The Inconceivable Life of Quinn Page 4

  It was Wednesday morning. Today was her appointment with her mother’s OB/GYN.

  She’d been holed up for days. Called in sick to her job and the first day of school; sent a brief text to Jesse and friends saying she had a terrible flu; reread favorite books and binge-watched shows to distract herself.

  This morning she woke in a panic before it was light, a sharp fear pulsing painfully in the middle of her chest. A condom. There was a condom in her room. One handed out at school during health class. If her parents found it they would think she was lying about being a virgin. Quinn’s mind latched onto this thought and couldn’t let it go, no matter how unlikely it was that her parents would ever be searching her room at all. She had to get rid of that condom.

  She thought she’d hidden it in a small zippered pocket in a travel bag for toiletries. But, no, it hadn’t been there when she checked. The back of her underwear drawer? No. The pain in her chest got worse.

  Now, it was like Quinn had turned herself inside out—drawers and boxes and bags had all spewed their guts onto the floor. No hidden condom. Anywhere.

  The only things that had been the least bit hidden—shoved way underneath her bed—were two shoeboxes, labeled “Quinns—dont tuch!” in her shaky second-grade handwriting. She opened them up. Childhood crap that she shouldn’t even be saving—rocks and shells and drawings that reminded her of how weird and lonely and miserable she was the first year they lived in Brooklyn. She didn’t have any friends until she transferred schools in third grade. By then, she’d learned how to talk and act like a city kid.

  Looking at it all made Quinn even sicker. She shoved the boxes back under the bed.

  Tears of frustration stung her eyes. Her breaths were quick and shallow. Calm down, she told herself. You haven’t done anything wrong. You are not a liar. You’re not even pregnant. Just calm the fuck down.

  QUINN

  A nurse entered the waiting room.

  “Quinn?” she said, over the sound of an MSNBC report about an earthquake in India. “Follow me, please.”

  Quinn stood and found that her legs were shaky, like they would have been if she were in Mumbai right now.

  “Good luck, Nicole,” her mother said to the random woman sitting across from them who’d been talking excitedly about the experimental fertility treatment she’d come for from far away.

  See how hard it was to get pregnant? It couldn’t just . . . happen.

  “Thank you so much,” the Nicole woman said with a beaming smile. “God bless.”

  Quinn and her mother followed the nurse down the hall, under the buzz of fluorescent lights. The nurse’s long, frizzy braid bounced against her puke-peach scrubs.

  Katherine squeezed Quinn’s hand and whispered, “Everything will be okay, sweetie. I promise.”

  If Quinn had ever believed that, she certainly didn’t now.

  “There it is. Hear that?”

  A muffled, rhythmic sound. A distant drumming. Fast and strong.

  A heartbeat.

  A heartbeat that wasn’t Quinn’s own.

  NICOLE ANDERSON

  In her rented room in Manhattan, big enough only for a single bed and a small dresser, Nicole Anderson from Kalamazoo stood at the window and looked out at the city. She couldn’t stop thinking about the teenage girl from the doctor’s waiting room that morning, with the dark, thoughtful eyes under strong, slanted brows. Although Nicole knew it was foolish—her fertility treatments might not even work and she’d barely heard the girl say one word—she’d found herself hoping that someday she’d have a daughter just like her. She had no idea why. The girl was beautiful in an unfussy way, but it wasn’t her appearance; Nicole didn’t care what any of her God-willing future children looked like. So what was it about the girl that had struck her so deeply?

  It wasn’t until weeks later, when Nicole and the other believers stood outside the girl’s house, that Nicole would realize her thoughts hadn’t been foolish at all.

  “God told me who she was that very first time I saw her,” she’d explain to people from then on, as she described the waiting room encounter.

  Despite how everything turned out, she thought about it often—a touchstone in the story of her life.

