Twenty Four Weeks - Episode 21 - "Thirty Two" (PG)

by James David Denisson

disappear into the crowd as a light snow starts to fall. Now I have two hours to myself, the first time in the last month. I wonder when it will come again. Maybe not for another five or six years.

  “I’ve made up my mind,” she tells me as we drive from the church to her parent’s house.

  “About what?”

  “New Year’s at Wade and Chloe’s. I think we’ll pass, if that’s okay?”

  “Sure. To be honest, I was actually thinking the same thing.”

  She nods slowly. “I know. You’re doing today for me, and I appreciate that. So, after I told you what happened last year, I can do this for you. The night can still be special, just quieter, just the two of us.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “And I was thinking, your family always did Rosh Hashana and we could make that our new year’s celebration instead, play down the other. Did they get together this year?”

  “No. I was down there the week before, if you recall, just before our first date. No one said anything. Dad was the one that pushed it, and now he’s gone it was passed over. I think they’re actually a little relieved.”

  “Anyway,” she says, with a slight shrug, “I’ll tell Chloe that we can’t make it. What I have to decide is if I’m going to tell her why.”

  “Well, I can save you that conversation at least. There’s not going to be a party. Wade’s in the dog house and unless a miracle happens in the next week or so, which I think highly unlikely, he won’t be back in Chloe’s good books for a party to happen.”

 

  I can’t believe the change in Quinn’s father. He seems a different man, like he’s only just realised what life is really about and that he’s been missing out all these years. It seems he’s trying to make up for lost time. And he’s lost a lot of that with Quinn.

  This seems to be a special occasion for her family. She’s come home to them finally. She’s embracing what she’s left behind when she went to college. She had a faith in God then, but it gradually faded with time and the infective cynicism of the Altman way. It’s not that we’re militant atheists. They annoy the crap out of me. Like vegans who feel the need to remind you that the chicken sandwich you’ve just started eating was once a living, breathing creature with a soul. We just make light of it all. God doesn’t seem to get offended at all, at least he’s not told any of us he is. Maybe things would have turned out different if I’d not joked away her beliefs. But I don’t think so. Statistics have shown that people of faith fall down too. No one is immune.

  This is doubly true because it’s Christmas. Her family do presents, where mine largely don’t. I’ve never felt that there was anything wrong with that, but I guess my lack of enthusiasm in gatherings with Quinn’s family was evident. Quinn bought them, wrote my name alongside her’s on the card and that was the sum total of my involvement in Christmas giving to her family. I did give Quinn something small, something token, and she always accepted it with good grace, even though that was what we agreed to. But now I’m seeing something else behind her eyes that suggest to me that this was something that meant a great deal to her that I ignored. The more I think back there was a lot that I ignored.

  The house is especially festive this year, probably due to the change in everyone. The tree is large and wondrous and there is singing and food and gifts. I don’t feel the tension that I’ve felt before and all in all I’m more relaxed than I’ve ever been here.

  Her brother, Mark, is over from England with his wife and two kids. He’s an orthopaedic surgeon and richer than god. I used to be jealous of the money he makes but not now. It comes at a cost, one I’ve never been prepared to pay. Evelyn, his wife, is quiet and shy. She’s a lovely person, but I’ve never quite got to know her. There is no club for spouses in this family, not like mine. She always dresses like she’d fit into the church, so I guess she was perfect for Mark.

  I sit on the back steps while Quinn’s family talk and laugh inside. I hear the back door squeak that familiar sound. Mark stands beside me and hands me down a beer.

  “Here,” he says.

  “Really? Here? Your father is going to allow this?”

  “Why not,” he says and clinks his bottle into mine. “We won’t tell him,” he says with a wicked smile.

  He goes down to the bottom step and takes a long pull of his beer. “I hate warm beer,” he says.

  I nod. “I thought you’d be used to that by now.”

  “You never do. Hey,” he says hesitantly, “I heard about that show you did this week.”

  I look at him grimly. “Now you’re going to tell me that I’ve besmirched the family name.”

