The Inconceivable Life of Quinn Page 7

  Quinn had almost drowned in the ocean when she was seven, leading her to stop swimming in it completely until that midnight swim on Southaven over Memorial Day weekend. She’d still swum in lakes and ponds, just not the ocean. The drowning story fascinated Lydia, who never seemed to realize that it wasn’t a good memory for anyone. Well, except maybe for Ben, who had been the hero.

  Quinn sent her sister silent Shut up! vibes.

  “I don’t know,” Gabe said gruffly. “And that has nothing to do with this.”

  “When you found her on the beach,” Lydia continued, “after Ben went and got you, was she already dead and you brought her back to life? Or was she, like, just half—”

  “Lydia,” Gabe snapped. “Enough.”

  “I promise, Dad,” Quinn said, “nothing will happen.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “Because you’re not going.”

  GABE CUTLER

  Nothing will happen. Gabe heard the words as he waited on Seventh Avenue for the B67 bus.

  Nothing would happen if he let her go, most likely—he knew that. He also knew that he’d lied: His reaction did have to do with that day Quinn had almost drowned.

  He wasn’t sure why, but ever since finding out she was pregnant, he’d been having vivid memories of that day in Maine: a white-faced, eleven-year-old Ben telling them what had happened; his own frantic run down the wooded path to Holmes Cove; her tiny body lying in the surf. And when he thought of all that, he thought of everything that had come after that summer, Quinn’s confused thoughts and imaginings and reckless behavior. And it was all tangled up with his memories of what his mother, Meryl, had said years earlier, before Quinn was even born.

  Katherine had been pregnant with Quinn when Meryl had asked them to come visit her—the first time she’d tried to see Gabe since she’d walked out on him and his father almost thirty years earlier. Gabe’s instinct was to say “No fucking way.” But Meryl told him that she was dying, and Katherine said he’d regret not going, that he needed to process his anger. (Katherine was the only reason Meryl even knew how to contact him, having insisted on sending her occasional letters, when there was important news to share.) The morning of the visit had been strained, but fine, mostly occupied by Meryl showing them the house and land. As the day went on, she’d become incoherent and emotional, ranting to him about delusional fantasies, acting strangely and irresponsibly with Katherine . . . suicidal, although he didn’t know it at the time. Shortly after they’d left the island, she had walked into the ocean with rocks in her pockets. That’s what she’d meant when she’d said she was dying.

  Standing there on Seventh Ave, Gabe was so lost in the unpleasant memories that he almost didn’t notice when the bus rolled up and stopped with a mechanical sigh. He hung back as an elderly couple boarded, then stepped inside, inserted his MetroCard in the reader, and scanned the bus for a seat next to a constituent he could chat up.

  He needed to stay focused. To live in the present.

  He wouldn’t picture Quinn’s fragile, seven-year-old body in the surf. And he wouldn’t let his mother’s ominous words from that last visit keep poisoning his mind. They had nothing to do with this. Nothing to do with the day Quinn almost drowned. Nothing to do with anything.

  Still, he heard them:

  “Your baby . . . Your daughter . . . Listen to me. You must be the one to tell her, Gabriel. Help her understand. I won’t be there to do it, and if you don’t, things will go badly. Very badly. For all of you.”

  QUINN

  Quinn crept downstairs in the morning when it was still half dark, careful not to wake her parents or sister.

  She sat on the stoop with her beach bag, a black hole of worry in her stomach. Not about going to Rockaway (she wasn’t sneaking—her dad had texted her from his event last night and told her that he’d overreacted) but about Jesse’s continued silence. He’d sent one message: Will call. But he hadn’t, not even in response to her invitation to the beach.

  Of course he didn’t believe her. Of course he thought she cheated on him. Why, why, why had she told him?

  She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to fill the gaping emptiness with a deep breath so it wouldn’t fill with panic.