  QUINN

  Quinn watched herself from outside her body. A girl lying curled on the bed for hours—motionless, silent. Mother sitting next to her, father pacing, repeating the same things and asking the same questions over and over. Why is she saying it isn’t Jesse’s? She hasn’t been with anyone else, has she? She’s so far along—over three months—how can she not have known? Why is she still insisting this isn’t possible? Clearly it is! How can she still say she’s a virgin? They aren’t upset that she had sex—they just need her to admit it!

  Between unanswerable questions, they murmured to each other and on their phones. Quinn vaguely realized they were making arrangements to take care of this. Arrangements to make the nightmare go away. Because it had to be a nightmare. It couldn’t be real. Virgins did not get pregnant. Except in stories.

  QUINN

  Morning. Impatient sunlight pried open her heavy eyelids. Her head throbbed; her body was drained. Why was she so—? Oh. Oh, god.

  She nudged her cat, Haven, off of her legs and scrambled out of bed and raced to the toilet, making it just in time to vomit. When there was nothing more to come up, she sat on the cool tile floor with her back against the tub and her arms around her knees.

  She needed to wake up from this nightmare. Now. She forced herself to stand, brush her teeth, splash water on her face.

  At the bottom of the stairs, her parents’ voices echoed out from the kitchen. Dread prickled through her. She had to talk to them about the next step, but didn’t know how many more of their questions she could take. They made her own confusion even worse and filled her with guilt that was sharp but also fuzzy, since she wasn’t quite sure what it was about.

  “And after that?” her mother asked her father. NPR droned in the background.

  “That thing at the Bridge. And then the community center in Crown Heights.”

  They weren’t even talking about her. They were listening to Morning Edition. Regular life was going on.

  “Hi,” Quinn said.

  Her father looked up from the Times spread on the table in front of him. Her mother turned from the stove. Dark circles formed bruises under her puffy eyes.

  “Sweetie,” Katherine said, putting down the bag of coffee and coming over to hug her. “Did you sleep?”

  “A little.”

  Her father reached out. She went over and bent down for an awkward, one-armed embrace.

  “I called school and told them you were still sick,” her mother said in a falsely normal voice, as if her daughter just had a nasty cold.

  Quinn sat at the table. “You said something . . . yesterday . . . about appointments?”

  “At two today,” Katherine said. “With a therapist here in the neighborhood.”

  That wasn’t the appointment Quinn cared about. “What about . . . the other one?”

  “Next week,” her mother said. “Thursday. The clinic in Brooklyn Heights.”

  “That’s a week away!”

  “We were particular about which one to go to,” her father said, folding the newspaper with precision. “They’re busy.”

  “And because you’re . . . far along,” Katherine added, “it’s three appointments. The first is just a consultation and tests.”

  That meant even longer to wait before the actual event. More time for the baby to grow. Quinn’s gut clenched.

  Her mother sat next to her. “Are you ready to talk?” she asked. “You seem like you might—”

  “No,” Quinn said, louder than she meant to.

  “Quinn,” her father said firmly. “We love you, you know that. But this not talking has gone on long enough. I’m not sure what the story is, but we need to talk about it. There is no other option. Understand?”

  Quinn bit her lips. In the sil
ence that followed came the click of the front-door lock turning, footsteps in the hallway, then on the stairs down from the parlor floor. Ben came into the kitchen. He was a mess. Hair all disheveled, shirt half in/half out, a stamp of some sort smudged on his cheek. He smelled of cigarettes and bodies and loud music and no sleep.

  “Hey,” he said. “Have you guys ever noticed how lame it is that you have to walk up the stoop to get into the house and then back down the stairs to get to the first floor? Total waste of precious energy.”

  No one spoke for a moment.

  “I thought maybe you’d moved back to your place,” Katherine said eventually.

  “Nah. Just stayed at a friend’s for a few nights. Didn’t you get my text?” He grabbed a carton of orange juice from the fridge and glanced back and forth between Quinn and their parents.

  “Man,” he said. “I thought I looked like shit. Who died?”

  The air in the kitchen froze.

  “Fuck,” Ben said. “Someone died?”

