Little Broken Things

by Nicole Baart

  Quinn raised an eyebrow. “You’re not involved in anything illegal, are you?”

  “No,” Nora said quickly, but the truth was, she had no idea if what she was doing was illegal. “No, it’s not illegal. I just need to know that you’re going to take this seriously. That you’re going to do what I’m asking you to do.”

  “Fine,” Quinn said.

  “No, not fine. That’s not good enough.”

  “Damn it, Nora. What do you want from me?” Quinn threw up her hands. “I don’t even know what I’m promising!”

  “That you’ll be careful and wise. That you won’t tell anyone … what I’ve given you. That you’ll trust me to take care of things and not take matters into your own hands.”

  “You’re scaring me.” Quinn crossed her arms over her chest, and the protective movement reminded Nora of when Quinn was little and would hide from JJ with her arms folded over her head as if the act of covering herself alone made her invisible.

  “There’s nothing to be scared of.” But Nora wasn’t so sure of that. “It’s just a bit of a crazy situation and I really need someone I can trust. I trust you, Q. I believe that you’ll do the right thing.”

  Quinn bit her lip as she considered this, but Nora could tell that she had gotten through. Her younger sister loved people. Loved them unabashedly and to a fault. It made her an easy target, though Quinn was far from gullible. She didn’t comply because she didn’t understand the implications, she just sincerely wanted to be helpful. To make everyone happy. To promote peace. There weren’t many people in the world as caring and guileless as Quinn Sanford. No, Cruz. Nora wondered if she’d ever get used to that. And she wondered if she could ever forgive herself for using Quinn in this way. For putting her in danger? But no, there would be no danger. They had worked out every detail.

  “What do you want from me?” Quinn asked.

  But Nora had already turned to the car. She didn’t see Quinn’s expression change from skeptical to hopeful, and if she had, she wouldn’t have known what to make of such unvarnished wistfulness anyway. Instead of worrying about her sister, Nora pulled open the passenger side back door and bent low.

  “We’re here,” she said, smoothing corkscrew curls away from the tender curve of her cheek. The child was uncovered to her shoulders, but in the faint glow of the dashboard lights Nora could see that not much had changed. She was staring straight ahead, her emotions buttoned tight as a corset and her little jaw fixed.

  “Hey,” Nora whispered, her resolve weakened by the child’s combination of strength and vulnerability. “You’re going to like Quinn. She’s my sister. She’s really, really nice, and she makes the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had. You like chocolate chip cookies, don’t you?”

  The girl blinked slowly, but otherwise didn’t move or acknowledge that Nora had spoken at all.

  “And she loves to read books. With voices.” Nora had no idea if there were children’s books in the cabin, but surely Quinn would rise to the occasion. Would make trips to the library and the quaint gift shop on Main to buy a plush lovey that Everlee could snuggle while they curled up and read together. No. No trips anywhere.

  And not Everlee. She couldn’t call her that anymore. At least, not out loud.

  “Have you thought about a name?” Nora asked. “We’re going to take a little break from Everlee for a couple of days. Remember?” She eased herself onto the bench seat beside the girl’s bowed head. A part of her wanted to scoop up the blanketed bundle and brush her lips against the place where the child’s hairline formed the bow of a perfect heart. She wanted to call her buttercup and tickle the spot beneath her slight rib cage that always elicited a giggle.

  Instead, Nora sighed and patted her shoulder. “Come on, sweetie. It’s time to go, okay?” And because she still didn’t answer, didn’t protest at all, Nora slid her hands underneath the balled-up six-year-old and awkwardly cradled her. She should have been heavier than she was, at least Nora thought so, and she made a mental note to suggest that Quinn feed her more. Peanut butter and eggs and chunky guacamole with chips. Things to put some meat on her tiny bird bones.

  It was difficult to ease out of the car with the child in her arms, but Nora managed. As she stood, she intentionally avoided looking at Quinn. She focused instead on securing the weight in her embrace, on the short list of things that she had to convey. Don’t overdo it on the dairy. Make sure there is a stockpile of ketchup. And whatever you do, keep her hidden.

