by Devney Perry
Quinn nearly collided into my chest. There was a bottle of ketchup in her grip. “Oh. Hi.”
“Hi.” From now until Monday morning, I wasn’t trusting a single word from my mother’s mouth.
“Your mom sent me over for ketchup.”
“Yeah. Me too.” I shook my head and let out a long sigh. After our kiss, I’d driven around for thirty minutes before coming over, hoping it would give Quinn some time to walk home and hide in her room as she’d been doing in the mornings.
Except with this mandatory dinner, there’d be no eluding her tonight. We couldn’t go into that house together, both looking guilty, because my mother the sleuth would sniff it out instantly.
Mom had always seemed to know when Quinn and I had been kissing, even before we’d announced that we were dating. She’d never called me on it, but she’d known.
“Can we talk?” I walked to the edge of the wide concrete pad, sitting down and looking over the yard. Mom’s flower beds were overflowing beside me. Every weekend, she’d throw a floppy hat over her dark hair, pull on some gloves and knee pads, and tend to her flowers for hours. Then she’d sneak over and help Ruby’s geraniums.
I breathed in the floral scent as Quinn sat down two feet away. She put the ketchup bottle between us. “I’m sorry about earlier. For the kiss.”
She nodded. “Same.”
“And I’m sorry for what I said. About you and Nixon and Jonas.”
“It’s nothing the tabloids haven’t said a hundred times.”
Is it true? I caught the question right before it came rushing out. Tabloids usually printed garbage but based the garbage on a shred of truth, right? Otherwise they’d get sued. Had I kissed another man’s woman? Quinn’s love life was none of my business. The less I knew, the better.
“About the singing. I get it. I had to sell my Chevy after you left. After the call, I just . . . couldn’t keep driving it around anymore.”
Every time I’d glanced at the passenger seat, I’d missed seeing her there. When I’d sit behind the wheel, I’d remember answering her call and how I’d beat my fist on the dash after she’d hung up.
We’d both been raw from a fight when I’d driven her to the airport the day she’d left. Bradley and Ruby had grounded her after discovering she’d been sneaking out to play with her band. I’d hated those asshole bandmates, but she’d loved to play. So I’d gone with her to as many practices as possible when I didn’t have football. She hadn’t told me about the house party gig, probably because she knew I would have insisted on going along or asked her to skip it.
After Bradley and Ruby found out, they’d gone ballistic, rightly so. Quinn could have been hurt and none of us would have known where to find her. They’d told her Seattle was out. She’d argued and then Bradley had threatened to disown her.
I hadn’t been there for the fight, but she’d replayed it for me, word for word, as tears streamed down her face.
I was pissed when she told me she’d snuck out. Mad that she’d kept it a secret. So I told her maybe Seattle wasn’t the right choice. I’d asked her to stay, to go to college with me, and after a year in the dorms, we could find a place together.
She’d stared at me in disbelief, then shot off my bed and raced home.
Leaving me to wonder what I’d said.
I realized now how wrong I’d been. What I should have done was support her.
Or gone with her.
Instead, I’d driven her to the airport when her parents had refused and hugged her goodbye.
How much strength had it taken for her to walk away? To go to college without a friend or the support from her parents? I’d been too brokenhearted then to admire her for that choice.
I was too stubborn now to admit it to her face.
Neither of us had talked about breaking up. Why would we? We were young and in love.
But the minute her plane took off, the minute I watched her soar into the sky from the airport parking lot, a knot settled in my gut.
Quinn left Montana and didn’t call me for three days. Three days in a row.
I didn’t call her either.
Because I knew the next phone call would be the end.
It was.
She called me from Seattle, crying before I’d even answered the phone, and whispered, “Do you think they are right?”
They, meaning everyone. My parents. Her parents. Friends. Strangers.
We were too young to know true love.
“Should we break up?” she’d asked.
My pride had stopped me from doing the right thing and telling her no. “Yeah. Probably.”
I’d been a stupid, eighteen-year-old kid. A stupid, broken boy, crying his eyes out in a Chevy truck.
“I liked that truck,” Quinn whispered, pulling me into the present.
“Me too.” I nodded. “But I would have had to sell it eventually. It wasn’t exactly a safe vehicle for a newborn.”
“Nan didn’t tell me much about Colin. About you and his mother. Where is she?”
“Gone.” I ran a hand over my hair, the movement giving me a chance to debate opening this window to the past.
Should I tell her about Dianne? It wasn’t an easy subject for me to discuss, but this was Quinn. Talking to her had always been easy. Not even Walker was as easy to confide in and the guy had been my friend since diapers.
“I met Dianne freshman year,” I said, leaning my elbows on my thighs. “She lived on my floor in the dorms.”
Dianne was the wild, crazy girl at the end of the hall who was always up for a party. I was the recluse who thought house parties were overrated and fraternity parties overcrowded. I studied, occasionally played pool at the student union with a few guys from my floor and met up with Walker once a week.
It was hard to be around him during that time. He reminded me too much of Quinn, but he didn’t talk about her and his apartment was always stocked with beer. Besides, he was just as angry with his sister for leaving as I had been. She hadn’t called him either.