  Preoccupied, it took her a minute to register what was lying on the step below her feet. The Times. She shook it out of the blue plastic delivery bag and riffled through for the right section. There they were—her father, mother, and sister—under the headline, “Hoping to Put Bestselling Words into Action.” She skimmed the article until her name jumped out. “Cutler’s two younger children, Quinn, 16, and Lydia, 10, attend New Prospect School, a private school with campuses just blocks from the family’s Park Slope home. Cutler says that he would have preferred all three of his children to go to public school, but that new zoning meant . . .” It went on to talk about school issues. That was it. Thank god.

  The door opened behind her. “What are you doing?” Ben said as he stepped out. “Dad caved?”

  Quinn stood up, tossed the Times into the foyer, and slung her beach bag over her shoulder. “Yup,” she said.

  Ben looked doubtful.

  “What?” Quinn asked.

  He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s fine.”

  Quinn followed him to his ancient, beat-up, butter-yellow Mercedes station wagon, and waited in it while he made another trip to get his board and then fastened it on the roof rack. The neighborhood was still asleep under a blanket of haze, the pavement wet from rain during the night. Quinn always felt sorry for raindrops that landed on dirty city streets.

  Ben checked the mirror and pulled out of the space. “I assume we’re picking up Jesse at his mom’s?”

  Quinn swallowed. “Yeah, but I . . . I don’t actually know if he’s coming. He never answered.”

  “Seriously?” Ben said, glancing at her. “Fuck, Quinn. Dad’s going to shit a brick if I take you without Jesse. And if something happens—”

  “Nothing’s going to happen. And Jesse will come. I know he will.”

  They were already turning onto the Kalbitzers’ block. Ben pulled the car in front of a fire hydrant and idled. He hadn’t been around much the last couple of days; this was the first time they’d been alone since finding out about the pregnancy. Quinn rolled down her window the whole way. Ran her finger over a rip in the seat. Birds twittered. Anyone would have predicted this would be the other way around, she thought. Ben having gotten someone pregnant. She wished they didn’t have to talk about it at all, but she also wondered if maybe he could help. Finally, she just came out and said it.

  “Have you ever blacked out?” she asked. “From drinking or drugs or whatever?”

  He turned to her, his gaze sharp. “Why? Is there a night when you—”

  “No,” she said. “That’s the point. There isn’t. That’s why I’m asking. I want to know what it’s like. And whether it could have happened without me realizing. You know, if someone gave me a roofie.”

  “Oh,” Ben said. “Well . . . I’ve never totally blacked out, but there are times when I’ve forgotten bits of the night. Like, how I got home or something.”

  “And the next day you realized you were forgetting stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think I could have woken up after and not realized?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Well, yeah, sure. I guess so. But if it was a roofie, don’t they make people black out for a big chunk of time? And feel sick the next day?”

  “Yeah,” Quinn said. She’d read a million websites about their effects. “But maybe there are milder ones? Or maybe I only took a couple of sips of the drink?”

  Ben waited a moment before responding. “You know, Quinn, you can tell me anything, and I won’t tell Mom and Dad. No one knows better than me what it’s like with them. The pressure they can put on you to be a certain way. How judgmental Dad is. So if there’s something you can’t tell them—”

  “There isn’t,” Quinn said, a bit short be
cause he sounded just like them and everyone else, insinuating she was lying.

  “Okay,” he said, although she sensed skepticism in his voice. “Well . . . I just want you to know you can trust me. And that I’d do anything to help you. Anything at all.”

  “I know,” she said. “And you are helping, by keeping me away from those stupid campaign events today.”

  Silence returned to the car.

  Quinn focused out the window, willing Jesse to bound out of his building. The front door opened, but it was an older woman walking a dachshund. They waited ten minutes past when she told him they’d be there. A lump swelled in her throat. Ben started the car, pulled out—

  “Hey! Wait!” A voice, calling from up the block. And then Jesse running down the street. Waving at Ben to stop.

  During the whole car ride, Quinn reached into the back seat and held Jesse’s hand so she’d know he was really there, not just a figment of her imagination. When he’d gotten in the car with them, she’d felt like she was about to float out the window. His smile was tight and his eyes guarded, but just the fact that he’d come . . . (He wouldn’t have come just to dump her, would he?)

