Lucy didn’t answer and she wouldn’t look at Quinn. But she did wander over to the long kitchen counter. She climbed onto a stool, gaze still stubbornly fixed on her feet, the blanket, anything and everything but Quinn.
Giving up for the moment, Quinn strode to the kitchen and turned her attention to finding something she could feed a child. There was Gouda and some leftover focaccia, a far cry from white bread and processed cheese, but it would have to do. She set the ingredients out on the counter and then pulled a saucepan from the cabinet beside the stove. She set it on a burner and poured in some milk, adding a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder and an equal amount of raw sugar. When it was simmering, she tipped in a dash of vanilla and gave it a quick whisk. She sipped a bit of her homemade concoction from a teaspoon. It was good. Not exactly Swiss Miss, but wasn’t that the point?
There wasn’t much Gouda left, so Quinn shredded it and spread two slices of focaccia with salted butter on one side and a thin layer of Neufchatel cheese on the other. The butter side went down in a frying pan and she sprinkled Gouda on top of the cream cheese. Two more fat slabs of bread on top, then she left it to melt.
Quinn poured the mugs full of steaming hot chocolate and gave them a stir. Lifting two plates out of the cupboard, she set them on the counter and turned a bubbly sandwich onto each. She put one in front of Lucy. Thinking better of it, she grabbed a knife and halved one sandwich, then quartered it so that the pieces were finger-food sized. Just right for little hands.
Or was she being patronizing? Quinn studied Lucy as the girl continued to determinedly avoid her gaze. She was so thin her collarbones poked from beneath the stained dress that hung off her slight frame. No baby fat to speak of, not even in her narrow face. Lucy was all brittle angles: sharp chin, jutting elbows, ears pointed at the tips as if she were a fairy. No, a changeling, a sprite left in the place of a child. Maybe she was older than she looked. Seven? Eight? As Quinn watched, Lucy snuck a quick peek at her benefactor. She looked down, but Quinn had caught her gaze. Lucy’s eyes were blue or hazel or gray, strange and bottomless. The eyes of someone who had been forced to grow up too fast. Nora’s eyes.
Quinn tucked her hair behind her ears and struggled for something to say around the lump in her throat. “Can I help you with your blanket?” she finally asked. “We can put it over the couch while you eat.”
Lucy didn’t respond, but she let the blanket drop to the ground. She sat with her hands in her lap, head bowed over the food that Quinn had placed before her. Shouldn’t she be devouring it? How long had it been since she had last eaten?
“It’s not too hot,” Quinn encouraged her. “I think it should be just right.”
Lucy didn’t move.
Exhaling loudly, Quinn bent over the counter and put her chin in her hand. “What can I do for you, Lucy?”
Seconds ticked by and Quinn felt tears sting her eyes. She wasn’t sure if she was upset because of the situation or because there was a cocktail of manufactured hormones running through her veins. She was mad at Nora, arguing with Walker, and perplexed by Lucy. Still coming to terms with the fact that the child before her may very well be her flesh and blood. She couldn’t begin to mine that unnerving thought. Of course, she was also frustrated by Liz’s unexpected intrusion, saddened by her own discouraging situation, and troubled by the fact that the front door was locked against the unknown. The list went on, and that scared her more than anything.
Quinn blinked hard and straightened. “Okay,” she said. “You don’t have to eat, but I’m certainly going to.”
She yanked open the fridge and grabbed the one guilty indulgence that had survived her clean-eating purge. Walker teased her about it all the time, but Quinn didn’t care. She could get into quinoa and flaxseed and green smoothies, but nothing could make her give up ketchup. Squirting a big dollop of it on the edge of her plate, Quinn picked up her gourmet grilled cheese sandwich and dredged it through the sauce.
Lucy kept her eyes hidden behind thick lashes, her face angled more at the countertop than Quinn.
It was hard not to be the tiniest bit angry.
Wrong emotion and Quinn knew it, but she was trying. She was trying so hard. She felt helpless and inadequate. Like a complete and utter failure. And Lucy’s silence was downright oppressive. Quinn heaved a sigh and popped the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth sloppily. A dab of ketchup missed the mark and began to slip down her chin. Quinn could only imagine what she looked like. A petulant child herself. She reached for a napkin and then stopped. This was whimsical, right? Childlike? Maybe it would make Lucy laugh? Maybe . . . ?
“Look what I’ve done!” Quinn forced herself to laugh a little, but it came out hollow and insincere.
All the same, Lucy couldn’t help it. She peeked up.
But when she saw the mess that Quinn had made of herself, the trail of red that ran from lip to chin, Lucy didn’t laugh.
She screamed.
NORA
THE PARKING LOT was empty at the Grind when Nora pulled up at nearly 10:00 a.m., which meant that the morning rush was already over. There would be a lull for a quarter hour or so, a handful of drive-through customers as they waited for the young mothers’ crowd to start trickling in after the top of the hour.
Nora pressed her lips into a thin line and squeezed the steering wheel until her wrists ached. Everlee was so far away (three hours!) Nora could feel the distance in her bones. And Tiffany was . . . where? Suddenly, it was hard to breathe. Nora was being choked by her blouse and she reached with numb fingers to undo the top button. But it was already undone. She floundered for a moment, fingers at her throat.
There was nothing okay about their current situation. It felt so wrong to be traipsing into the Grind as if all was right in the world, but what choice did she have? She was anxious and angry, edgy and—if she was honest with herself—scared. But she had to behave as if nothing was amiss. Normal, she told herself. Just act normal.
Ethan was rearranging chairs and restocking the napkins when Nora slipped in the back door. If she knew him as well as she thought she did, he had also pulled a test shot for her and adjusted the espresso machine after the early crowd. Nora hated to admit it, but Ethan made better coffee than she did. Even though he was just her assistant manager and she had more experience and a bigger paycheck.