The Inconceivable Life of Quinn

by Marianna Baer

  The Deeps. A still morning sea, the Deeps all asleep . . .

  That book. The Deeps. That was how it began. A still morning sea, the Deeps all asleep, ’til warmed by the sun they roll up the beach . . . But . . . Quinn shook her head to rid it of the digression. This wasn’t important.

  What was important was that she couldn’t have been swimming. This detail—the impossibility of the tide—had been there the whole time in her description of that night, and she hadn’t even noticed. Such a simple, simple thing.

  She kept walking around her room, Haven warm and solid in her arms. If it wasn’t true, she didn’t understand where that memory came from: that clear, vibrant memory of swimming in the ocean that night, of swimming with stars. Of the electric cold that had somehow made her feel warm. Of such a sublime, even transcendent, moment. Of feeling more alive and whole and Quinn than she ever had before.

  Had she made it up completely, to cover something ugly and horrible? Had she been drugged and hallucinating? Her brain hurt so much from the realization and all the questions it brought that her head felt as if it were going to burst. And as she was pacing and worrying, Jesse called and said that yes, she was right. If they were figuring the timing correctly—which they agreed they were—the tide hadn’t been high when she was down there. She couldn’t have been swimming. She’d been down there, in the middle of the night, naked, and she hadn’t been swimming. Even though she remembered it as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.

  “I can’t come back over right now,” Jesse whispered into his phone. “My mom . . . Give me an hour or so. Will you be okay till then?”

  “Of course,” Quinn said, although she wasn’t sure she would be.

  Her feet kept tracing a back-and-forth path as her mind went back and forth over the revelations and questions. Something had definitely happened that night, down on the beach—there was no denying it now. Something had happened to her. Not that swim. Not that beautiful, ecstatic swim. The time was lost—it could be anything! And the fact that this memory was false proved one thing: It proved that nothing she thought or felt or believed could be trusted. If she couldn’t believe herself, how did she know whom to believe? Someone had to be right. And it wasn’t those people on TV or those people who said it was the devil.

  Or maybe it was. Maybe Quinn knew she was bad because she was filled with some deep, primal evil. Maybe that was why she had worried that Jesse would realize something was wrong with her. Look what had happened to her family because of her. What is wrong with you?

  But she felt the baby was beautiful, didn’t she? Some deep instinct had told her not to get an abortion, despite all the challenges the pregnancy would bring. Where had that instinct come from? She had heard that voice: Beautiful. It was beautiful.

  Too many questions.

  All she wanted was for someone to give her the answers.

  QUINN

  The moment she stepped outside, a hush fell. The only sound was the soft thud of the front door shutting behind her. Even the air and trees paused and stood at shocked attention. From the top of the stoop, Quinn scanned all the faces, looking for the familiar red jacket and blue scarf. There. There she was, maneuvering herself forward through the momentarily frozen group of bodies down on the sidewalk.

  “Quinn?” Nicole said, breaking the silence. “Are you okay?”

  Before Quinn could say that she needed to talk to her, to ask her questions, to somehow figure out if she should believe her, the people came to life. There was a clank and squeal as the wrought-iron gate swung open, and the group surged through it and up the steps toward her as one solid mass of desperation. Quinn had no time to turn and go back inside; they were right up on her, and a hollow-faced woman was clutching her arm. Clutching it hard. Quinn stared down at the woman’s bird-bone hand, confused by her strength, and by the sudden contact, and all of the voices and faces.

  “I’m sick,” the woman said. “My lungs. You healed someone else. Please. Please help me. I’ve been waiting.”

  The bodies were all around her now. Quinn tried to press backward, but the door was closed. Breathe, Quinn. Breathe. Where was Nicole? She’d lost sight of her. She moved her free arm in front of her stomach, protecting the baby from the groping mob.

  “Just touching her is enough,” someone called from inside the mess of people. “Get out of the way!”

  “Blessed Virgin,” a man said. He had worked his way one body apart from her, and he was dirty and smelled and Quinn tried not to gag. “Help me,” he said. “Help me.” He reached for her hoodie and got one of the pockets. His overripe stench curled in her nose. Panic gripped her chest as tightly as he gripped the fabric.

  The steps were wide enough for a whole group to crush together on the top landing around Quinn. Calls of “Please! Please!” filled the air. “God wants you to help me,” someone said. And now the man in the plaid coat, yelling, “Get outta my way! It’s my turn!”

  Quinn couldn’t think what to do, how to open the door without turning her back on the people, without being crushed, trampled, torn apart. All of their desperate hands were reaching, touching, trying to get at any part of her. Even her feet. Nicole’s face appeared in the midst of bodies—saying something Quinn couldn’t hear. Then the door fell from behind Quinn, and she was pushed back as the crowd surged forward.

