by Fredrick, MJ
Liam shook his head. “Found out too late. They did some surgery to get rid of as much as they could, but they couldn’t get it all and he didn’t want to go with the chemo.”
Quinn nodded. He could see that.
“He’s in a lot of pain,” Tammy added. “He’s on a ton of morphine so he sleeps a lot. He’s barely aware of us when he’s awake.”
He’d been aware enough of Quinn.
“I’m going to go check in,” Liam said, hooking a thumb toward the room.
“You want me to wait here with you?” Tammy asked Quinn.
“No.” He used the arms of the chair to pull himself to his feet. “I’m going to get some air. Thanks, though.”
***
Lily had just come in from the lake when the phone in her pocket rang. She docked the launch, then pulled it out and looked at the display. She didn’t recognize the number, but it had a Bluestone area code. She clicked to answer.
“Hi.”
The voice gave her pause. She never heard it over her phone. “Quinn? Are you—okay?” Why was he calling her? “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. I mean, well, yeah, as good as can be expected. I’m sitting outside the hospital watching doctors take smoking breaks.”
She opened the door to her office and flipped the sign to “closed.” He sounded so rough, so defeated. She imagined the trip had been hard, the reunion with his family, especially after so long. She could picture him sitting on a concrete bench outside, hunched over talking on his tiny ancient cellphone. “Why don’t you go in?”
“Been in. Taking a break now.”
Her heart squeezed with the desire to comfort him. She hadn’t realized how accustomed she was to touching him, just casually, until her palm itched to do so now. “Not good?”
He made a sound of derision.
She hopped on the stool and leaned on the counter. Outside, sunshine glinted off the water and reflected in the windows. One of Quinn’s favorite kind of Bluestone day. “How’s your dad?”
“Stage four. A week, they say.”
She sucked in a breath. “Quinn, I’m so sorry. I’m glad you went.”
He blew out a long breath. “Yeah, well, he’s not. Mom, either. Not exactly the warmest welcome.”
“I hope they come around, but if they don’t, remember, it’s not about you.”
He was quiet for a moment, and she wondered if she spoke too bluntly. Usually he appreciated it, but now, when he was away from everything that was home to him, maybe he wouldn’t. Then he sighed, and she relaxed a little.
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m—going to go back in. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Quinn.” She bit her bottom lip, cursing herself for calling out to him.
“Yeah?”
His voice was close, intimate, right in her ear, and she wanted to say what was in her heart, what had been in her heart for a year, but like she told him, right now wasn’t about her.
“Take care of yourself,” she said instead, and squeezed her eyes shut to focus on his voice.
“Yeah, I will. I’ll call you later.”
He disconnected, and she felt like an idiot school girl, holding onto that promise.
***
Right. Not about him. After a loud dinner with his brothers and sister and their families at a buffet in Jarvis, he drove himself back to the hospital. His father was alone in the room and asleep. Quinn lowered himself into the vinyl chair by the bed and just sat. The nurses came and went as the hospital quieted down, but no one told him to leave. His father grunted and shifted a few times in discomfort, and when he repeatedly licked his lips, Quinn rose and placed ice chips against them the way he’d seen Rose do earlier. That seemed to soothe the old man. Later, a nurse came in and rolled his father carefully, changing out the pads underneath him. She was a tiny thing, and even though his father was frail, Quinn stood to assist her.
She gave him a sympathetic smile. “They called you in?”
He nodded as she smoothed the pad in place over the sheet. “My sister said it won’t be long.”
“You never can tell.”
But he had the feeling she knew.
“He can hear you, you know. If you talk to him. If you have things you need to say. It’s better to say them than regret not saying them. I’ll close the door so you can have some privacy.” She covered up his father’s legs, adjusted his arms so the monitor wires and oxygen tubes were free, then slipped out of the room.
Quinn looked from the closed door to his father. What the hell was he supposed to say? He didn’t talk when people were awake. How was he supposed to talk to the man who was asleep?
“We’ve never had the best relationship,” he said, guarding his words as Lily’s advice rang in his head. “I wished we could have known how to talk to each other without pissing each other off. I wish I could have known what to do to make you proud of me. I guess by the time I cared if you were or not, I’d already screwed up too much. There were times I wanted to come to you and ask you what to do, but you had me scared shitless. I wanted to come to you and apologize, but you weren’t exactly approachable.” Okay, maybe this was getting to be too accusatory. Take Lily’s advice. “But you made me tough, and that made it easier for me in the service. You made me independent. You made me—” Emotionally unavailable. Unwilling to risk love. Lonely. Afraid of being just like you. He didn’t know how to end that sentence. “Self-sufficient,” he decided. “You made me know what I didn’t want.” To be like you. “So. Thank you for that.”
Quinn sat back, rubbing his chest, and he could have sworn he saw his father’s eyes shift in his direction.
***
When Quinn woke the next morning, his mother was standing in the doorway, looking from him to his father. He straightened, blinking his eyes, realizing he occupied the only chair in the room. How long had she been standing there?
When she saw he was awake, she crossed to his father’s bed. “He’s still alive, I see.”
