The Best Part of Me

by Jamie Hollins

  “Seriously, my aunt’s gonna be pissed, so it’s really best if you head back to wherever it is that you need to be.” He still didn’t respond to her, just took the left turn into her gravel driveway.

  Fine. It was his funeral.

  They hadn’t even taken two steps into the drive before the screen door flew open and her aunt stormed out of the house. She was hiking her nightgown away from her muddy shoes as she charged their way.

  “Quinn Adler, you scared the living daylights out of me! I thought you’d been kidnapped or struck by a car! I’ve been pacing the house waiting for you to get home. Where the hell have you been?”

  Her aunt grabbed her shoulders, pinning Quinn against her in a tight hug. Quinn winced when the jolt of the hug flew up her spine and resonated in her head like a cannon.

  Maura Hughes noticed.

  She held her niece’s head between her hands and looked her over. Then she noticed her escort standing off to the side. Her aunt’s eyes flashed back to her niece. “Quinn, what were you doing at the pub? Lord have mercy, I thought you had gone to the garden center!”

  Maura stood with her hands on her hips. Mr. Nice Guy took that moment to walk the rest of the short distance to the porch to drop off the plastic bags with a loud thud.

  “I wasn’t at the pub. I was just walking by,” she replied, pulling her aunt’s attention back to her.

  “What happened to her?” Aunt Maura looked accusingly at the man. Quinn’s eyes squeezed shut in response to her aunt’s shrill voice. It felt like a power drill was twisting a long, thick screw into the side of her skull.

  “Well, Mr. McKenna? Out with it!” Aunt Maura yelled, not giving him much time to respond. Her voice was so loud she was sure it echoed off the surrounding low-lying hills.

  “She hit her head. I walked her home,” he replied evenly.

  “I very much doubt that’s the whole story.” Between her aunt’s scornful shouts and the white glow of the porch light, Quinn was feeling a little sick.

  “Believe what you’d like.” He shrugged as he turned away from them and started walking back out toward the road.

  “Wait one second. I’m not done talking to you!” her aunt yelled at his retreating form. Although Quinn was sure he could hear her, he just kept walking out the way they’d come in, his gait steady and even.

  Maura eyed him suspiciously as she grabbed Quinn’s arm and pulled her toward the house. Quinn stumbled along behind her, trying not to fall as they quickly took the two porch steps. She looked back and saw Mr. Nice Guy was almost to the road. As he turned toward the pub, he threw them one last glance. He slowed momentarily as their eyes met. She felt like she should thank him for carrying her bags or say good night or something, but thought better of it since he really hadn’t been all that nice to begin with. He narrowed his eyes before turning and walking into the darkness beyond the reach of the porch light.

  Quinn was thrust into the house, the screen door slamming behind her as Aunt Maura pulled her into the kitchen. Her cousin, Rory, was sitting at the table eating. When he saw her, his eyes widened. He quickly stood up, sending his chair over with a loud thud.

  “Jesus, Quinn! What happened to you?” He was at her side the next moment, looking at the lump on her head and the dried blood in her hair. Rory was a year younger than Quinn, who was twenty-seven. His messy copper hair hung down over his forehead, which was now creased with worry.

  “Watch your language!” her aunt bellowed from the kitchen as she gathered some ice into a towel. “And Ewan McKenna is what happened to her.”

  Rory’s eyes flew to Quinn’s face, his disbelief quickly turning to anger. “Ewan did this.” It really wasn’t a question.

  Quinn quickly shook her head and then ultimately wished she hadn’t as she swayed on her feet. “No, Rory, he didn’t. I was walking in the alley behind the pub. Next thing I knew, somebody slammed into me, and I hit my head on the wall. It was an accident.” She tried a smile to reassure him, but a sharp pain shot from behind her eyes.

  “Now, now, my girl. Sit yourself down, and let’s put some ice on that goose egg of yours.” Aunt Maura guided Quinn to a chair in the living room, placing a towel full of ice to the side of her head. Once she got her seated, Aunt Maura stood back and looked down at her, shaking her head. “You’re gonna have quite the headache, my dear.” She crossed her arms. “That Ewan needs to stop talking with his fists. Always resorting to fighting, that boy.”

