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“Her generosity,” Quinn said. “In everything she gave, because it sounds like she gave so much. And I don’t believe that ever goes away. I believe kindness remains. What we give remains.”
He had to stop and take a breath, and he had to keep holding Quinn. Gently. Carefully. And to tell her, “She’s in the kids, too. She’s in them most of all. So you’re right. Let’s go home. But I’m getting you a wheelchair for every airport.”
“You’re not,” she said.
“I am, though. Just watch me.”
56
INVENTORY
“By the way,” Quinn said on the drive home from the Kalispell Airport, many hours later.
He’d thought she was asleep. Sheshouldbe asleep. He was probably going to sleep the clock around himself at some point, and he hadn’t been bashed in the face or choked almost to death. “Yeah?” he asked, and rubbed his hand over his face.
“If you’re too tired,” she said, “I can drive.”
“Yeah, right. That’s happening.”
“Well, I had to ask,” she said, and he smiled. It was Christmas. Barely. And oddly. More oddly still, itfeltlike Christmas. She asked, “What would you use a thing like a feather duster for? It was pink, if that helps.”
“Uh …” he said. “Dusting?”
“Oh. It was in Samantha’s sex-toy drawer, though, along with a very slightly squishy thing in a bag that was shaped kind of like a hammer, and a vibrator, and a sleep mask. I’m guessing the mask was for sex, too. And a fly swatter and a coil of rope. Weird.”
“And you know this how?”
“How do you think? Because I snooped in her bedside tables when I was supposed to be going to the bathroom.”
“Crikey. You do like to live dangerously. You were just meant totalkto her. That almost got you killed by itself!”
“I know, but if she’d had Xanax, it would have been so easy, and she wouldn’thave had to try to kill me, because I’d have excused myself and booked it on out of there. So you don’t know about the feather duster. Or the other thing in the bag, but of course you don’t. It was in a bag.”
He said, “I’m trying not to laugh.”
“Why? Does everybody know this? How?”
“The thing in the bag,” he said, “was probably a butt plug. It has a handle so you can pull it out again instead of ending up at A&E with an embarrassing story to tell.”
“You’re kidding. It wasbig.”
“Well, yeah,” he said. “That’s the point.”
“Wow. I did not know that. Well, thanks. I guess. Does it feel good?”
He put a hand over his face again. Not out of fatigue this time. “So they say.”
“So you’ve done ittosomebody,” she said, “but you haven’t done it yourself. Baby.”
Now, he did laugh. “You’re right. It probably feels even better for men, tell you the truth. The prostate and all.”
“Seriously? The prostate? How doesthatwork?”
“It’s a gland.”
“Iknowit’s a gland.”
“Why do you think men have sex that way? Gay men?”