  “Are you nuts,” he says with a smile. “I’ve been waiting for something to stir up this family for years. I’ve always been too chicken, but you guys...”

  “That’s not why we did it.”

  “Of course. But you didn’t try and hide the truth. Things have been swept under the carpet for too long in this family.”

  “Every family has their secrets.”

  “Sure. But you two are alright though, right?”

  “We will be. We’ve come a long way.”

  “Well, you did right by my sister and that makes you alright in my book.” He salutes me and I nod as he takes another pull of his beer. “What do you make of my old man?” he asks me then. “I mean, who is this imposter that’s taken his place? He actually talks.”

  “Whole sentences,” I add.

  We laugh, finish our beers and hide them under the house. There is a collection of bottles building up under there. A lot of them have old and faded labels like they’ve been there years. I wonder if Quinn’s father knows they’re there.

  “Next time you should ask him outside with you,” I suggest, “do what we just did.”

  “I don’t think he’s quite ready for that.”

  “Maybe,” I say, “but you might be surprised.”

  Quinn pulls herself slowly from the sofa, stretches her back with a groan. I know the signs that it’s time to leave. In the past I’d be watching for them and eagerly take up the charge to the front door, but today is different.

  I pull her into the kitchen and away from her family. She is confused.

  “You look exhausted. I think, maybe, you should stay here while I go to Elmsbrook for a few hours.”

  She frowns. “You want to go without me? I should be with you. It’s Christmas.”

  I shrug. "We’re supposed to be avoiding stress,” I point out.

  “I can handle them.”

  “I don’t doubt it, but you’re also tired. Don’t forget my family’s gift of sucking all the strength out of you.”

  She laughs. “But I don’t need protecting.”

  “But you do. You do too much and you tire yourself. And you’re stubborn too. You fight me when I try and look after you, every time.”

  She offers a slight smile. “I do that, don’t I? I’m sorry. Old habits, I guess. I suppose I could do without the stress. Even so, I think that it’s important me being there. They put on that baby shower last week, and it was wonderful. I think that they’ve finally accepted me again and I don’t want to ruin that.”

  “You’re probably right. And if it gets too much then we can go, you just give me a nudge and we’ll get out of there.”

  “You really are good to me, you know that?” she says with a tired sigh. “I stopped looking for the good in you and focused on the things that were annoying me, so much so that I couldn’t see anything else. I’m sorry I did that.”

  “You weren’t the only one,” I confess.

  Quinn’s presence is noticed immediately. I can see them staring out the window as we make our way up the snow covered path to the front door. It opens as we reach the porch. My mother stands at the entrance with a the slightest of smiles.

  “You’re late,” she reminds me. What she is telling me, not so subtly, is that the family has adjusted their plans to accommodate Quinn’s desire to go to morning service. Like ripples in a p
ond my family had been changed by what had happened to my marriage.

  “Leave him alone, mom,” Wendy tells her, pushes past and drags us inside and out of the cold. She pulls me down the hall as my mother closes the door behind us. “Phillip invited Chelsea,” she whispers, “so I’ve been deflecting onto his past relationships when mom starts on me.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” I whisper back.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “This is Chelsea,” Phillip says, introducing his guest. This was the woman that he cheated with behind Tracey’s back when we were sitting Shiva. I didn’t say anything until later and by then she knew the truth already – she just needed some confirmation. Phillip, it seems, has accepted the truth about himself and with whom he was best suited.

  “We’ve met,” Quinn replies, putting out her hand. “Three years ago, at Phillip’s birthday party.

  There is a flash of recognition behind Chelsea’s eyes, but also something else.

  “God damn it, Phillip,” I say angrily.

  “Judd…” Quinn chides me. “It’s Christmas.”

  I turn to her, turn my back to Phillip. “Sorry. You’re right. Can I say ‘damn’, though?”

  “Well, it’s not really in the spirit of the day,” she replies, “but I guess I don’t have any objections.”

  I turn back to my brother. “Damn it, Phillip. You told her?”

  My brother’s confusion is evident upon his face. “I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to. Was there some sort of memo that went around that I didn’t get? Really, if we’re going to stop saying what we do