  As they crossed over the bridge to the Rockaways, she tasted the ocean on the damp, briny wind. And the minute they reached the wide, flat expanse of beach, she kicked off her flip-flops and ran—heels sinking in the cold sand—down to the edge of the water, then stood, eyes closed. She didn’t move, just stood there, arms out, and let the salt, seaweed, roar, rush, spray, seep into her veins. Freezing surf tickled her toes, then wrapped round her feet, trying to urge her in. Someone once told her that waves coming in were young ocean spirits, wanting to explore, and the undertow was cautious older ones pulling them back out. Hello! she splashed with her feet. Hello! Hello! Hello!

  The morning air hadn’t warmed up yet—there was a trace of fall in it, even—but she wanted to swim. First, though, she needed to talk to Jesse. As thrilled as she’d been to see him, the thought of what he might say made her a little sick. Wind plastered her hair across her face as she looked for where the boys had settled with their stuff. There—Ben putting on his wetsuit, Jesse fishing in his navy backpack.

  When she reached them, Ben headed out with his board, grumbling about how the waves weren’t as big as some guy said they’d be. Jesse was applying sunscreen. In the midst of all her worries, Quinn couldn’t help thinking about how she’d like to be the one rubbing that lotion onto his abs. It felt like forever since she’d run her hands over his smooth skin.

  Instead, she spread out a tapestry, anchoring down the edges with flip-flops and lotion bottles and cans of seltzer. After a moment, she realized she was fussing with stuff to put off the start of their conversation and forced herself to take a breath and sit. Jesse followed suit.

  “Thanks so much for coming,” she said.

  “No problem.” He poured a cup of coffee from a thermos he’d brought. He offered it to Quinn, but she shook her head.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call,” he said after a minute.

  “That’s okay. Were you . . . busy?”

  He turned to meet her eyes. “Let’s cut the shit, Q. I was freaked out. Obviously. You—Quinn—pregnant. It came as a bit of a surprise.”

  “I know,” Quinn said. “I’m sorry.” She bit her cheeks.

  “You don’t need to be sorry. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying that . . . that I have no idea what to say! I was in shock. It was like you threw a grenade in my head and I had to piece my brain back together before speaking to you.” He pantomimed his head exploding, with sound effects.

  “So, is your brain, uh, back together?”

  “I think so,” he said. “Took a while, given its enormous size.”

  Quinn allowed herself a slight smile. “And now,” she said cautiously, “you believe me? You believe I have no idea how it happened?”

  He dug into the sand with his feet. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, so . . . no.”

  Of course he didn’t. No one did.

  He stared into her eyes again. “I get that you’d be scared to tell me you hooked up with someone else. But lying about it would be way, way, way worse. You get that, right? I’d rather a hundred times over that you just tell me the truth.” His bottom lip was twitching slightly. “So . . . just tell me. Okay?”

  Quinn reached up for her pendant but wasn’t wearing it so fiddled with the drawstring of her hoodie instead. “I promise, Jess. I did not sleep with someone else. I absolutely swear.” You’re not lying. You only kissed Marco.

  He kept his eyes locked on hers, and for once, she didn’t like the feeling that he could read all her thoughts. “Swear on Haven’s life?” he said.

  “Swear on Haven’s life.”

  A few beats passed. “Okay,” he said. “Sorry for pushing, but it’s kind of the obvious conclusion.”

  “I know.”

  “So you really, honest to god, have no memory of anything?”

  “Honest to god,” Quinn said. “I know it’s impossible to believe. But I need you to trust me.”

  Jesse looked out at the waves. The wind ruffled his hair. “Well,” he finally said. “It’s pretty damn scary, and weird. Super weird. Like, David Lynch weird. But I trust you. So I guess that means I believe you.”

  Quinn’s whole body softened at those words, except for a deep down tiny part that she swept into a corner. “Thank you, Jess,” she said, hugging him and kissing the warm skin on his neck, tasting sunscreen. “You’re the only one who does.”

