It took Liz wandering into the living room bleary-eyed and still cinching her robe to finally convince the girls it was time to retreat to Quinn’s bedroom. But sleeping bags on the floor and fingernail polish didn’t stop them from filtering in and out on their way to the bathroom, the kitchen. And when Quinn learned through the rumor mill several weeks later that Sarah had made out with some older guy, she wasn’t surprised to find out it was JJ.
No, Quinn had never been close with her brother. And she wasn’t about to try to change that now.
She placed her mother—and her brother—firmly out of her mind and tried to focus on caring for Lucy. It proved much more difficult than Quinn imagined it could be.
It wasn’t just the screaming over breakfast. That had been terrifying enough, but Lucy refused to thaw even a little in spite of what Quinn hoped was her attentive warmth. It was no good. Lucy wouldn’t let Quinn touch her and tried more than once to leave the cabin when Quinn wasn’t looking.
“No!” Quinn finally shouted when Lucy tried to wrench the front door open and escape for the third time. She stood in the doorframe, arms stretched wide to block the little girl from escape. “Stop it, Lucy! You’re stuck with me!”
They both cried.
But something seemed to break in Lucy. She slipped into quiet compliance—which Quinn decided was, in some ways, worse. Lucy’s deference was almost creepy.
They spent the rest of the day circling each other, wary, reluctant. Quinn didn’t want to admit it, but it crushed her a bit that she wasn’t able to break through the little girl’s steely defenses.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. The cabin was equipped with a game cupboard, and Quinn’s first tactic involved Candy Land with a side of cheerful banter. Even when the board was set up and Queen Frostine was doing her sparkly best, Lucy remained unmoved. Maybe she was too old to enjoy Candy Land? Yahtzee was next, but the din of dice in the red plastic cup only gave Quinn a headache. When the games proved ineffective, she moved on to puzzles (a thousand pieces of a lake sunset—Quinn didn’t get very far), bubbles (they were favors leftover from an outdoor wedding), and finally, a dance party thanks to Spotify and the portable Jambox that projected “Uptown Funk” throughout the entire cabin.
Lucy didn’t so much as crack a smile.
“What do you want, Lucy?” Quinn asked as she powered off the Bluetooth speaker. The melody of horns and bass cut abruptly, and in the ensuing stillness the cabin seemed unnaturally quiet.
Nothing.
The little girl was sitting on the sofa, her back straight and ankles crossed primly. As Quinn watched, she smoothed her dirty dress over her knees and picked at a loose thread with an almost alarming intensity. She was, without a doubt, the most focused child Quinn had ever met. Preternaturally good at playing hard to get. Lucy was flat-out ignoring the woman in front of her—even though Quinn had done everything but swallow flaming swords while standing on her head.
“I’d love to take you outside,” Quinn faltered, gazing longingly at the sun as it glinted off the water. They would make a little sand castle in the tiny beach beside the dock and then dip their toes in the water when the afternoon got too hot. Maybe Lucy didn’t know how to swim. Maybe Quinn could teach her.
But that was an idle wish. Quinn couldn’t take Lucy outside. Not with the dozens of boats circling in and out of the bay. Small-town curiosity was a powerful force and Quinn knew exactly how it would go: a local would spot her with a pint-sized companion and cut the engine, tossing the dock line to her as they puttered through the water. “Now, Quinn, my girl. Who do we have here?” And she would have to talk and entertain, pull a couple of drinks out of the cooler that was conveniently hidden in the bench seat at the end of the dock. Snapple and straight-talk, that was how the fine folk of Key Lake liked to spend a summer afternoon. And when the sun began to set they traded in iced tea for Coors Light. Cans, of course, because they were safer than glass on the water.
No, Lucy couldn’t go outside.
They were at an impasse. So after hours of trying and failing, Quinn finally gave up and let Lucy click through stations on the flat-screen TV. And that’s exactly what the child did: flip, flip, flip. Past Wheel of Fortune and MSNBC and Ellen. Home improvement shows and Say Yes to the Dress and reruns of The Big Bang Theory. Whenever Curious George ambled across the screen or Princess Sofia made an appearance, Quinn held her breath. But Lucy never stopped.
Quinn was grateful when the sun began its slow descent and she could bundle Lucy off to bed. The child didn’t make so much as a peep.
“She’s in bed?” Walker asked when he came in past dark.
Quinn was curled up on the couch, a magazine in hand though she hadn’t read a single paragraph. “Of course she’s in bed. She’s not a teenager.”
“That bad?” Walker plopped down on the couch and grabbed Quinn’s ankle, settling her foot in his lap. He ran his finger lightly down the curve of her arch. She squirmed.
“You know I hate that.”
He smiled, pressing his thumb into the soft spot beneath the ball of her foot and circling slowly. “But I know you love this.”
Quinn sighed and tipped her head back against the couch cushions. She had always considered herself a kid person; she’d loved babysitting in high school and couldn’t wait to be a mom herself, but an entire day with Lucy had thoroughly scuffed the patina on those shiny dreams.
Walker moved his hands over Quinn’s foot, gently cracking each bone in her pretty little toes. She stifled a shiver.
“I think . . .” Quinn wasn’t sure she dared to voice what she really thought.
“What?”
“I think there’s something wrong with her.”
Walker exhaled through his nose and fixed Quinn with an arch look. “You’ve just figured this out?”
Quinn reached over and punched him on the shoulder. “I mean, besides the obvious.”
“Let’s see,” Walker mused as he put his shoulders into massaging Quinn’s heel. “She was abandoned—”
Quinn tried to protest but Walker talked right over her.
“—with a stranger—”
“Hey!”
“—in a strange place. She’s lonely and frightened and confused. And who knows what she endured before she was dropped in our laps.”
“I’m not sure she was dropped in our laps.” Quinn sounded accusatory, which was an accident. She was going for lighthearted. With an edge. The truth was, she had felt alone all day. Abandoned in her own way.
Walker stopped rubbing her foot. “Excuse me?”
Why did she push him away when what she really wanted was to hold him close? I wanted you here, is what she meant. With me. Quinn crawled across the couch and straddled her husband’s lap, cupping his face in her hands. But he didn’t melt like she hoped he would. Walker held himself still, aloof. “I didn’t mean that,” she whispered. “Not that way. It’s just that you’ve been so busy lately.”
“Working,” Walker interjected.
“I know. But . . .”