  “Watch your language,” Gabe snapped. “And as long as you’re in this house, I don’t want you living this way. All these different girls. When you’re here, I want you to act like a responsible adult. Not out sleeping with different people each night.”

  “Jesus, Dad,” Ben said. “I was at Zach’s place. What’s your problem?” He looked at Quinn and Katherine. “Seriously, what’s going on?”

  Quinn stood. “I’m sorry,” she muttered, fumbled past the table and chairs, upstairs to the bathroom, then dry-heaved her guts out.

  Physically spent, she lay on her bed and opened up the calendar app on her phone. Based on the ultrasound, the doctor had given her a two-week window in late spring when this had . . . happened: her art teacher’s gallery opening in Manhattan, Spanish tutoring sessions, Memorial Day weekend trip to Maine with her mother, Jesse, Ben, and Lydia—those were the only entries. She stared at the mostly empty boxes, as if the answer was going to spontaneously appear under the laser beam of her gaze: May 30—Impregnated! Abducted by aliens! Chosen by God, like the Virgin Mary! Ha! God would have picked pretty poorly if he picked her, seeing as she didn’t even believe in him. Her family wasn’t at all religious. (Except to voters. To them, they were “spiritual but unaffiliated.”)

  A knock came at her door.

  “Yeah?” she called.

  “Can I come in?”

  Her father. She sat up, closed the app. “Okay.”

  “Everything all right, Little?” he said, shutting the door behind him. He used to call Ben “Big Ben,” so when Quinn was born, she’d become “Little.”

  “Uh huh,” she lied. But what a dumb question.

  “I have something to—” He wiped his hand across his forehead. “It’s like a jungle in here. I wanted to talk, but I’m going to melt.”

  “You can turn on the other fan or open the window wider.” Or just leave me alone.

  “Your window,” he said, approaching it. “You don’t have bars? Or even a screen?”

  “Uh, no.”

  Palms on the sill, he leaned out a bit, glanced to either side, then shut the pane and locked it. “The fire escape is right there, Quinn.”

  Of course it was. So she could climb down if there was a fire.

  “Someone could get in,” he said. “Or out.”

  “If you’re talking about Jesse,” she said, “he uses the door. It’s not like we’ve ever had to sneak around.” This was mostly true. Quinn had snuck in and out before, but through the front or kitchen doors, not the window. And not to have sex. Just to hang out with Jesse and other friends in the neighborhood or to snuggle with him in the backyard hammock while whispering about the types of things you can only talk about outside, in middle-of-the-night darkness.

  “We’ll install an AC unit for you. So it can stay closed.” He took out his phone and made a quick note on it, then wiped his forehead again. “Let’s go down to the box. Fresh air.”

  Gabe’s third-floor office was so small, the family called it “the box,” and it was just as cold as the doctor’s office had been. (AC wasn’t Quinn’s idea of fresh air.) There was one chair at the desk. Gabe sat in it before noticing Quinn was still standing. “Oh,” he said. “You sit, Little.” He stood.

  She sat and looked up at him. His phone buzzed.

  “This therapist you’re seeing is supposed to be excellent,” he said, ignoring the text. “She wrote a well-known book about adolescence. We had to pull some strings to get an appointment, so I hope you’ll feel comfortable talking with her. Clearly, something’s stopping you from being able to open up to me and your mom.”

  “It’s not that—”

  He raised his hand. “Just let me say a few things, okay? I’m not pressuring you to talk right now. I don’t want you to keep getting defensive.”

  Quinn stared at her lap. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s start with what we know.”

  That was what he always said when he was talking about how to solve a problem that was too hard, or how he answered questions that he wasn’t sure about during a debate or interview.

  “We know that you were impregnated by a boy.”

  She bit her cheeks and nodded.

  “Obviously, our hope—and assumption—is that you and Jesse weren’t careful enough. Maybe you didn’t even have sex, but just came close. I don’t know. But if that’s not the case . . . if you slept with someone else, other than Jesse, and feel guilty, you need to know that it’s okay. You don’t need to be scared to tell us. No matter who it was.”