  First of all, she already had a headache. Second, she’d never said anything about Mr. Nice Guy—or apparently Ewan—fighting. She wasn’t sure what the hell he’d even been doing to be out behind the pub at the moment she’d been hit.

  “I never said he was fighting anyone. He was just the nice guy who helped me out after whoever knocked into me ran off,” she explained, using his words.

  Maura stiffened. “Nice is the last word I would use to describe that man.” She enunciated each word with disdain.

  Rory was still standing where they’d left him by the door. He was watching Quinn, noticing every grimace on her face. He quickly turned and grabbed his jacket hanging on a nail by the door.

  “I think I’ll go have a word with McKenna.”

  Quinn sighed loudly. Why was everyone making such a big deal about this? It was an accident.

  “Rory, please don’t worry about—” But Quinn stopped her plea as he was already gone, the screen door slamming shut behind him. At this point, she was too tired to do anything other than sink down into her chair and let the ice pack try to numb out the firing squad unloading round after round inside her head.

  “Quinn, you stay away from that boy.” Her aunt stood above her, and from the look on her face, she wasn’t joking.

  She heard the patter of rain hitting the windows and was grateful the bags of seed were under cover on the porch. She hoped that Ewan had made it back to the pub before it’d started to pour.

  “That boy is nothing but trouble.”

  Quinn almost laughed aloud. Boy didn’t even come close to describing Ewan McKenna, but she had a feeling the word trouble was much more accurate.

  Chapter 2

  It was late morning and Ewan was still behind schedule. Thankfully his deliveries had come in on time, and he was properly stocked with enough stout to put the entire town of Ballagh into a drunken stupor.

  As he pulled down the chairs from the tables and wiped them off, he noticed that the wooden surfaces were starting to look dull and would need a nice shine of varnish before too long. He had swept and mopped the floors earlier, trying to pick up the residue from the night before. Usually the townspeople didn’t get too rowdy during the week, so the cleaning was minimal compared to what it would be tomorrow morning after a long Saturday night.

  This was his favorite time of day. When the only sounds in the pub were his footsteps across the hardwood floor. When things were neat and tidy and in their places before the chaos started.

  He was a walking, talking cliché—a true Irishman who ran a pub. Katie McMullen’s, or Katie’s as it was locally referred to, seemed to have been ripped from Irish soil and transplanted in this small town outside Boston. It was open every Monday through Saturday from 12:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. On Sundays he was open from 4:00 p.m. to midnight. The only exception was that Katie’s closed on Christmas Day. And just like every small village pub in Ireland, Katie’s was the meeting place for all residents. He could count on the same people filling the same seats at the bar every single day.

  Ewan looked up at the clock and sighed. The doors were due to open in less than an hour, and he had a lot of shit that needed to be finished. The goddamn books had put him behind schedule. The accounting ledger had been off and he couldn’t find the error. He’d pored over the invoices, utilities, and revenues but was still off by about thirty dollars. By the time he’d finally figured it out, two hours had gone by. He’d given Jenny a little too much in her last paycheck but decided to let it go. Hell, she definitely deserved it
.

  Jenny was his only employee. Ewan tended the bar, and Jenny ran drinks. She worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights and the occasional holiday. Every other day of the week, he was able to manage by himself.

  Ewan was exhausted. After the visit from Remy last night, the little altercation in the alley, and a pub crowd he’d actually had to push out the door at 1:30 a.m., he hadn’t gotten much sleep. Surprisingly, since last night, he’d thought very little about the fact that he’d been assaulted, but caught himself a few times thinking about Quinn Adler.

  Upon returning to the pub, catching serious hateful looks from Jenny for his long absence, he’d gotten back to work. They’d been slammed, and he’d almost forgotten all about Quinn until her cousin, Rory, had blown through the door demanding an explanation. He’d given him the same details he’d given his forked-tongued mother.

