“If all that happened, you wouldn’t touch the mole. Not until he was ready.”
“And what if I didn’t want to wait for that?”
“Then you wouldn’t be the right person for him. And you’d both figure that out.” She puts her hand in my hand and squeezes. “But, buddy? I think you’re going to want him to touch your moles. And by moles I mean—”
“MAGGIE!”
* * *
σ
Before Maggie leaves, I get the full download on Rafa, and how not shy he turns out to be, and how he’s writing a musical they both hope Kennedy will do next year. She makes me promise that the next time there’s a Jackson, I won’t shut her out. I make her promise she won’t pressure me about it, which she acts like she would never do, but which she would absolutely do. I don’t want there to be a next Jackson, though. I just want there to be this Jackson.
CHAPTER 62
“We have milk if you want.” As soon as I walk in the door from school, I can hear Tyler. It’s Wednesday, Mom’s yoga day. He must have a friend over.
I round the corner to see Quinlan sitting behind a bowl of co-op brand Cap’n Crunch. (Kommodore Krinkles, made with certified gluten-free cornmeal and real maple sugar.) “Is it almond milk or soy milk?”
“Just, um, regular milk?” replies Ty.
“Cow milk?”
“I guess?” Is it possible that my brother isn’t sure where milk comes from?
“Okay, just this once.”
Tyler sets the jug next to her. He shoots me a look. Quinlan’s fingers are so pale and so fine, it seems like they will break under the weight of the milk jug. She pours a thin stream that floats the Krinkles to the rim of the bowl.
“Hi, Quin.”
She notices me and her face brightens. “You’re home! I was waiting for you!”
I am expecting to hear Mom and Melinda, but the house is silent except for the shifting of cereal in Quin’s bowl. “Is your mom here? Or your brother?” It’s been weeks, and Jackson and I just give a weak “hey” in the hall if we aren’t able to avoid each other entirely, so if he’s here somewhere, he’s probably hiding.
“No.” She scoops some cereal and licks a drip of milk from the bottom of the spoon.
“Did they drop you off?” Was Tyler babysitting now? The kid can barely avoid electrocuting himself with the remote control.
“I rode the school bus.” She picks a piece of cereal out of the bowl and nibbles on it, as though each Krinkle needed three or four bites. I peek out into the living room; Grumpy Dwarf is safe on the bookshelf with his six brothers by his side.
“Your bus dropped you here today?”
“Quinlan came on our old bus,” Tyler pipes in. “She used the school directory app on her phone to figure out who lived close to us, and then she followed Pia Katz home.” His eyes are huge, like he thinks he’s telling me in code that the kid is bananas. He still hasn’t forgiven her for the Mario earbuds. I want to tell Tyler that a kid who is smart enough to triangulate our location to stop four on the Giraffe Bus would have already killed him if she wanted to. He doesn’t know what I know. She’s not a psycho. She’s lonely.
“So, you’re here on your own?” I say. “Did you tell your mom where you were going?”
“I brought your book back.” She slides off the stool to unzip her backpack and hands me Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. There’s a folded-up paper in the back, like a makeshift bookmark.
“Thanks, Quinlan. You didn’t have to bring it back.” I realize I mean it.
“I really liked it,” she says, and then, inexplicably, begins to cry. Her face crumples, and the tears come. She goes from runaway mastermind to broken, hurting little girl in no seconds flat. Tyler and I look at each other, helpless.
“God, Greer. Let her keep it!” scolds Tyler. But whatever this is, it is not about the book.
“Quin, what’s going on? Did something happen at school? Tyler, go get some tissues.” Ty is happy to have a job that is not talking to a sobbing child. And call Mom, I mouth as I squat down next to her.
She throws her arms around me, knocking me to my butt. When Tyler returns with a box of Kleenex, I am sitting on the kitchen floor with Quinlan in my lap, crying into my neck. She’s long and bony, but trying to make herself small enough to fit. “It’s okay, kiddo.” I have no idea what it is, so I don’t know that it will be okay, but how bad could it be, right? She’s in third grade. Someone was probably mean to her at lunch. Or the class guinea pig picked a different kid to partner with.
“I don’t want to go,” she says and sniffs. “I don’t want to go.” She gasps between sobs. She’s squished hard into my chest, shaking. She holds impossibly tight and I let her, even if it’s uncomfortable.
“You can stay,” I say. “We’ll call your mom. We’ll ask if she can pick you up later.” She cries harder. “We’ll pick out some more books. I’ve got tons and tons of books. Have you ever read Fablehaven? I loved that when I was your age.” She’s so skinny and fragile here in my lap, and so, so sad. I’d give her all my books, Grumpy Dwarf, and one of Tyler’s kidneys if it would make her happy. But I’m not having any effect. She’s not hearing a thing I say.
“I don’t want to go again,” she says. “I like it here.”
“I know, buddy, we’re going to call—”
“I like you guys.”
“We like you, too—”
“I don’t want to go to hamster den,” she wails.
“You don’t want to what?”
“I don’t want to move to Amsterdam. I just want to stay at our house we have now.”
I get a hot, sick feeling from my belly to my forehead. “What do you mean move to Amsterdam? Quin?”
She sits up, and I can see the full effect of the crying. Her eyes and nose are rimmed red, and there are wet trails down her porcelain cheeks. Her ponytail is half out like a wispy white-blond aura. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “And there’s a really nice girl at school named Avery, and she said she would invite me to her birthday, but her birthday’s not till July, so I won’t even get to go to any birthdays. I didn’t go to any birthdays the whole year.”
And I understand. My stomach fills with wet cement. It’s seeping into all my organs and the places between my organs and already starting to harden. The butterfly watches, terrified, as it covers her ankles. The panic is changing already to a dead weight. A weight that keeps increasing.