  “So,” he said. “What . . . you know, what happens now?”

  Quinn explained about her upcoming appointments at the clinic—unexpectedly hit by a pang of sadness while talking about it—and then told him that her parents wanted them to do a paternity test.

  “They wanted me to do it without asking. I’m not even supposed to tell you I’m pregnant—my dad would kill me if he knew I had. But I wanted you to know. All I’d need for the test is a strand of hair. I already got my blood drawn.”

  “No problem.” He reached up and plucked a hair off his head, held it out to her, saying, “Take it now, if you want. But you realize my boys would have to be superheroes? Like, wearing tiny little capes and tights and doing impossible things.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought,” Quinn said. “Maybe they are.” She rummaged through her beach bag and brought out her notebook, tore out a blank page and carefully folded it around Jesse’s hair and put it safe in a pocket.

  “And if they’re just average citizens?” he said. “What then?”

  She opened the notebook to the pages with the chart she’d shown Dr. Jacoby. “I need to remember every possible thing about these two weeks. I’m trying to fill this in.” She held it out to him. “Could you look at your calendar or old messages or whatever and see if you can figure out any time when I might have been . . . I don’t know, vulnerable? I guess any time I was walking somewhere alone at night would be most likely, right?”

  He studied it, his eyes widening slightly. “Wow. I didn’t realize it happened so long ago. You’re really pregnant. Like, far along.”

  His gaze darted down to her belly for the briefest moment; she was glad she still had on the hoodie over her bathing suit. “Yeah,” she said. “Anyway, I figure if we come up with some possibilities about where and when something might have happened, you can hypnotize me and ask me about them, try to make me remember. I’ve been reading about hypnosis, and it’s not like you have to be trained to do it.”

  “Hypnotize you? Seriously?”

  “I’ve read online about repressed memories, and some people say hypnosis works. There’s a sheet in there,” she gestured at the notebook, “something I printed out, with directions and stuff.” A beat passed. With every step in the conversation, Quinn was bracing herself for him to run away from the whole thing. “Will you help? It might not work, but I have to do something.”

  “If you’re sure,” Jesse finally said. “I’ll do anythin
g you want.”

  “Thank you,” she said, hugging him again.

  When she pulled back, they both stared at the calendar.

  She pointed at the night where she’d written: Music fest in Park. Walk home? “Do you remember us walking home that night?”

  He paused. “Not off the top—Oh. Wait. I left early. Before the rest of you. Remember?”

  Quinn shook her head. “Nope. But that definitely makes it more likely I’d have walked alone.” She took a pen out of her bag, made a note on the page.

  “What about that night in Maine?” Jesse said, pointing at the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Quinn froze for a split-second, but then he added, “You know, after we watched the movie, when we were on the deck and you disappeared? You were alone then.”

  “When I went swimming?” she said, breathing again. “I thought about that, but the thing is, I remember it so clearly. Swimming. And we had that whole conversation when I came back. You’d have noticed if I was, like, traumatized, don’t you think? And you’d definitely have noticed if I was drugged, right?”

  He thought. “Yeah, you definitely didn’t seem groggy or drugged. You seemed . . . happy. Excited. Not upset. And totally clear-headed.”

  Although neither of them mentioned it now, Jesse was the one who’d been upset during that conversation.

  He pointed to the calendar again. “We got a ride home from Isa’s mom after Ms. Knowles’s art opening, so it wasn’t that night.”

  At the prompt, the memory of everyone piling into the car surfaced. “Yes!” Quinn said. “See? You’re helping already!”

  After making another quick note, she leaned over and kissed him overenthusiastically, jolting and spilling his coffee.

  “Hey!” he said, setting it aside. “Watch it.” He tossed a handful of sand at her.

  “You watch it,” she said, giving him a playful shove.

  He shoved back, and soon they were throwing sand and wrestling and pretending to forget how unfathomably weird Quinn’s life had become.