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He rolls his eyes. “I said I was young too. Anyway, I was wandering and got more than a bit lost. There was a thick mist rolling across the land. I was trying to find my way back when I came across your mother.”
“A mist? White, thick and swirly?”
“Yes,” he agrees. “Quinn, the moment I saw her, I knew. They talk about love like a thunderbolt; I never believed any of that until I saw your mother. The moon pooled around her, that soft silvery light, her delicate features.” Tears glisten in his eyes. “You look so much like her.”
I smile as warmth suffuses my chest. “Thanks.”
“She was, I don’t know. Perfect. She walked right up, and the next thing I know we were, well I’m not going to talk about that.”
“Oh my god, was that the night you made me?”
I’m teasing him, mostly, but the pink on his cheeks deepens and he splutters a nonanswer.
“As I was saying, that was the moment we met. We were inseparable after that. My friends went on with the planned tour, but I stayed there, with your mom, until it was time to return home. I asked her to marry me, and she agreed.”
“That’s really fast,” I say. “I thought you guys dated for a while.”
“No, but from that time on we never left one another’s side. You talk about the mists, and it reminds me of meeting her. And, well, you know with her and there were mists then too, surrounding us. I mean, I wasn’t sober, but I wasn’t blind either.”
“You mean maybe she was tied in with the Fae too?”
“I don’t know.” He turns his head and wipes away a tear. “Something happened over there. When we married, here in the States, I offered to have her family come but she said no. That she had left them behind. I always assumed it was about money or something.”
It does leave me with more questions than answers. Could my mom have been a Fae?
“That’s wild,” I say.
“There’s one more thing. When you were born, a man showed up. I’d never seen him before, but he knew your mother, or so he said. I let him come to see her in the hospital. She was holding you when we walked in together. Quinn, I’ll never forget the look on her face.
She went pale and shook her head. She told him no. That it wasn’t time yet and he agreed, but they both looked down at you. You were so tiny, so perfect. Your beautiful, tiny fingers curled around her finger. You had long fingernails. I can’t describe why but I was fascinated by them. They looked too good to be real.”
“What about the man?” I ask, directing his attention back to the point of the story.
“That was it. They visited as if nothing had passed between them. Truthfully, I’d forgotten about it. It was odd but I had you and it seemed a little thing. She never brought it up and I never did either.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall and dark. He looked young but then so were we, maybe in his twenties? Thick, curly hair that looked like a cross between Einstein and Keith Richards, kind of going wherever it wanted.”
“Do you know his name?”
He grimaces. “It was a long time ago, Quinn. I don’t remember.”
He may not remember but I know. I know it with the absolute certainty that only comes every so often in a lifetime. Dugald.
“I should get going, Dad.”
“You’ve been studying?”
“Yeah, best I can, with all of this. I might need to take a semester off.”
He nods, swirling his cup of coffee as he stares into it intently. I wonder if he’s trying “read” the coffee grounds.
“Are you going to go back?”
It’s a gut punch. I exhale sharply, unprepared for it.
“I, I don’t know.”
