Little Wonders

by Kate Rorick

  When Quinn Barrett decided to pursue imperfection, she went full tilt.

  Ham had a marvelous time. It took him a minute to loosen up too, but once he figured out that it was okay to run around and have fun here, he went into it with the gusto of . . . well, a three-year-old at Disney World.

  It was a blur of junk food and cartoon characters and castles and sunshine. A week of specific memories that she couldn’t remember at the moment, just the overall sense of good feeling.

  There were a couple of tantrums, brought on by too much sun and not enough naptime. (And one Quinn tantrum as the result of a really inadequate wine at the resort.) But there were no potty accidents. And more than anything, every time Quinn thought the chaos was going to get to her, she looked at the text that Daisy had sent her.

  Daisy: I’ve never seen Ham grin so hard as he did when he saw you at pickup today.

  And remembering that made her just . . . embrace the chaos.

  Her mom, who they spent a few nights with at her condo before they decided it was better to get a hotel at the resort, noticed the change.

  “You seem happier than I expected you to be.”

  They were on her mom’s balcony, overlooking the green vistas of a very average golf course as night fell. Ham had conked out after a long day in the park, dreaming no doubt of swimming with the Little Mermaid or something similar. And Quinn had come out here to restrain herself from rearranging her mother’s living room furniture (which was laid out horribly, she practically tripped over footstools with every step).

  Her mother knew about the videos. And now, she knew about Stuart. No amount of Quinn saying, “Everything’s fine, Mom” on the phone could keep her from inferring the truth.

  “Happier than you expected?”

  “More relaxed.”

  Ah. Well. She supposed throwing all the rules out the window and letting her son go crazy in Fantasy Land helped with the relaxation.

  “I gave up on . . . something I thought was important. Took a page out of your book,” Quinn replied.

  Her mom cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

  “You know, Mom . . . you took up knitting for six months and I have one holey scarf to prove it. You tried stained glass art, guitar, clock making, Argentine tango, American Sign Language, and three different boyfriends my freshman year of high school. No wonder I craved perfection.”

  “That’s not very fair. I was always pursuing a passion.”

  “Really? How’s your Etsy shop going?”

  Her mother slanted her a side eye and took a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get into a fight—”

  “I never gave up on what was important,” her mother said stiffly.

  “You mean the pursuit of passion?” Quinn tried gently. “I suppose that’s not . . . ignoble . . .”

  “No, sweetie. I mean you,” her mother said, coming over and planting a kiss on Quinn’s furrowed brow. “I wanted to give you a full life. And me as well. Was it chaotic? Yes. Did I fail at some things? Yes. But I never never gave up.”

  Her mother gathered up the glasses, made to go inside.

  “Mom,” Quinn said, calling her mother back. “You didn’t fail. I . . . I turned out okay.”

  Her mom had smiled at her, sniffling up a few tears.

  “In the end, that’s all any parent wants.”

  Quinn had thought about that conversation the entire rest of the trip, the three-hour (and fifteen-minute) flight home, and the drive from Logan.

  She was okay. The weight of judgment from the world didn’t come from her mother, she certainly hadn’t felt it as a child. When had she started letting the world dictate what she was going to be?

  She glanced to the backseat. Ham was singing along to the horrific earworm of “It’s a Small World.”

  “It’s a world of laughter a world of tears . . . it’s a world of hopping, a world of fins . . .”

  He definitely dreamed about the Little Mermaid.

  She didn’t want this to end. Well, she wanted the “Small” concert to end, but not really. She wanted a full life. Not one structured and rigorous, not one where she fought against the tide of chaos, but one where she embraced it. Being on vacation had been a break from reality, how to continue this feeling when they had a schedule to hold to?

  “How you doing, Ham?” she said into the rearview mirror.

  “Good.”

  “Ready to be home?”

  “Yeah. But I miss Mickey. And Goofy.”

  “And Donald and Pluto.”

  “We didn’t see Pluto.”

  “We didn’t?” she replied as they took the off ramp to Needleton. There was a billboard there for the local ASPCA. Ham always barked at it when they passed.

  He didn’t this time, his focus was out the other window, thinking of the missing Pluto, no doubt. The ASPCA.