  And for Christ's sake, he knew he didn’t have the greatest of reputations, but everyone should know him well enough to know he’d never lay hands on a woman. Especially one as fragile as Quinn Adler. For her sake, he hoped she’d put ice on her face last night before going to bed. She was probably going to have one hell of a shiner.

  After pulling all the chairs down, all that was left to do was to clean the bar top and unload the dishwasher and he’d be finished. He heard a sharp click, then the street noise grew louder as the front door of the pub swung open. His uncle Connor walked into the room and threw his jacket and hat on the coatrack next to the door before boosting himself up on a stool at the bar.

  “How are you, my boy?”

  “Good, Uncle. And you?”

  “Mighty fine, thanks.”

  His uncle was a robust man with rosy cheeks and a knack for talking about mundane things for hours. He was wearing his customary tweed jacket with a matching vest. He kept his shoes polished at all times, and he never left home without his pocket watch. He was always polite, always on time, and a damn good businessman. He owned Katie’s and a few other restaurants in and around Ballagh.

  Connor McKenna had immigrated to the States from County Antrim in Northern Ireland when he was in his mid-twenties. Political turmoil had run rampant, and to say times were tough in Northern Ireland at that time was a huge understatement. The McKenna family was a very influential family, but one could say that Connor was the black sheep of the lot. He was the youngest of two boys and, unlike his older brother, wanted nothing to do with politics or law or riots. As fate would have it, Connor had gone and fallen in love with Katherine McMullen, a nice Catholic girl from Killarney. This romance was forbidden by both the McKennas and McMullens. So instead of cowering to the demands of his parents, Connor had packed up everything he owned and driven a willing Katherine to a justice of the peace before he and his new bride had bought passage on an ocean liner bound for Boston. They’d eventually settled in Ballagh before starting a family of their own.

  Ewan was extremely fond of him and looked forward to their one-sided discussions. But now was not the time to sit down and have a long chat.

  “What brings you in today, Uncle?”

  Uncle Connor reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out a few envelopes, and threw them on the bar. “Delivering your mail.”

  Ewan walked slowly to the bar, already knowing what he’d find. He scanned the letters, all addressed to Ewan McKenna and postmarked from Belfast. He tossed them back on the bar and continued to pull the last of the chairs down.

  Every other week, his uncle delivered these letters. Sometimes there was only one, other times two or three.

  “Same thing, I’m afraid.” His uncle scratched his head. “If you’d just show me where you keep them, I’d take them there directly without bothering you.”

  Ewan took down the last chair and dusted it off with his hand. “What makes you think I keep them?”

  His uncle shrugged. “I just assumed you did.”

  He’d lived with his aunt and uncle since he was nine years old. The letters had started on his thirteenth birthday. He’d receive one every month without fail. From the very beginning, he’d refused to read them. At first he’d just let them collect in his room at his uncle and aunt’s house. Then when he’d gotten to the age when his resentment was at its worst, he’d burned them. But for reasons he hadn’t tried to understand, he’d stopped destroying them about the time he started high school. Even though he’d begun collecting the letters again, he still had no intention of reading them.

  “Ever think about responding to those?” his uncle asked from behind the bar while he poured himself some beer. It was the same question he asked Ewan every time he dropped off the letters.

  Ewan shrugged, the same answer he gave his uncle in response to his question.

  “All right then.” His uncle drained his ale in three long pulls and put the glass on a tray behind the bar before walking over to give Ewan a clap on the back. “Stay out of trouble, my boy,” he said as he headed toward the door.

  “You too, Uncle,” Ewan called over his shoulder.

  He snickered as he shrugged on his jacket and settled his cap. “Son, trouble is my middle name.” Uncle Connor laughed on his way out the door, forcing Ewan to chuckle to himself.