  “But I haven’t—”

  He held up a hand again. “Let me finish. Okay? If it wasn’t either Jesse or something else consensual . . . if someone did something to you against your will . . .” He rubbed his chin. “I know that victims often blame themselves. After a rape. And if that’s what this is, you don’t need to. Sexual violence is never, ever the victim’s fault. No matter what the circumstance.” He gazed down at her intensely. “Even if you were drinking or . . . or whatever. It would never be your fault. Never. You know that, right?”

  “Uh huh,” Quinn said. They’d had multiple assemblies at school about sexual consent, and her mother had talked to her about it, too. “But I don’t remember anything like—”

  “Quinn, please. All I want you to say is that you understand that we won’t judge you, and that you’ll try to talk to Dr. Jacoby. That you’ll trust her to help you.” He paused. “Okay? Can you do that?”

  She restrained herself from saying she had nothing to tell the therapist, either. “Okay.”

  His phone buzzed again. “Sorry,” he said, looking at the screen. “The photographer for the Times. She’s coming today, of all days.”

  The article. “Is the reporter guy going to . . . mention the party?”

  “No. I took care of it.” He set the phone on the desk. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the obvious importance of keeping this in the family, not including your doctors.”

  Of course. God knows she didn’t want anyone to find out. She still hadn’t answered anyone’s messages beyond saying she was still sick. Jesse had come to the house to check on her, but her mom had sent him away and had promised Quinn she hadn’t said anything suspicious.

  “And by family,” her father continued, “I mean us and Ben. Not Lydia.”

  “I know,” Quinn said.

  “No matter what the story is . . .” He squatted down in front of the chair so that he was eye level with her. “We’ll always love you. There’s nothing you could tell us that would change that. Nothing. Obviously, there’s a rational explanation for this. Right? A rational explanation? And no matter what it is, we will still love you. Understand?” The blue of his irises was so clear and his gaze so piercing that Quinn felt like he could see something inside her that she couldn’t even see herself.

  She nodded.

  “You need to tell us so we can help you,” he said. “The only thing we want from you is the truth.”


  Eyes closed, Quinn lay in a bath to soothe her itchy skin. Out of nowhere, a vague childhood memory washed over her. Damp clothes. Bone-deep pain. A bumpy car ride. And her father’s angry voice. No more lies! No more lies, Quinn! But . . . Although she couldn’t pinpoint the exact circumstance, she remembered knowing that he hadn’t wanted to hear the truth, either. Like now.

  QUINN

  Dr. Ellen Jacoby’s office was on the garden level of a brownstone in the North Slope, uncomfortably close to school. As Quinn and her mother waited out front to be buzzed in, Quinn kept her head down, long hair falling forward, and tapped a spiral notebook against her thigh.

  The buzzer sounded. “Dr. Jacoby’s supposed to be excellent,” Katherine said, reaching for the door. “We were lucky to get an appointment.”

  “Dad told me.”

  A tall woman with close-cropped, grayish-blond hair and rectangular tortoiseshell glasses met them in the entryway. “Please, call me Ellen,” she said. “Or Dr. Jacoby. Whichever you’re more comfortable with.” After a few words with Katherine about logistics, she led Quinn down a narrow hall to her office. She wore a slim gray skirt and silky orange blouse, all tailored and professional.

  Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled two walls of the room; the back wall was mostly glass and had a door leading to a small, densely planted garden. The room itself was refined and precise. The only other type of therapy Quinn had ever been in was speech therapy when she was little, to help with a lisp, and now she remembered how chaotic that office had been—toys and dolls and bright colors everywhere. So different from this office, which was right out of one of her mother’s design magazines. Ellen—no, Dr. Jacoby—sat in one of two modern armchairs and smiled. “Sit wherever you like,” she said. Quinn picked the other chair instead of the sofa, because it let her look outside. She tried to calm herself by identifying the different plants in the garden: azalea, coleus, hosta . . .

  Dr. Jacoby started out by telling Quinn that everything she said in the office was completely private.