But I’d planned to be at her wedding. I’d missed Walker and Mindy’s since they’d eloped.
The day Mom had told me about the engagement, I’d emailed her tour dates, something that had been set in stone for a year. In a twelve-week Montana summer, there were four blacked out weekends when we’d be in Europe.
Brooklyn had picked one of the four.
She’d wanted a June wedding and June had been impossible. Was that why she was so angry at me? Or because I only sent flowers after Bradley was born?
I opened my mouth to ask but closed it before speaking. Maybe this was on me to fix, but I never knew how to talk to Brooklyn.
That hadn’t changed.
“How’s your band?” She infused the last word with more disdain than even Graham could conjure.
“They’re good.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Why ask if you don’t want the answer?”
“I’m being polite,” she snapped. “I don’t care about you or your band.”
Colin’s head snapped up from the Legos he and Evan were playing with on the floor.
“Do you guys want to put your shoes on and go play outside?” I offered.
“Yeah!” Evan shot up first.
I winked at Colin as he followed. The kid was bright—he knew there was tension between me and my sister—but he simply went with Evan to put on his shoes. Maya was lost in an app on the pink tablet Walker had brought with her this morning, insisting she only get two hours of screen time.
Mom, the wise grandmother, had allotted those two hours to the hours when I would be watching her.
When the sliding door opened and the boys were outside, I angled myself on the couch to face Brooklyn. “Don’t be polite. Say what you have to say.”
“You didn’t just leave Graham behind when you disappeared to become famous. You left the rest of us too.”
Would it matter if I hadn’t become famous? Would there be so much resentment toward me if I was a starving musician playing in small bars and surviving from gig to gig?
“I’m not sorry I left, but I am sorry we lost touch.” After the fight, after Graham and I had broken up, after navigating the first few days of college feeling helpless and alone, I’d shut out the world.
I’d put up my guard.
The only person who’d shoved her way through had been Nan. Even if there wasn’t anything to discuss, even if our conversation lasted three minutes, she’d never stopped calling.
She hadn’t let me walk away from her.
Maybe I needed to take her lead and not let Brooklyn push me away either.
“I don’t know how to talk to you,” I admitted. “I missed a lot of your life. You missed a lot of mine. We’re different people than the girls who lived here once. But maybe we could start over and get to know each other now.”
“It’s too late.” She bent and scooped up her son. “You cut us out, Quinn. Don’t pretend you aren’t going to leave after the funeral and do a repeat performance.”
Without another word, she was out the door and marching to her car parked on the street.
I watched her through the window as she loaded Bradley into his car seat and raced away.
A pang of regret hit because she wasn’t wrong.
I was leaving Monday and had no intention of returning soon. I wanted to go home—to Seattle. I wanted to get back to work and write this next album. If I called Brooklyn, I doubted she’d answer.
She seemed happy. That’s all that mattered, right?
“Where’s Evan?” Maya looked up from her tablet, searching the room for her brother.
“He’s outside. Want to go play?” I stood and stretched a hand for her.
She nodded and followed me to her backpack. I helped her into a pair of flip-flops with an elastic strap for the heel and we went outside where I pushed my niece in a swing.
Was I making things worse by being here? Was it worth trying harder?
Or was it better to leave my family to their lives?
And go back to my own.
A day spent playing with kids was more exhausting than any tour schedule Ethan could have dreamed up.
“They’ll wear you out, huh?” Walker chuckled as I plopped down in a chair at the patio table.
Mom had come home from her trip to the church, and seeing that the kids were happy and thriving, deemed me childcare for the rest of the day so she could help Dad finalize preparation for the funeral.
I’d been glad to help, preferring a day with smiling kids to a day dreading tomorrow. But damn, I was wiped.
“How does Mom do this every day?” I asked.
“Hell if I know.” He sat beside me and watched his kids in the yard. Colin was spending the night with Graham’s parents and they’d already stopped over to collect him. “You’re good with them.”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” I muttered.
He grinned. “Heard you talked to Brooklyn today.”
“She tattled on me already? For the record, I was trying to be nice. But she hates me and that’s not going to change.”
“She doesn’t hate you. But you know how she is about Dad.”
“Yeah.”
Brooklyn was Dad’s girl. She adored him and when it came time to picking sides, she was always on his.
“Dad was pissed when you left,” Walker said. “Brooklyn never understood that he wasn’t mad at you, he was mad at himself.”
“Oh, I think he was mad at me too.”
“At first. That fight was bad and you basically told him to shove it when you disappeared. I mean, Christ, Quinn, you had Graham take you to the airport. You didn’t leave a note or say goodbye. They didn’t even know where you’d gone.”
I cringed. “I’ll admit, that was bad.”
“Yeah. But Dad got over it. He’s spent a lot of years regretting how it turned out.”
“This is news to me.”
“He doesn’t know what to do with you. Dad is so good with people, but you, he never figured you out.”
“So rather than try, he disowned me instead.”
You are not my daughter.
That was one of his statements I’d never forgotten.
I’d held those words tight every time I’d written a song for a year. Every ounce of pain from that sentence had been poured into my music.
“He’s changed,” Walker said gently.
“So everyone says.” But had Dad called? Had he apologized? No. At this point, I didn’t even want an apology. I just wanted to be accepted for who I was. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe it’s been so many years, it’s better to forget and move on.”
“Well, when you move on”—Walker stood from his chair—“don’t forget there are some of us who will always be here for you.”
I looked up at my brother. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you more often.”
“And I’m sorry I never came to one of your shows. Two-way street, Quinn. This is not all on you.”
“Thanks.”
“What are you doing tonight?” he asked. “If you want to get out of the house, there’s a band playing at the Eagles downtown you’ll probably like.”