  “Nora?” Quinn’s voice was a high squeak. She hurried over to where her sister stood, still trying to shift and shoulder the bulk against her chest. Quinn extended a hand to fold back the blanket and regard the girl circled in Nora’s embrace. “Who is this?”

  “A friend.” Nora rushed on before Quinn could ask more questions. “I need you to keep her for a while. It’s a long story and I’ll tell you later, but for now I need you to trust me. I need you to please just do what I ask.”

  A note of desperation rang in her voice even though she had tried to sound casual. There was nothing casual about this. No way to downplay the fact that there was a child cradled between them.

  “Nora.” Quinn’s wide eyes spoke volumes. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “You have to.” Nora gave up trying to comfortably hold the girl and set her down on the gravel road. She unwrapped the blanket, folded it over once, and then settled it over the child’s narrow shoulders. Nora half expected her to start crying again, or at least complain, but she just stood there, mute, and stared at the ground by her feet. “Promise me you’ll keep her safe.”

  “Nora—”

  “Don’t let anyone know that she’s staying with you, okay? Not Mom and not—” Her voice snagged in her throat. She swallowed hard. “Not JJ, okay?”

  “Yeah, ’cause I tell JJ everything.” Quinn rolled her eyes. “We’re BFFs. Come on, can we please talk about this? Alone?”

  Nora put her hand over the girl’s mussed curls. “No. We can’t. I need you to take care of her for a couple of days while I sort something out. She’s the sweetest thing, Q. It’ll be a piece of cake. And when this is all over I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”

  Quinn was shaking her head. “I don’t want you to make anything up to me, but you can’t do this. You can’t just leave her here, Nora. She doesn’t even know me. I don’t know her. What’s her name?” Seemingly thinking better of her question, Quinn sank to her knees and gave the child before her a warm, if hesitant, smile. “What’s your name, honey?”

  Nora saw her chance. She ruffled the girl’s hair with what she hoped was a tangible affection and then hurried over to the car. It was running, her door open, and she was inside before Quinn could realize what was happening. Rolling down the passenger window, Nora called through it as she backed down the long drive. “Don’t tell anyone where she came from, okay? Just stay home for a couple days. Promise me, please.”

  “Nora!” Quinn lunged up and jogged beside the car, her hand on the plane of the half-open window. “Please don’t do this to me. I don’t know anything about kids. She’s clearly terrified. I don’t even know her name!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Nora called through the open window. And then, changing her mind, she said, “Lucy. You can call her Lucy. Take care of her, Quinn. She’s one of us.” Tapping the gas a little harder than necessary, Nora resolutely looked away from her sister and rolled up the window. She left Quinn, and Lucy, in a billowing cloud of dust.

  Day Two

  *

  Thursday

  LIZ

  MACY EVANS CALLED their little exercise group the Walkie-Talkies, and every time she did Liz had to repress the urge to slap her. It was so tasteless. So obvious. But Liz hadn’t been crowned Miss Congeniality in the Miss Teen Minnesota pageant for nothing. Instead of scowling like she wanted to, she patted her neighbor’s bare arm and said, “Now, Macy. We’re just some friends out for a little fresh air.”

  And gossip. But
apparently only Liz was classy enough to keep that particular to herself.

  It was just the two of them this morning, a pair of ladies pushing sixty who were regularly mistaken for much younger at a distance. Macy wore spandex capris that hugged her every slightly sagging curve (Liz wouldn’t stoop so low as to call the leopard print trashy, but it was just a hair’s breadth shy) and a tank top that tied with a bow at her waist and concealed the little tummy bulge that her twins had left behind. Of course, the boys were grown now and long gone, but they had been gracious enough to bequeath reminders of their existence: several college loans, a hole in the basement wall where one of them had once thrown a cue ball in anger, and the gray hair that Macy regularly colored a deep brown several shades darker than her natural, mousy gray.

  Liz’s own almost shoulder-length saltwater-taffy-blond hair (compliments of a subtler stylist than Macy’s) was pulled back by a pale pink headband, and she was dressed in a modest white tennis dress. It was a bit of an unusual choice for the four-mile walk that they took along the lake every morning. But Liz liked to be able to move freely, and to pop in for a coffee at Sandpoint Cafe mid-workout if she felt so inclined and not stand out like a sore thumb among the summer tourist crowd. Not that spandex ever stopped Macy from also sidling up to the bar and ordering a venti skinny white mocha with an extra shot of espresso. Venti. As if Sandpoint were a Starbucks instead of a refurbished bungalow with homemade lemon meringue pies and a plump proprietor who had to be told, repeatedly, exactly what venti meant.

