Page 112 of Turning Back

“Oh?” I say, paying more attention. I guess this is a good opportunity to get more personal info on Quin. I should enjoy it while I can. Quin has never talked about his family life. I have no real idea who he was before we met. “What was Quin like as a child?”

“Perfect,” Kitty says between coos at Adley. “He was a good eater, a good sleeper, and he loved everyone.”

“Well, Adley is like that too.” I laugh. “She’s definitely a people person. So where do you live?” I ask.

“Oh, we still live in the same house Quin grew up in. If you bring this bundle of sweetness over sometime, I will show you his childhood bedroom.”

“Oh, Lord,” I say, smiling as I imagine that. “I bet I’d learn a lot about him from that.”

“Indeed, you would, young lady.” Kitty says, with what might be genuine affection for… me. She likes me? Even though I’m in a plural relationship with her son? She cannot know about that. Can she? No, I decide. Absolutely not.

“All his baseball trophies are still lined up on the shelves and his debate awards are all framed on the walls. In fact,” she says, turning towards me, taking her attention off Adley for a moment, “it’s the exact same bedroom set we bought back when he was eight.” She shakes her head, like she can’t even begin to imagine where the time went. “Our house hasn’t changed much. He’s got that fancy place in downtown now, but he came from humble beginnings.”

“Really?” I ask. Why have I always thought of Quin as a trust-fund kid?

“Yes. I think he’s embarrassed to bring you home and that’s why he hasn’t.”

I highly doubt that’s why he’s too embarrassed to bring me home. But I don’t say anything.

“Our house in North Denver is so small. Just two bedrooms. But that’s all we needed. We had each other.”

“Hmm,” I say.

“And he went to the local public school until junior high when he got that scholarship.”

“Scholarship?” I ask.

“Yes,” Kitty says, in between kisses to Adley’s cheeks. Those make my daughter squeal with delight. “He worked so hard to get that place at the school. And then his whole life changed. He met Bric, and Smith. And just look at him now. So successful and important.”

“Yes, he is,” I say, absently.

“I’m so proud of him.”

“Yes,” I say. “Me too. Quin is one of the good ones.”

“He is,” Kitty says, looking poignantly at me. “I always worried that he’d inherit too much of his father and not enough of me. But it was silly. He is my boy, through and through. He never complained about church, even though I never made him go with me. He was always polite and well-mannered. Helping the older single ladies on the street whenever they needed their lawn mowed. He still does that.” Kitty chuckles. “Every summer he mows Mrs. Jolenki’s lawn. And never takes a dime from her. Not even when he was a teenager. She pays him in homemade casseroles to this day.”

Kitty Foster talks about Quin for long stretches of time. We are served tea and champagne and she is telling me how he ran the church bakery booth for her when he was fourteen. They sold so many pastries, the church got new desks for the office that year.

By the time we’re done eating tiny cakes and cookies from the triple-tiered pastry stands, most of the women in the room are well on their way to drunk and I’ve learned that Quin was an Eagle Scout, sang in the church choir, and spent two weeks every summer building houses for underprivileged families until he was seventeen.

What the hell is happening?

All this time I thought he was like Smith, and Bric, and… me. Wounded. Damaged. Ruined.

But he’s not. He’s… normal.

And if we’re not the same… then we’re different.

If we’re not two fucked-up people just trying to fake their way through a fucked-up life… if we’re not in this together, then who are we?

And that’s when I see her. The mistress. The woman from the mansion party the other night.

And she’s walking straight for me.

Chapter Twenty-Seven - Bric

“Hey,” Smith says, walking up to the Black Room bar. He motions to the bartender for a drink. I’m trying my best not to look at Jordan Wells as he fights with that new girl he’s got over in one of the window booths. I can’t quite figure out if it’s real, or they’re in some kind of playful sexual spat.