Quinn stretched his legs in front of him, sliding his hands down his thighs, then rose. “I’d hardly stick around if I killed the old man in his sleep.”
She shot a sharp glance in his direction. “That wasn’t what I meant. Were you here all night?”
“Since after dinner, yeah.”
“Has the doctor been by today?”
“Not yet.” His sleep-fogged brain was having difficulty comprehending the normal conversation they were having. Had her greeting—and subsequent expulsion of him from the room—been shock? Or for show? Why was she being nice now? Well, not nice, but…civil.
She grunted and took his seat. “It figures. If I get here early to try to catch him, he shows up late. If I don’t, I miss him.” She turned her gaze to him. “Were there any changes overnight?”
He shook his head.
She sighed. “He sleeps longer and longer, deeper and deeper these days. I know the pain must be intolerable, but I keep hoping for just one more moment when he knows I’m here, when he knows who I am.”
“He knew who I was well enough yesterday.”
“He’s been asking for you.”
Quinn snapped straight. “What?”
“He’s been asking for you, wanting to know where you were. We didn’t think you’d come. We told him you were still overseas.”
“So what was that about last night then? Why was he so pissed off?”
“It’s the drugs, Quinn. You can’t take it personally. You should hear some of the things he says to me.”
That didn’t sound like he was any different now than he’d been when Quinn was a kid, but Quinn didn’t say so. This wasn’t about him.
“I wish he could talk to you, that the two of you could talk, and if not make peace, at least see the other’s side. You hurt him a great deal when you went into the Army. You went off without talking to him, discussing it with him. You just signed up.”
“We never had discussions, Ma. We had fights.”
She waved
a dismissive hand. “Be that as it may, he’d been there, Quinn. He didn’t want you to live that same kind of life. He knew it would be hard for you.”
“The life wasn’t hard. Watching my best friend die was.”
Her mouth turned down in sympathy. “That’s what he meant. He watched his friends die, too. It’s not something he ever recovered from.”
That he had that in common with his father was at once reassuring and disturbing. That might have been something they could have discussed, though his father would probably not commiserate. His father was a tough, “leave it behind you” kind of person. He would scoff at Quinn’s guilt, at his need to sell the bar and move on.
Maybe. Maybe he wouldn’t. Quinn wouldn’t know now.
“Go to the house and get some sleep,” his mother said softly. “I’ll call you if anything changes.”
“I have a motel room.”
She stiffened up again. “Our house isn’t good enough for you?”
“I’m used to being alone now. And I figured it would be best for everyone if I kept some distance.”
She didn’t respond, just kept her gaze averted. Holy hell, as if being here wasn’t stressful enough, he was going to have to walk on eggshells with her for the next few days. Fine. He’d grown up doing so, but had gotten out of the habit the past eleven years.
“Right. I’ll see you later,” he said when she didn’t respond. As he walked out of the hospital room, he hoped he could stay awake long enough to get back to the motel.
***
After a nap, he showered, shaved and headed back to the hospital, in time to hit whatever rush hour traffic McPherson had. He almost hoped for another family dinner at the buffet because the burger he’d had on the way home from the hospital wasn’t going to hold him much longer.
Liam and Tammy were alone in his dad’s room, and his dad was asleep.
“Any improvement?” he asked.
Tammy shook her head. “Your mom said you were here all night.”
“Quiet here,” he replied.
“Still, it was good of you.”
“Did he wake up at all?” Liam asked.
Quinn shook his head. “Where’s Mom?”
“She went home to make dinner. Didn’t want us spending money eating out,” Liam said.
“I’m sure you’re welcome, too,” Tammy added.
He hadn’t thought about going back to his childhood home. Okay, he had, but it hadn’t turned out pretty in his head, so he’d just dismissed the idea.
“I’ll just stay here and get something from the cafeteria,” he said. Better than driving back to town and discovering he wasn’t welcome. “I can’t imagine she’d want Dad alone too long anyway.”
Tammy placed her hand on his arm. “Come with us. It will be good for the whole family to be together. You haven’t seen Jared yet, have you?”
He hadn’t seen his youngest brother, the one who was going to college, the first in their family to do so. He’d asked, but the kid was still away at school. That he hadn’t come home yet bothered Quinn, but his mother explained that Jared was coming up on midterms and she didn’t want him to miss.
Only if Jared missed saying good-bye to his father, would he forgive her?
“Come with us,” Tammy urged, reminding him so much of Lily with her cheerful disposition, and Quinn let himself be led out of the hospital and to their car.
He sat in the front with his brother. Tension locked up his muscles. He didn’t know him any longer, and the memories he had were not particularly pleasant. He couldn’t match up his memories with the man beside him. In the back seat, Tammy chattered, and on the way to his mom’s house, they stopped to pick up the kids from Tammy’s mom’s house.
He watched the girls with Liam, and while they kissed him hello, they turned to Tammy to talk about their day. They watched Quinn warily, but didn’t address him and he didn’t talk to them. The only kid he knew how to talk to was Leo’s son Max, and even that was uncomfortable.