  Finishing up downstairs, Ewan retrieved the letters his uncle had delivered and headed upstairs to his apartment over the pub. Entering his bedroom, he knelt down beside the bed and pulled out an old leather suitcase. It was small compared to suitcases that you could buy now, but twenty-some years ago, it was all his puny nine-year-old arms could carry. He threw the letters inside with the rest of the mail from his parents, shut the lid, and pushed the suitcase back under the bed.

  ###

  The grass was still wet from the night-long soaking they’d gotten, but the sun was shining brilliantly in the sky, and Quinn would rather be nowhere else than in the garden, black eye notwithstanding.

  Luckily the ice had done its job, and apart from a little puffiness under her right eye and a slight purple hue, her lingering headache was the worst of the aftermath of last night. It was nothing two ibuprofens couldn’t handle.

  She’d risen early, like she’d done every day since she’d arrived in Ballagh, to pull in that early-morning air on the front porch, watching the sun creep up the low-lying hills to the south. She would sit in companionable silence with her aunt as they drank their coffee. Rory would stumble out of bed around 7:45 a.m. so he could get to his job at 8:30 a.m. He was a sales associate at a guitar store in Boston, and how he managed to get ready and drive to his store on time, which was north of the city, was beyond her.

  This was her first weekend since moving in with her aunt and cousin. After the death of her parents last year, Quinn had been worthless in her grief. Aunt Maura, who was her mother’s sister, had flown to Pittsburgh to help with the funeral arrangements. There was an endless process of paperwork with attorneys and financial advisors, estate taxes, life insurance, and settling debts. Quinn couldn’t even remember those first several months. She’d quit graduate school, where she was studying landscape design, and wouldn’t leave her house for days at a time. She was sobbing one moment and incredibly angry the next. Her therapist had told her what she was feeling was normal.

  Then one day, she was sitting in her darkened living room watching pointless TV when she’d seen a commercial for diapers. It was a commercial she’d seen a million times before. A mother gently cradled her newborn daughter in her arms, swaying from side to side. She touched the infant’s pink little nose, ran her fingers over her smooth, soft forehead, and kissed the baby’s wispy hair. The mother told her daughter that she wanted her to have nothing but the best things the world had to give to her.

  There had been a time when Quinn’s mother had held her like that. Her mom had probably snuggled at her neck and pulled in her fresh baby scent. She’d no doubt wanted the absolute best for Quinn as well. And she would have been heartbroken to see her daughter wallowing away in grief and remorse.

  It was in that moment that
Quinn had decided she needed to start living again and she owed it to her mother and father to go out and grab everything life had to offer.

  Aunt Maura had begged Quinn to come spend some time with her. Having no other obligations, she’d agreed to spend a few months in Ballagh, Massachusetts. And for something to do and to thank her aunt for all her help after her parents had died, Quinn had insisted on landscaping the farmhouse. It had been something Aunt Maura had wanted done for a long time, and Quinn could at least give her professional knowledge and free labor.

  After her morning coffee, Quinn changed into some khaki capris and a long-sleeved T-shirt, waved good-bye to her aunt, and headed to the backyard. There were noticeably fewer cars on the road, and the inactivity made Quinn think she needed to tiptoe around the garden so she didn’t disturb the silence. It felt good to get her hands dirty again. And luckily, it was a beautiful day. There was a slight nip in the air, especially in the shade. It was the kind of day in early spring when you had to be outside doing something—anything—just to be out.

  Quinn had been busy these last few days. She’d poured all her energy into planting the garden, which she had just finished up the night before. It was late April, and ideally it would have been best to wait a couple more weeks to put the garden in because there’s always a chance of a late frost sometime in early May. But Quinn had a long list of projects that she wanted to do, so she just crossed her fingers that the soil would stay warm enough that her seeds would grow. And anyways, the Farmer’s Almanac had predicted a warm spring this year, and it was always right, wasn’t it?

  This morning Quinn was going to start on her next project—landscaping around the house. She’d drafted a plan to plant perennials around the perimeter. The shrubs would be basic: some bright green boxwood, red and gold flowering barberry, vibrant hydrangea, and fragrant honeysuckle. She would finish off the landscaping with a stone border and some alyssums peppered in between.