  “Don’t touch her!” Katherine yelled. “Get away from her!” She wedged herself in front so Quinn could try to get in the house, but the man still held on to her hoodie. Quinn tried to rip it out of his hand while her mother was yelling, and she was scared they were going to hurt Katherine because they were all shouting now, too. Shouting at her mother to get out of the way. Finally, finally Quinn got the fabric free and stumbled back into the entryway, and Katherine shoved at the mob, and Quinn didn’t know how her mother would get inside without letting them in, too, but then there was the sound of a siren, and in that moment the crowd paused, and Katherine made it inside and slammed the door and locked it, leaned against it, breathing heavily.

  Shouts from outside crashed through the door. People thumped on it with their fists, rattling the glass. The police siren wailed. Katherine grabbed Quinn’s wrist and led her quickly through the hall and down the stairs to the kitchen. Even there, in the back of the house, they could hear yelling. They sat at the table, breathing, listening . . .

  After a moment, Katherine said, “Quinn, what were you doing?”

  Quinn was shaking all over.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She kept repeating it, the only thing she could say.

  “Why did you go out there?”

  Instead of explaining, Quinn found herself saying, “Why didn’t you tell me? About that show. And what people are saying? All the articles and posts and videos. Why didn’t you tell me and why haven’t you told them it’s medically impossible? We can get my doctor to tell them. Why are you letting them say it? Why did you let it get so bad?” She stared at her mother through blurry eyes.

  “You know about it?” her mother said.

  She nodded and wiped her cheeks, tears falling heavily now. “I watched it at Jesse’s.”

  “Oh, Quinn.” Her mother reached over and hugged her.

  “We should have released the baby’s DNA information. Proven it’s not true.”

  “We don’t owe those people anything,” her mother said. “We’re following up on some things legally, but we don’t owe them any sort of proof. It’s just gossip. Disgusting gossip. We didn’t tell you because we didn’t want you to feel the added pressure. You’re already in such a difficult place.”

  Her mother’s words refocused Quinn’s thoughts, reminding her what had really spurred her to go out front—her realization about the tide. “I need to go to Maine,” she said, gathering herself. “Something happened there—I’m positive. I need to go and . . . I don’t know, just be there so I can remember. Because now that I know, I can make myself do it. I know I can.”

  “Oh, sweet
ie,” Katherine said. “I don’t think so.”

  Her mother didn’t understand. “I need to go to Maine,” Quinn repeated. “That’s the only way. I need to go to Maine.”

  * * *

  Hours later, Quinn lay in the bathtub, only her mouth and nose and knees out of the water. Snippets of conversation between her parents swam around her head. They hadn’t tried hard to keep her from overhearing, as if they thought she was so far gone, she wouldn’t even understand the words.

  “She’s not going to Maine,” her father had said. “Out of the question. That place . . . it’s dangerous for her. Never again. Never.”

  “Not now,” Katherine said. “That I agree with.”

  “Can we get Dr. Jacoby over here, since it’s an emergency? She’s not thinking straight. To go out there like that? After reading those letters even? Hassan already disabled her alarm code. Jesse’s, too. But she needs something . . . a residential program, maybe. She can’t stay here.”

  Quinn turned on the faucet again and lowered back down so her ears were underneath the waterline, trying to drown out the voices in her head, to replace them with the comforting sound of the gentle slosh and whir of the water. She shut her eyes and saw darkness and stars and somewhere deep and beautiful and protected. If that’s where she was slipping away to, she was ready to go.

  A still morning sea, the Deeps all asleep . . .

  A still morning sea, the Deeps all asleep, ’til warmed by the sun, they roll up the beach.

  Those words again.

  Quinn hurried out of the bath and back to her room, fished around in her desk drawer until she found that story she wrote when she was little, the one that Lydia had returned to her. She pulled out the boxes from under her bed and took out the scribbled blue drawings.

  “The deps are my frends.” That was what was written in the story, but she hadn’t meant the “deps.” It was just a spelling mistake. She’d meant the Deeps. And that’s what this drawing was, wasn’t it? The Deeps. Something in the ocean that Quinn used to believe in. Something written about in that children’s book her mother used to read to her. “A still morning sea, the Deeps all asleep.” The drawings weren’t of the sky. They weren’t of God. They were of the ocean.

  No more lies, Quinn! The Deeps aren’t real. There are no Deeps!

  The only safe way Quinn could think of to get to Southaven without her parents’ help was with Ben. Her father was shut up in his office. Her mother was in the shower. She crept into their room and scanned the night tables and dresser and then searched through her mom’s discarded clothes until she found her phone. She didn’t dare take the time to go upstairs to her own room, and instead just slipped into the hall and into the guest room.

  “Mom?” Ben said when he picked up. “I saw something on the news. Everything okay there?”

  “It’s me,” Quinn whispered. “I have to talk fast. I’m so sorry, Ben. I’m so sorry about everything and I wish I’d known and I completely understand why you don’t want to talk to me.”

  “Hold on,” he said. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you’re mad about the disgusting things everyone is saying and that’s why you haven’t answered my calls or texts. I get it and I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Quinn, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t heard from you in weeks. I tried to call you, but your phone just said, ‘This number is restricted’ or something. My texts were returned.”

  “You didn’t get my messages?”

