“Love is an understatement, Mom. How many times have we watched it together? I know it’s in the double digits...”
“At least a dozen, maybe two,” Renee said, and as her daughter laughed, she gazed at the vase of spring flowers placed in front of them, probably to add extra color to the shot. Robin looked to be around forty, but Renee was clearly a young mother, and on top of that youthful for her age. For a moment, she looked like a blushing bride, lost in the emotion of her big day. “Some movies are keepsakes,” she said. Robin Diamond—a columnist, not an interviewer—didn’t ask her to explain.
“Keepsakes,” Dean said.
“Yeah, well, we’ll never know what that was supposed to mean.”
The clip ended. “What are you going to do?” Dean said.
“I’m going to get angry at myself for being so gullible.”
“You honestly think George Pollard is lying?”
“Not intentionally. But he said it himself. We go through our lives, telling ourselves stories.”
“Come on.”
“Sweetheart, let’s be real. Couldn’t that adorable, lost girl have lied to the hunky gas station attendant about who she really was? And couldn’t there be two sixtyish women out there with a special affection forEaster Parade?”
“So you need to investigate more. Get yourself another source.”
Quentin nodded. “Or, you know...”
“What?”
“Drop the whole thing.”
“Quentin.”
He turned. This close, Dean’s eyes affected him the same way the sun did. He couldn’t look into them without hurting.
“Why does this story scare you so much?”
“It’s not the story. It’s the lack of it.”
“That never stopped you before,” he said. “What about that crazy guy in Kentucky who told you that the mayor of his town was a murderer? You flew out there, exposed him as a liar, uncovered a bigger, better story about the underage prostitutes—”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“Well, for one thing, he never claimed that his fucking mayor was the person who turned my mother into a worthless drug addict.” Quentin closed his eyes, but not soon enough. He saw the spark in Dean’s eyes, that wince, as though he were bracing for a blow. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“No. I’m sorry. That was insensitive. I need to be more—”
“You don’t,” Quentin said. “You don’t. What I need to do is grow up, do my job. Stop blaming everything on Mommy.”
“It was only six months ago. You need time.”
Quentin said, “I need to stop being so damn scared.”
“You’re scared?”
Quentin swallowed hard. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
“What are you scared of?”
He shook his head. “That wasn’t the right word.”
