherever he was traveling for work, but that seemed really unlikely.

  He’d told her that she should call if she needed him. And now she had, and he was ignoring her.

  She couldn’t tell Dr. Jacoby about any of this, though, because she didn’t want to admit that the reason she was so desperate to talk to Ben was so he could take her to see Marco in New Haven. Quinn wasn’t sure if doctor-patient confidentiality would extend to something like that and couldn’t risk Dr. Jacoby telling her parents. (She’d considered telling her parents about Marco, and her suspicions about that night, but had visions of her father taking action on his own, getting lawyers to subpoena Marco to do a DNA test, confronting him himself . . . Quinn needed to be a hundred times more sure than she was now that Marco was involved before setting all that in motion.)

  Anyway, there were plenty of other things she was frustrated about to mention to Dr. Jacoby.

  “I keep having those dreams,” she said, standing up and beginning to pace. “You know, the underwater ones. And more often now, I’m my grandmother for at least part of the dream. And . . . the thing is that the dreams are so beautiful when I’m in
them. And when I wake up, I’m so . . . happy. It’s like my brain is purposefully avoiding reality.”

  “What do you think it means, dreaming that you’re your grandmother?” Dr. Jacoby said. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe there’s only one correct interpretation. But I’m wondering what occurs to you.”

  Quinn sat back down in her chair. “That I feel guilty because I’ve messed up my dad’s life as much as she did?”

  “The guilt you feel might have something to do with it, sure,” Dr. Jacoby said. “What about the fact that the dreams take place underwater? Your grandmother drowned, right? That’s how she took her life?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Were you thinking about her at all when you went for that midnight swim last May, after you kissed Marco?”

  Quinn was confused by her train of thought. “What do you mean? No. Why would I have been thinking of her?”

  “Well, it seems pretty risky to have gone swimming at night like that, alone, at a beach with tricky currents. So I’m just wondering if you remember thinking about the fact that she’d drowned.”

  “Wait,” Quinn said, shifting in her seat. “Are you asking if I was trying to kill myself?”

  “Not necessarily actively trying. But, yes, I’m wondering if you think you might have been tempting fate.”

  Quinn couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “It wasn’t like that. Not at all! I’m a really good swimmer. I didn’t need to stay out of the ocean all those years. And I was happy that day.”

  Dr. Jacoby laced her fingers together. “But the last time you’d swum at that beach—the last time you were in the ocean at all—you almost drowned, didn’t you?”

  “Not the last time. I kept swimming there for the rest of that summer, until my dad found out and got mad.” His wet khaki pants as he charged through the water, the pain in her arm, his hand coming toward her . . .

  “He was mad because you were taking risks?”

  Quinn nodded.

  What is wrong with you?