  “No. None.”

  Quinn inhaled sharply. She didn’t know what this meant, but they didn’t have time to figure it out right now.

  “Where are you?” she said. “You’re not in Florida, are you?” Please, no.

  “I’m at Zach’s place. Why?”

  “I need you,” she said. “I need you to help me.” She went on to explain her plan as quickly as she could. She couldn’t go in and out of the front or kitchen doors because of the alarm situation, but the window was still an option. Her parents hadn’t realized that was how she got to Jesse’s to see the show.

  “I don’t know,” he said when she was finished. “With everything that’s going on, I don’t think it’s smart for me to take you away from home. I’m not exaggerating when I say I could imagine Dad issuing an Amber Alert. He . . . he doesn’t want me around you.”

  “Ben. If you don’t take me, I’ll take a bus. I swear to god. You don’t need to worry—I’ll take care of Dad.”

  “Please don’t take a bus, Quinn.”

  “I will. Tomorrow morning. There’s no way I’m not going to be on Southaven by tomorrow night. With or without you.”

  She went to bed, not knowing whether she’d really have the guts to do it, not knowing whether having tried to talk to Nicole would bring a whole new wave of desperate believers to the house, and not knowing whether she’d ever be able to prove to people that what so many of them thought about the family wasn’t true. How would she ever prove anything when her parents refused to release any information? And if people didn’t know the real truth, didn’t their own versions of it become more important? This story about her, written all over the Internet—it was there forever. Whatever people said was growing into the “truth.” It was out of Quinn’s control. It had everything to do with her, and nothing. Whichever group spouted their theory the loudest would win. She’d become who they wanted her to be.

  * * *

  She finally fell asleep and had another one of her dreams, a bit different this time. She was running in a meadow—dressed in her track uniform—and a mob of people was chasing her. She knew they wanted something, but she didn’t know if they thought she was good or evil, and she ran until she came to the edge of the meadow, where there was a sudden drop-off into the ocean, and she kept running off the cliff and landed in the water and sank down, down, down, into that starry blackness where the little girl was waiting. And this time Jesse was waiting down there for her, too.

  He touched her shoulder. “Quinn,” he said, shaking her. “Quinn.” And then the touch and the voice became too real. There was a pressure on her shoulder, yes. And a voice. But she wasn’t asleep.

  Her body seized in terror and she started to scream.

  A hand covered her mouth. She bit the flesh.

  “Ow,” Ben whispered, pulling away. “It’s me. Jesus.”

  She sat up. “What the hell are you doing? You scared the crap out of me.” She pressed a hand against her chest, heard herself thinking: He’s not going to hurt you. He’s not going to hurt you.

  “I changed my mind,” he said. “I trust you know what you’re doing. I’ll take you.”

  “What? Now?”

  “While Mom and Dad are asleep.”

  The fright of being woken like that left Quinn alert and energized. She began shoving clothes from the floor into her backpack.

  “How did you get in?” she asked. “The alarm . . .”

  He gestured at the window. “Is there anything you really need?” he whispered. “Pregnancy medications or whatever?”

  “Uh . . . just vitamins,” she said, trying to think if there was anything else.

  Courage. Clarity. Things she could only pray for.

  QUINN

  Soon after the sky started pinking, Quinn’s phone rang. She pulled it out of her hastily packed bag.

  “Thank god,” her mother said. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” Quinn said. “I told you not to worry.” She’d left a note explaining as best she could. And she did feel better than she had before. Her head and her intentions were clear now—much clearer than when she’d made the mistake of trying to talk to Nicole in front of all those people. She should have known something like that would happen. She’d just been so overwhelmed—the show, all the stuff on the web, the realization about that night on the beach . . . She’d latched onto the idea that Nicole might have some answers. But now, she saw her hope for what it was: another attempt to find an explanation that
wasn’t ugly, no matter how far-fetched it was. Nicole, and those people out there . . . they knew nothing about her or the baby. They were just looking for help wherever they could find it, making Quinn into something they could believe in, something that gave them hope.

  “We want you to come back,” her mother said. “Okay, Quinn? Right now. Let me talk to Ben.”

  “I’m putting you on speaker,” Quinn said and placed the phone on the console between them. “You weren’t going to take me, and I needed to go. So I asked Ben.”

  “Turn the car around, Ben,” Gabe’s voice said.

  “Dad,” Quinn said. “I need to be there. Give me one good reason I can’t.”

  “The reasons are obvious. And they should be to Ben, as well.”

  “She’s fine,” Ben said. “I’ll take care of her.”

  “I’m safer here than I am at home with all the people outside,” Quinn said. “No one saw us leave. I don’t really agree that the reasons are obvious. I can’t even think of one.”

  “Quinn?” Gabe said. “I don’t want you on that island. And I don’t want you to go with Ben. Those are your reasons.”

  “It was my idea,” she said. “Not his. He’s helping me.”

  “Do you want to tell her, Ben?” Gabe said. “Or should I?”

  “Dad,” Ben said, “it wasn’t what you thought.”