  Sometimes Liz wondered why she and Macy were friends at all.

  Macy was particularly skittish this morning, as high-strung and spirited as a newborn filly, and as they started down the hill where they both lived at the end of a cul-de-sac overlooking the water, she could barely contain herself. “You are never going to believe what I found out,” she gushed, huffing just a bit as Liz had, somewhat perversely, set a pace that agreed with her long legs and forced Macy to all but jog.

  “I’m sure I won’t,” Liz demurred, dipping her head in acknowledgment. Normally she would be very interested in what Macy had to say, but everything felt off this morning. She had meant to stay up and watch for Quinn’s late-night return to the A-frame across the lake, but she had fallen asleep instead. When she woke at sunrise, Liz was irritated with herself and prickling with something weightier than idle curiosity. She had tried to call Quinn’s cell, but there was no answer.

  “It has to do with Lorelei Barnes,” Macy continued, unperturbed by neither the speed at which they clipped along nor Liz’s brittle manner. In fact, she seemed not to notice. “Remember her? She was the guardian of that girl in JJ’s class.”

  That girl. Of course Liz remembered her. But she wasn’t in JJ’s class. She was in Nora’s. Liz didn’t bother to correct her.

  “Well, she passed away last week,” Macy whispered reverently, and she started to cross herself before she remembered that she hadn’t gone to Mass since she was twelve. They were Reformed now.

  Liz wanted to say, “So what?” They hadn’t been friends with Lorelei Barnes, close or distant. Liz wasn’t sure that she had ever uttered ten words to the woman in all the years that the girls were classmates. Maybe a cursory greeting at a school event, but she couldn’t conjure the memory. Instead of rebuffing her friend, Liz reined in her rebellious decorum and played along. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Did you know she was rich?”

  That gave Liz pause. The Lorelei she remembered farmed and worked the night shift at the Summer Prairie Brewery bottling small-batch artisan beers that Jack Sr. had once loved. He was particularly fond of their winter ale, a dark, thick concoction that the label assured Liz contained notes of toffee and chocolate. She had never tasted it. And neither, apparently, had Lorelei, for the woman had been as slim and lithe as a willow switch. Long auburn hair, troubled brown eyes. Liz had found her unsettlingly striking.

  “Don’t spread rumors,” Liz said, slowing just a bit because Macy was starting to wheeze. “That poor woman went through enough.”

  It was true. Lorelei was a single mom living in one of the shabbier farmhouses several miles out of town. A diagnosis of ALS a few years ago had landed her in the nursing home. She wasn’t even fifty. Such a tragedy, made even more wrenching because she didn’t have family nearby. Or at all? No one really knew her situation. Of course, there was that girl, who wasn’t actually Lorelei’s daughter but her niece. And it was anyone’s guess where she ended up.

  “It’s not a rumor.” Macy shook her head and a dark curl stuck to the thin film of sweat at her temple. “Kent went for a run with her lawyer last night. She inherited farmland when her father passed several years ago—a hundred acres in all. It’s not much, but it’s valued at over a million.”

  “A million,” Liz mused, and wasn’t aware that she had said the words out loud until Macy laughed.

  “It’s nothing, I know. But still. Who knew? She didn’t live like she had money in the bank.”

  Of course, it wasn’t exactly in the bank, was it? And really, nothing? Liz swallowed hard. There was a time when she would have considered a million not nothing but a modest nest egg. That was before Jack Sr. passed and Liz got her first good, hard look at their finances. Her husband had made more than one terrible investment. Thankfully, they owned their home outright and Jack had put a chunk of money in a 401(k), but Liz would have seriously struggled without the rental properties. And those she would soon have to start selling. Discreetly, of course. Her bank account was nobody’s business.