She just left us.
“Colin is seven so . . .” Quinn trailed off, clearly having done the math.
I’d gotten Dianne pregnant our freshman year.
“I expected you to come home for Thanksgiving, but you didn’t. I waited for you to call. To come home. I was going to tell you that I would have left Montana. If Seattle was what you wanted, I would have left.”
Shock and anger flashed across her face. “You already knew Seattle was what I wanted. You knew why I had to get out of here. So don’t say you waited for me. You could have called me.”
“Our last phone call didn’t work out so well, did it? Forgive me for being wary of dialing your number. And according to Nan, you were happy. Living your dream. I was here, alone and miserable.”
“So you stopped waiting.” There was no blame in Quinn’s voice, only resignation.
“Dianne and I hooked up one night.” A night that had changed my life forever. I’d gone to a house party and spotted her from across the room. We’d guzzled Jack straight from the bottle and started making out. Then we’d hitched a ride back to the dorms and I’d spent the night in her room. “A week before finals, she came to my room and told me she was pregnant.”
We’d used a condom, I think. I’d been so drunk, I couldn’t remember much from that night. She’d been the first since Quinn, and I’d felt so dirty the next morning that I’d snuck out of Dianne’s room and taken two showers.
Quinn sat perfectly still, her back stiff and her arms wrapped around her stomach. The color had drained from her face. If listening to this story was painful, she should have lived it.
“Dianne wanted to get an abortion,” I said. “I told her I’d pay for it. Then I came home and told my parents.”
I’d broken down and cried in their living room, fearing I’d let them down. Fearing I’d let myself down.
Knowing I’d betrayed my love for Quinn.
“What made her decide not to go through w
ith it? The abortion?”
“I talked her out of it. Because of your dad.”
“My dad?”
I nodded. “He came over that day to invite Mom and Dad for dinner. He’d walked into the house, saw three pale faces streaked with tears and sat down at my side.”
“Did you get a lecture?”
“No.”
Quinn would think that because Bradley had given her countless lectures. She was his daughter. But she didn’t see how he was with other people. She didn’t see his patience or his kindness. Or maybe she did, but they’d been overshadowed. She expected the worst.
“Really?” She arched an eyebrow.
“Really. He just sat down and put his hand on my shoulder. Didn’t say a word. He sat there and listened as my parents and I talked it through. The abortion . . . it made me sick. I screwed up and yeah, having a kid that young wouldn’t be easy. But I just felt in my heart that it would be okay. That was my kid. Mine. There was love there, or the beginning of love. My parents offered to help. So did your dad. That was the first thing he said. ‘We love babysitting.’”
Quinn’s eyes widened. “My dad?”
“He’s changed too.” Losing his daughter had opened Bradley’s eyes.
“Hmm.” Her eyebrows came together as she thought it over. “So, Dianne?”
“I asked her if she’d consider keeping the baby. I would have supported her either way, but I told her I would be there. That I wanted to be there. She’d failed all of her classes that semester and her parents refused to pay for another year, so her choices were to stay in Bozeman and get a job or move home to Billings. She moved home, decided against the abortion and kept me up on the pregnancy. I visited a couple of times. And then in September, Colin was born.”
“Nan told me. She called me.”
When I’d held Colin in my arms, the first person I’d wanted to call had been Quinn. He’d been so perfect and tiny. I’d been scared shitless, but I loved him. Instantly. And for a split-second, I’d wanted to share the miracle with Quinn.
That feeling hadn’t lasted long once reality came crashing down. I’d held Colin, looked at Dianne, and known that day he wouldn’t have a mother.
“Dianne didn’t want to hold him. She wasn’t happy or excited. She was terrified. Five hours after he was born, she begged me to take him. She told me that she’d made a mistake. She wasn’t ready to be a mother.”
“So you brought him home.”
“Yeah. He slept the whole drive home, then screamed for two months straight.” I chuckled. “My parents saved my ass. Yours too. I moved in here and knew school wasn’t going to happen. So I got a job and did my best to survive. Dianne signed over all her rights and I haven’t heard from her since.”
There was no blame in my heart toward her, only gratitude. She’d given me a gift. Colin was the best thing in my life and for that I’d be eternally thankful.
“Do you think she’ll ever come back?” she asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know. But I won’t close that door to her if she does. If she wants to know Colin, I’m not going to get in her way.” There’d be rules and I’d set the tone for those visits, but I wouldn’t forbid them.
“Does he know about her?”
“Some, but he doesn’t ask often and usually we avoid the topic completely. I’m honest if he has questions.”
A car drove past, the neighbor across the street waving. The kids were yelling as they played in the Montgomery yard.
“I’m going to take this to your mom.” Quinn stood and picked up the ketchup.
“I’ll be over in a minute.”
She took one step before stopping. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, the same corner I’d kissed earlier, and I fought the urge to stand and capture that mouth again. Her smile broadened, though there was pain in her eyes. “Colin is a cool kid. You’re a good dad, Graham. I always knew you would be.”
She might as well have stabbed me in the chest.
