“Thanks.” A flash of regret crossed Quinn’s eyes. “I’d love to meet them.”
Quinn hadn’t met her niece or nephew yet. They were six and four. Mindy and Walker had been married for seven years.
Those numbers, the years she’d missed, erased any shred of pity I had at her discomfort. She should be miserable. She should regret her choices. She hadn’t just left me behind when she’d disappeared to Seattle and never looked back.
She’d abandoned us all.
“Mom, do you—” Brooklyn came downstairs with her baby in her arms. She must have been upstairs nursing when we’d arrived. She took one look at Quinn and her face hardened.
“Hi, Brookie.” Quinn turned and gave her a smile.
Brooklyn scoffed. “No one calls me that anymore.”
“Oh, sorry.” Quinn’s face fell and her attention went to the baby named after their father. “This is your son? Bradley?”
“Yeah.” Brooklyn didn’t spare her another glance before marching past us and storming outside.
Quinn’s eyes closed and she blew out a long breath. “Wow.”
“She’ll come around,” Ruby said, walking to Quinn and putting an arm around her shoulders. “It’s good to have you home.”
“I’m ready for the burgers and dogs!” my dad bellowed from outside before poking his face through the door. “Oh, hey there, Quinny.”
Quinny. With one word, my dad erased the tension in her face. She smiled, bright and so goddamn beautiful I had to look away. “Hi, Mr. Hayes.”
“Mr. Hayes.” Dad huffed a laugh. “You haven’t changed.”
No matter how many times Dad had insisted Quinn call him Don, she’d always refused.
But Dad was wrong. Quinn had changed.
Too much had changed.
“Dad!” A bolt of light shot inside, racing past my dad to collide with my legs. My son smiled up at me, both his front teeth missing. Those had cost the tooth fairy five bucks apiece—I was a generous fairy.
“How’s it going, bud? Were you good for Walker and Mindy?”
“Duh. Will you play catch with me?”
“After lunch.” I ruffled his brown hair, a shade that matched my own. “Go wash up.”
He spun around, ready to blast off because he was a run or run faster kind of kid. Colin Hayes didn’t understand the concept of walking. When he launched, he bumped into Quinn. “Oh. Sorry.”
She blinked at him, her gaze bouncing between the two of us.
Colin’s eyes widened, recognition washing over his face, and I tipped my head to the ceiling, stifling a groan. Shit.
“What the what? You’re Quinn! Quinn Montgomery, the drummer for Hush Note. You’re The Golden Sticks.”
Quinn’s nose scrunched at the nickname, but Colin kept rambling, his arms flapping in the air as they tried to keep pace with his tongue.
“Hush Note is my favorite band ever, but ‘Sweetness’ isn’t my favorite song, because Dad’s right, they overplayed it and now it’s ruined. My first favorite is ‘Torchlight.’ My second favorite is ‘Passive Aggression.’ My third favorite is tied with ‘Hot Mess’ and ‘Fast Hands.’ What’s your favorite? Are you allowed to pick one? I bet it’s ‘Torchlight’ too, huh?”
“Um . . .” Quinn’s mouth fell open.
“I want to be a drummer. I have a drum set in the basement and everything. Maybe you can come over and we can play.” Colin whirled. “Can she, Dad?”
I was tempted to say yes and leave Quinn to Colin like a lamb to the wolves. My seven-year-old son would eat her alive with his perpetual commentary.
Asking questions was Colin’s super strength. From the minute I picked him up at the bus stop to the time I tucked him into bed at night, the kid was a string of question after question, and most of the time he didn’t wait for an answer between them.
Once, about a year ago, I’d asked him to give me five minutes of quiet and he’d told me that if he didn’t speak, he wouldn’t be able to breathe.
That was my son.
Unless you were prepared for it, unless you had years of built-up stamina, the kid could zap your energy in under an hour.
It would be fun to sic him on Quinn and see how she held up.
But the way the color had leeched from her face, the way she was staring at him, unblinking, hit me square in the chest. It hit that part of me, the part I couldn’t ignore, that would always protect Quinn.
Seeing my son for the first time was causing her pain.
“Go wash up.” I turned Colin’s shoulders and gave him a gentle shove in the direction of the bathroom.
As he walked, he mouthed oh my gosh and fist pumped.
I grinned. My son was fucking awesome.
Most seven-year-old boys didn’t care much about rock bands. They were into basketball and baseball. Colin loved sports, but he devoted an equal amount of time practicing dribbling or his throw to playing on the drums I’d bought him for Christmas.
He was awful. Truly, awful. But it made him so happy I didn’t care about the noise.
“You have a son,” Quinn said, barely over a whisper.
I nodded. “He just turned seven. You didn’t know?”
“No, I, uh . . .” She shook off the surprise. “Nan told me about him.”
“They were close.” For Colin’s sake, I was grateful that Quinn was here. She’d be a distraction from the death of a woman he’d loved nearly as much as his grandmother.
“He knows a lot about me,” she said.
“That’s Nan’s doing. Not mine.” I wanted to make it crystal clear Colin’s infatuation had nothing to do with me. “I banned Hush Note music in our house a long time ago, but Nan was proud of you. Whenever she’d spend time with Colin, they’d play your music, and she’d tell him all about her famous granddaughter.”
Tears flooded Quinn’s eyes, but she blinked them away. “‘Torchlight’ was her favorite song too.”
Because it was a good song, something I wouldn’t admit out loud.
And Nan had had impeccable taste when it had come to music. She’d taught Colin about the classics, not just Hush Note.
My God, we were going to miss her. Yesterday and today had been such a flurry of activity that it hadn’t sunk deep that Nan was gone. I expected to walk onto the patio and see her in the chair beneath the umbrella, sipping a huckleberry lemonade and reapplying the hot-pink lipstick she’d worn at all times.
“Let’s eat,” Mom called.
Quinn kept her head down as she walked to the sliding doors, then slipped outside.
I raked a hand through my hair, finally able to breathe now that she was out of sight. Everyone had better eat fast because I was not sticking around long.
What I wanted was a quiet afternoon with my son at home, answering his questions and playing catch and remembering the woman who’d been just as much a grandmother to me as she had been to Quinn, Walker and Brooklyn.
I waited for Colin to come running from the bathroom and led him outside, getting him seated at the kids’ picnic table in the yard before I sat down on the deck with the adults.
Nan’s chair was empty.
I pulled out the chair beside Dad, three seats away from Quinn, but before I could sit, my mother, carrying a bowl of her famous potato salad, hip-checked me and plopped down in the seat.