The Other Life (27 page)

Quinn would have preferred to focus on Meredith’s carnal adventures, but she owed her friend some entry into her life, so she started by catching her up on the pregnancy and the results of the MRI.

“Are you . . . having the baby?” Meredith asked.

“I am.”

“That’s very noble.”

“No,” Quinn said. “Not noble at all. In fact, it might turn out to be the most selfish decision I’ve ever made.”

“Selfish?”

Quinn looked into her friend’s eyes. “How do I know this baby isn’t going to spend her whole life suffering?”

Meredith thought about it. “I guess you don’t,” she said.

“And yet I’m bringing her into the world.”

Meredith reached over and gave Quinn’s hand a squeeze.

“Do you think I’m making a mistake?” Quinn asked.

“I think the only mistake would be ignoring what your own heart is telling you to do.”

Quinn nodded and went back to her salad. She changed the subject and told Meredith the whole story about Hayden and how he had found their mother’s paintings in Cordell’s closet.

“Why did he steal them?” Meredith asked. “Did he need money?”

“I guess so.”

“But what was he planning on doing with them? How do you sell stolen paintings?”

“Beats me,” Quinn said. “Maybe he has contacts.”

They moved on to other topics, and were almost finished with lunch when Quinn brought up what happened on the way over.

“Have you ever met Walt St. Pierre?” Quinn asked, worried that he might, in fact, already be a notch in Meredith’s Coach belt.

“No, but we’ve been trying to get him to do an event at the store. Wasn’t he a friend of Eugene’s?”

Quinn nodded. “And I just ran into him.”

Meredith’s face lit up. “What’s he like?”

Quinn laughed, as she knew where this conversation was going. “Forget it,” she said. “He’s not your type.”

“Gay?”

“No, just seriously uncomfortable around women.”

“Like the characters in his books,” Meredith offered.

“Exactly.”

“I’d
love
to do a guy like that.”

“Why?”

“Are you kidding? He’d be all shivery and grateful. I’d feel like a goddess.”

Quinn pulled out the invitation Walt had given her and passed it to Meredith. “Here’s your chance,” she said.

“What’s this?”

“He invited me to a party. You can go in my place.”

Meredith read the card. “This looks cool. We should go together.”

“I don’t think I’m really up for a party these days, Mer.”

“You’re allowed to have fun, Quinn.”

Was she? Most days Quinn felt like she was already in mourning for Naomi . . . or the healthy girl she might never get to be.

She sipped on her straw. “I’ll think about it.”

 

QUINN GOT UP FROM THE KITCHEN TABLE, WHERE ISAAC WAS having his snack, and looked out the front door. Nothing. Her brother was already almost an hour late. Hayden had been released from the hospital a few days earlier and was trying to get his life back on track without Cordell. He still felt too shaky to face him, and so had asked Quinn if he could empty Cordell’s things from his apartment and store them in her garage. She said it was no problem, and that she’d be glad to make the call to Cordell and arrange for him to come by and retrieve everything.

She picked up the phone and called her brother’s cell, but got his voice mail. “Hey,” she said. “I’m wondering where you are. Hope everything is okay.”

“Is he coming?” Isaac asked. He loved his uncle and was eager to see him.

“He’s just running a little late,” she said, and hoped she was right. Her fear was that he had changed his mind at the last minute, which she thought would be a disaster for him. Hayden needed to move on. His mental health depended on it.

Quinn was also anxious about the conversation she needed to have with her brother. She was determined to convince him to turn Cordell over to the police. Letting him get away with what he had done was just wrong, no matter how much Hayden had loved him.

Isaac finished his snack and ran to the front door. “Why isn’t he here yet?”

“Let’s play a game,” Quinn suggested, hoping it would distract them both.

Isaac chose a board game called Guess Who?, in which one player picked a card with a person’s face on it and the other would ask yes-or-no questions to try to determine who it was. Isaac was getting so good at it that Quinn no longer had to let him win. After a few rounds he got bored and wanted to draw his own people, so Quinn went back to the kitchen and tried her brother again. This time she hung up without leaving a message.

The card the police detective had given her was resting on her counter next to the phone. She had planned to give it to Hayden so that he could make the call. But now she worried whether she would get a chance to talk him into it. He was so late she was sure he had changed his mind. Maybe he even went to see Cordell.

She fingered the card, considering her options. Should she make the call herself? Previously, she had decided Hayden should be the one to do it. She thought it would be empowering for him to make the move. Also, she didn’t want to be accused of butting in again. But was butting in so terrible if it meant doing the right thing? Cordell needed to face the music, and Hayden just might need to be saved from himself. Cordell was like an addiction, and placing the phone call could be her way of launching an intervention.

She went to the front door and looked out one last time, and then went back to the kitchen and made the call.