He took a deep breath on the steps of his childhood home as the girls barreled through the door. He couldn’t remember ever being excited to get inside, and he was definitely less so now. He held the door for Tammy, who smiled at him, a smile that made him think of Lily. Then his brother stepped behind him to take the door and urge him inside.
The place smelled different, a little musty. It was an old house—hadn’t been new when he’d lived here, but now he could smell the age of the place beneath the scent of frying chicken. That had always been his favorite meal when he’d lived home, and rare, since it was a lot of work. Should he read anything into the fact that his mother chose to make it tonight?
He followed Liam into the kitchen, where his mother was wrapped in an apron, standing at the stove. How many chickens was she going to have to fry for this crowd?
“Liam, Quinn, put the leaves in the table and get the chairs from the other rooms.”
He didn’t know if there were enough chairs in the house for all these people. He started down the hall just as his old bedroom door opened.
“Jared!”
His youngest brother stepped out in the hall. Christ, he hadn’t seen the kid since he was, well, the age of Rose’s oldest. Jared was tall and filled out—hell, he looked like Quinn when he’d gone into the Army. His first instinct was to grab his brother and hug him, but hell, that wasn’t his family’s way. Besides, he’d bolted and never looked back, just when the kid needed a big brother.
Instead, he clapped his brother on the shoulder and looked into his wary eyes. “Hey, Jared, how’s it going?”
Jared leaned back, away, breaking contact. “All right.”
“How’s college?”
“Good.”
So. He had the family trait—a man of few words. Quinn inclined his head toward the kitchen. “Mom wants more chairs. Know where I can find some?”
Without a word, Jared ducked back into the bedroom Quinn used to share with Liam, then emerged with a chair.
“I think there’s a rolling chair in Rose’s old room. It’s the sewing room now,” Liam said, hauling a wing-backed chair from the living room. “Then maybe get some lawn chairs from the back yard.”
Once the table was set, everyone sat, much closer together than was probably healthy. The dining room had been small for a family of six. Add five grandkids and two in-laws, take away elbow room. Quinn managed to snag a thigh and a spoonful of macaroni and cheese before passing it on.
The chicken was as good as he remembered, but he could barely swallow, waiting for accusations to come. But it was worse than that.
No one spoke to him. They talked to each other, and he learned the Jared was in his senior year at Kansas State, living off-campus, not dating. The only time Quinn saw his mother smile was when Jared was talking.
The kids held a conversation of their own, louder and louder, about some television show. His father would never had allowed such racket, but Tom and Liam seemed oblivious. And Quinn was invisible, in the center of the table in a plastic lawn chair. He was perfectly happy with that, and then Rose noticed.
“So tell us about Minnesota,” she said, shushing her kids and leaning on the table.
“Nothing to tell,” he replied, his attention on his water glass. “I have a bar, I have a boat. It’s colder than—” He glanced at the kids. “Colder than Kansas from about November to April, but it’s the best fishing in the world.”
“And that’s it?” Rose asked, her mouth turned down.
“What more do I need?”
“A wife, someone by your side,” his mother said.
“If I had one of those, I’m sure I would have let you know.”
“At least you’re sure of that,” Liam said with a half-smile.
“Aren’t you lonely?” Rose asked.
“I like being alone.”
“You always did,” his mother said. “That must be a miserable life.”
“Like I said, I like it.”
“You need to
have a family. It’s what normal people do.”
He swallowed hard, the hurtful words bubbling in his throat. He wouldn’t remind his mother of her own unhappiness, of the misery in this house. And hell, maybe he was remembering it wrong, if Rose still wanted to be here, if Liam was still around, and Jared. Maybe he was the miserable one.
Silently, he rose and carried his plate and glass to the sink as he’d done so many times.
“I’m heading back to the hospital,” he said after rinsing his plate, aware of the silence behind him. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
And without looking back, he walked out.
***
“Is it too late?” Quinn asked, cradling the phone against his shoulder as he sat beside his father’s bed, watching the LEDs on the monitors. He fumbled the phone and almost dropped it. Damned tiny thing. He could barely hold onto it. But he needed to hear Lily’s voice.
“No, I just finished cleaning up the kitchen,” she said.
He thought he heard a smile in her voice. Or maybe she was as glad to hear from him. “You cooked?”
She snorted. “I haven’t had a hot meal since you left.”
“You can still go to the bar.”
“I don’t want to talk to John. He’s always crabby.”
Because Quinn was a barrel of laughs? “You could go to the diner.”
“Then I’d have to tip.”
“Cheapskate.”
“How’s it going down there? Are you in your room right now?”
“I’m at the hospital.”
“I thought you couldn’t use cell phones in a hospital.”
“Only where the signs are posted. No signs in here.”
“So you got bored and called me.”
She didn’t sound offended. And he only wished it was that uncomplicated. “Yeah.”
“So how’s it going with your family? With your dad?”
His gaze drifted to his father’s thin face. “He’s not eating or drinking. They have to thicken up the water to keep him hydrated. The hospice people say it won’t be long. This weekend maybe, or early next week.”
“So you won’t be back for a while.”
Something about the way she said it made him wary. “What are you doing to my bar?”