  Liz felt a familiar twinge of bitterness at the reminder that her financial situation was nothing more than a pretty illusion. Her friends still thought that the almost-new Cadillac in the garage (she had sold Jack’s) and the sprawling house in the swankiest neighborhood in Key Lake were indicators of Jack Sr.’s robust career in real estate that would ensure a comfortable retirement. Macy and Kent were already snowbirds, flying south for the winter to Arizona or Florida, wherever struck their fancy that particular year. Beverly and Peter preferred European vacations. So far, Liz had been able to decline their invitations by citing a desire to stay close to family. She wasn’t sure how long they’d believe it.

  Macy kept the one-sided conversation going, supplying Liz with all the tales that were fit to repeat and a couple that were not, until the lakeside bike trail merged with the quaint Main Street sidewalk of Key Lake proper.

  “Sandpoint?” Macy asked, already slipping her credit card from the little clip on her cell phone.

  “Not today.” Liz smiled as she breezed past. “I promised Quinn I’d stop by this morning.”

  “Oh?”

  And because Macy was standing on the sidewalk looking perplexed and rosy cheeked, Liz hurried back and gave her a hug and a breezy kiss. They were friends after all, best friends, and for all her blustery ways Macy was loyal and eager and funny. A winning combination.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been myself this morning,” Liz said. “A bit of indigestion, I’m afraid.”

  Macy perked right up. “I’ve been taking probiotics! I can’t tell you how much they’ve helped …”

  But Liz was already walking away, arms swinging purposefully. “Tell me about it tomorrow!” she called over her shoulder.

  Liz had most definitely not promised Quinn she’d stop by, and she doubted that her younger daughter would be happy to see her. Quinn had been a degree short of hostile since the day she and Walker pulled up a couple months ago in that ghastly purple import. Hadn’t Jack and Liz taught their children never to buy foreign? Her mind slid to thoughts of other things foreign and Liz had to hold herself in check. Walker had been born in the United States, she reminded herself, though he certainly didn’t look the part. But Liz was no racist—she just didn’t think that Walker Cruz (with his long mop of black, curly hair and unnaturally smooth skin) was right for her baby girl.

  Their marriage papers were legitimate, though, signed by a justice of the peace in La Mira
da, where Quinn was studying secondary education at Biola. Liz had seen them. And to think, Jack had only agreed to let her go to California because she was attending a conservative Christian college, and how much trouble could she get into there? More than enough, it seemed. Did the Reformed church offer annulments? And if so, was there a statute of limitations? Like, say, after three years of marriage? Liz made a mental note to check.

  Main Street wasn’t long, but it was lovely. For a single block the shops were pristine, hanging baskets spilling from porticos and long planters filled with geraniums so lush they looked fake. One side of the street backed onto the water, and there was a wide boardwalk that made the shops accessible from both the street and the docks.

  When Liz advertised the renovated A-frame where Quinn and Walker were currently living, she always pointed out that it was “secluded, but within a short, picturesque walk from downtown Key Lake.” It sounded better than it was. Though pretty, downtown wasn’t exactly a bustling center of trade and commerce. There was Sandpoint, where you could get a decent latte, and Malcolm’s on the Water, where you could buy something harder and a burger to go with it. Malcolm’s had a sunny patio and a small boat dock, and served a famous mixed drink in a fish bowl during the summer months—which Liz thought was lowbrow, but the tourists certainly seemed to enjoy it. Other than that, there was a Hallmark, a boutique called The Bright Side that carried mostly swimming suits and cover-ups, and Louie’s, a drugstore where you could purchase milk, bread, and eggs. For everything else, you had to drive to the Walmart in the newer part of town. Tourists tended to stock up at Walmart on their way into Key Lake and then leave their cars parked for the remainder of the week.

  At the corner, Liz veered off the sidewalk and joined the boardwalk that led out of town. The slated boards arched over the water for a ways and she had a perfect, sprawling view of the lake in all its glory. The sun glinted off the surface and made it shimmer like spun gold, and Cardinal Island rose up from the warm glow like a tower. Once, when her children were smaller, Liz had settled them all in the canoe and paddled out to the island for a picnic. Quinn was only three and whined the whole way, and a bird had pooped on JJ. The entire thing was a bust. Liz couldn’t decide if she hoped her children remembered her effort or not.