  She nearly swerved, her eyes unable to break from the sign until the last second.

  A dog. How long had she wanted a dog? But she never even floated the subject with Stuart, knowing he would grumble objections.

  But Stuart had removed himself from the decision.

  This was just the kind of chaos she’d been looking for.

  “Where are we going?” Ham asked, as she turned down an unfamiliar road.

  “We’re going to go see Pluto, buddy.”

  * * *

  Hamilton and Pluto, a two-year-old, housebroken (they promised he was housebroken) mostly Ridgeback-mixed-with-something-unknown mutt, had become best friends the second they laid eyes on each other. It was as if Hamilton’s heart said, “That’s my dog!” and Pluto’s said, “That’s my boy!”

  They were allowed to take the dog home for fostering that day. There would be a home visit later in the week, but when she gave her address (a nice street, with lots of nice acreage to run around on) and the ASPCA worker saw Hamilton with the dog, they made allowances.

  The donation she pledged no doubt didn’t hurt.

  They stopped by the pet store on the way home, picking up a dog bed, food, bowls, and a bunch of fun toys that Hamilton decided were absolutely necessary.

  She was driving blissfully along, trying to remember what was in their pantry that they could have for dinner, listening to her son comfort the dog whimpering in the carrier in the back.

  “Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay. You’re going to come home with us. And my mommy will be there, and my daddy will too—”

  Well, there was the knife twist. Ham obviously knew his daddy hadn’t been home, but she hadn’t told him anything other than he was working. He hadn’t even picked up the phone when she’d called to tell him about their Disney trip. She’d left a half dozen messages on his voice mail, and then finally one with Charlene, his scheduler. It was the only way she had any assurance that he actually got the message.

  Stuart was absent. Had made himself absent. And she knew, after two months, she needed to start telling her son something.

  But as she turned into their driveway, she realized she couldn’t tell a three-and-a-half-year-old after a week at Disney and getting a dog named Pluto that his dad wasn’t coming home anytime soon. She wasn’t that brave.

  “Ham, sweetie. You know Daddy has to work a lot . . .”

  “Daddy!!!”

  “Ham, sweetie—”

  “See, Pluto? I told you! Daddy’s here!”

  Quinn slammed on the brakes, squealing to a halt.

  Because Stuart Evelyn Barrett was waiting on her—well, their—doorstep.

  Shivering in his wool coat. A bunch of flowers in his hand.

  Her husband had come home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The first day after the Little Wonders spring break, Daisy McGulch Stone strolled into the Cranberry Boutique, threw off her heavy jacket, and took her place on the sales floor.

  She stood there for approximately thirty seconds before Elaine came running in from the back.

  “Daisy!” Elaine s
aid, unable to hide her alarm. “Your hair!”

  “Yes, I had it done. About time too, my mother would have been livid if she saw the number of grays I was letting see the light of day.”

  “But it’s . . . it’s . . .”

  “Purple,” Daisy said. “Well, actually the color was called Lavender Shock.”

  Elaine let out a breath. “Shock is not inaccurate.”

  When Daisy had pulled into that drugstore, she had been met with a rainbow of choices from white blond to auburn to pitch black. But an actual rainbow was harder to find. So, she had held on to her conviction but resorted to the internet for her favorite LA-based salon supply shop (Juliana the makeup genius had hooked her up with that) and decided that blue was so last season. This year, she was going Holdo purple.

  Her internet order—in a sleek black box with an obscure name, Robbie probably thought she was ordering sex toys—had arrived the day before spring break, which strategically was ideal. She had taken off work for the week since Carrie didn’t have school. The first day they were left home alone, they broke open the box, and dyed Mommy’s hair.

  Carrie was so excited to watch. She was even more excited when Daisy gave her a purple stripe.

  Yep, Daisy was the mom who dyed her three-year-old’s hair.

  And Carrie loved it.

  So did Quinn—Daisy had texted her a picture while Quinn was in Florida, and Quinn flipped out, in a good way. Then texted back pictures of her mom’s octogenarian purple-haired neighbors.

  Quinn: You think you’re soooooo avant garde.