“Thanks,” I said, watching as she walked away.
Fuck me.
When had I never loved that woman?
Maybe that kiss had woken me up. Maybe it had made me realize how goddamn lonely I’d been without her. I had Colin, but there was a corner of my heart that would always belong to Quinn.
I should have followed her nine years ago.
Because now it was too late.
Chapter Nine
Quinn
“Hey, Brookie—Brooklyn.” Whoops. My finger wave was met with a scowl as she closed the front door.
“Where’s Mom?” She scanned the living room as she bounced baby Bradley on her hip.
“She had to run to the church with Dad. They’re meeting with the caterer for tomorrow.”
She blinked. “And she left you with the kids?”
“I’m capable of keeping three kids alive for a couple hours.” I glanced at Colin, Evan and Maya playing on the floor, perfectly happy and safe under my watch.
Though I doubted Mom would have left me here with the kids if the baby would have been among today’s wards. Brooklyn had Fridays off and didn’t need a babysitter today.
“Would you like to sit?” I waved to the free space on the couch beside me.
Brooklyn harrumphed but sat.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Fine.”
She hadn’t been over last night for burgers. Her husband, Pete, had picked up Bradley and gone home for dinner. Since I’d arrived, Pete had given me a dozen pleasant smiles, but we hadn’t braved much conversation. He seemed wary, as if Brooklyn would label him a traitor if he spoke to me.
“Pete seems nice.”
She narrowed her eyes and set the baby on the carpet at her feet. He cooed and gnawed on a set of red, blue and yellow plastic keys. “Don’t, Quinn.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t pretend you care.”
“I’ve always cared.”
She scoffed. “You sure have a way of showing it.”
Brooklyn was the second runner-up to Dad’s silent treatment. The day I’d left, she’d basically stopped speaking to me. She’d been fifteen and busy as the popular girl in high school who’d played fall, winter and spring sports.
When I’d text and hardly get a short reply, I’d assumed it was because she was busy. She had her life happening and her older sister wasn’t around to pester her about how long she spent in the bathroom doing her hair and makeup.
Brooklyn and I had never been close. As teenage sisters, we hadn’t fought much; we just didn’t have anything in common. Where I’d tag along after Walker and Graham, Brooklyn was content doing her own thing with her own friends.
As the years passed and I texted with her less and less often, I’d chalked it up to sisters who’d drifted apart. She and Pete had gotten engaged after college. She hadn’t asked me to be her maid of honor, something that had bothered me more than I’d admitted.
But I’d planned to be at her wedding. I’d missed Walker and Mindy’s since they’d eloped.
The day Mom had told me about the engagement, I’d emailed her tour dates, something that had been set in stone for a year. In a twelve-week Montana summer, there were four blacked out weekends when we’d be in Europe.
Brooklyn had picked one of the four.
She’d wanted a June wedding and June had been impossible. Was that why she was so angry at me? Or because I only sent flowers after Bradley was born?
I opened my mouth to ask but closed it before speaking. Maybe this was on me to fix, but I never knew how to talk to Brooklyn.
That hadn’t changed.
“How’s your band?” She infused the last word with more disdain than even Graham could conjure.
“They’re good.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Why ask if you don’t want the answer?”
“I’m being polite,” she snapped. “I don’t care about you or your band.”
Colin’s head snapped up from the L
egos he and Evan were playing with on the floor.
“Do you guys want to put your shoes on and go play outside?” I offered.
“Yeah!” Evan shot up first.
I winked at Colin as he followed. The kid was bright—he knew there was tension between me and my sister—but he simply went with Evan to put on his shoes. Maya was lost in an app on the pink tablet Walker had brought with her this morning, insisting she only get two hours of screen time.
Mom, the wise grandmother, had allotted those two hours to the hours when I would be watching her.
When the sliding door opened and the boys were outside, I angled myself on the couch to face Brooklyn. “Don’t be polite. Say what you have to say.”
“You didn’t just leave Graham behind when you disappeared to become famous. You left the rest of us too.”
Would it matter if I hadn’t become famous? Would there be so much resentment toward me if I was a starving musician playing in small bars and surviving from gig to gig?
“I’m not sorry I left, but I am sorry we lost touch.” After the fight, after Graham and I had broken up, after navigating the first few days of college feeling helpless and alone, I’d shut out the world.
I’d put up my guard.
The only person who’d shoved her way through had been Nan. Even if there wasn’t anything to discuss, even if our conversation lasted three minutes, she’d never stopped calling.
She hadn’t let me walk away from her.
Maybe I needed to take her lead and not let Brooklyn push me away either.
“I don’t know how to talk to you,” I admitted. “I missed a lot of your life. You missed a lot of mine. We’re different people than the girls who lived here once. But maybe we could start over and get to know each other now.”
“It’s too late.” She bent and scooped up her son. “You cut us out, Quinn. Don’t pretend you aren’t going to leave after the funeral and do a repeat performance.”
Without another word, she was out the door and marching to her car parked on the street.
I watched her through the window as she loaded Bradley into his car seat and raced away.
A pang of regret hit because she wasn’t wrong.