“He’s here!” Isaac yelled just as Quinn put the phone down. She went to the front door and watched as Hayden backed his car into the driveway. The driver’s door opened and Isaac ran from the house.

“Is that Vincent van Gogh?” Hayden said when he saw his nephew.

Isaac laughed. “No!”

“René Magritte?”

“No!”

“Don’t tell me,” Hayden said. “Norman Rockwell?”

“It’s me, Isaac!”

Hayden knelt and wrapped his nephew in a hug. “Did you make a picture for me?”

Isaac smiled and nodded. “But I’m not done.”

Hayden looked up at his sister. “Everything is in the trunk. Should I put it right in the garage?” He rose and hugged her.

“You’re so late,” she said.

“It took me forever to get everything loaded into the car.”

“I tried calling you.”

He patted his pockets. “I guess I forgot my cell. Is everything all right?”

She waved his question away. “I’m just glad to see you. I’ll give you a hand unloading.”

“The hell you will.”

“Hayden—”

“You can point and give orders. If I see you lifting anything I’ll call the authorities.”

The remark vexed her. She was going to have to find a way to tell him she had just given Cordell’s name to the police.

Isaac tugged at his uncle’s sleeve. “I’ll help.”

“You got a deal, Leonardo.”

Quinn let Isaac press the button that opened the automatic garage door. It rose slowly, making a terrible racket as metal rubbed against metal. Hayden grimaced, which made Isaac laugh.

Quinn shouted over the noise to tell Hayden where he should put Cordell’s things. He opened the trunk of his car and started hauling cartons and other items, letting Isaac drag some of the lighter things, such as shopping bags filled with clothes. As Hayden worked, Quinn asked him if he was doing okay.

“I have good moments and bad,” he said while heaving what looked like a pile of wooden bookshelves from the car, “but I’m ready to start a new chapter in my life.”

It sounded to Quinn like a rehearsed line, but she figured that was the first step in this long journey of healing.

After all the shopping bags were unloaded, Isaac tried to reach for what looked like a small black suitcase.

“Better let me get that, buddy,” Hayden said. “It’s a laptop. Kind of fragile.”

When the trunk was finally empty, Hayden slammed it shut and dusted his hands. “That’s that, then,” he said. He was trying to remain stoic, but Quinn thought he looked like a pot with a lid that was fitted too tight. Any increase in pressure, and the thing might blow right off.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked.

“I could use a cold drink.”

They went into the kitchen, where Quinn got her brother a Diet Coke. Isaac went into the den to work on the drawing for his uncle.

“Is he still trying to contact you?” she asked.

Hayden shrugged. “I haven’t checked my cell phone messages this afternoon.”

“I’m really proud of you, Hayd. I can imagine how hard this must be.” She poured herself a glass of cold water from the dispenser on the refrigerator door and sat down with her brother.

“I told our mutual friends to let Cordell know you’d be calling about his things.”

Despite the November chill, Hayden was sweating from the exertion and Quinn handed him a napkin, which he used to blot his forehead. “I know you think I’m being very strong,” he said, “but I’m not. It’s the opposite. I’m weak—too weak to face him. I still love him, still think that maybe one day we’ll be together again.”

“But he did such a terrible thing.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“Not maybe. Definitely.”

Hayden shook his head. “There’s still a part of me that thinks there has to be some explanation.”

“But he was hiding the paintings in his closet, Hayd.”

He looked down. “I know.”

“And don’t forget that he was with us after the break-in,” she said, “folding Dad’s sweaters and straightening up, not letting on that he was the one who had created the whole mess. His performance was Oscar-worthy.”

Hayden wiped the back of his neck and nodded. Quinn continued. “He had every opportunity to tell you the truth that day, but he never said a word. He pretended he was just there to help. And as if that wasn’t bad enough . . .”

“I know. He was such a jerk that day.”

They heard the front door open and Lewis’s voice call, “I’m home.”

Isaac ran to greet him first and Quinn rose and gave him a kiss. He said hello to Hayden and gave him a hug.

“It’s all done,” Hayden said. “Everything’s in the garage. Thanks for letting me store it here.”

“I thought you were going to wait and let me help you,” Lewis said.

“It wasn’t that big a deal.”

“I helped!” Isaac said.

“Couldn’t have done it without him,” Hayden said.

Lewis asked his brother-in-law if he was staying for dinner, and Quinn said he wouldn’t have it any other way. She got started with the preparations, while Isaac went back into the den and Lewis asked Hayden how he was coping.

“So-so.”

“Must be hard,” Lewis said.

“It
is
hard,” he said. “I thought we were going to get married. Part of me ... part of me still thinks that.”

“Then why did you take this step?”

“I just needed some space, some time apart to get stronger. Once I’m feeling better I’ll talk to him again and find out what really happened.”

Quinn cleared her throat. “You might get your chance in court.”

“What do you mean?” Hayden asked.