“But my dad never made her happy, Rochelle. He never could. When I was a kid she was so much crazier, but in the very best way. She likes costumes. She decked our house out for Halloween. Dressed up like a witch.” I laugh, just picturing it. “She was Mrs. Claus on Christmas Eve. At Easter, she wore bunny ears. It was just… part of her. But my dad used to tell her she looked ridiculous. Shame her, almost. So she stopped. I was about six, maybe. And she just stopped. And then I forgot all about that crazy stuff until he died and she started doing it again.
“I realized then he never made her happy. He worked too much. That’s why I took our days off work when we were together last year. He put the family first, and that’s great. He went to work every day. He mowed the lawn every weekend in the summer. He coached baseball. But while he was busy putting the family first, somewhere along the way he decided to put her last. Everything came before my mother. The house, the job, the lawn, the neighbors, the kid. Some people might say”—I laugh—“some people did say that my mother was the selfish one. That she never appreciated him. It could be true, I guess. But I lived in that house. I saw how it went down. He ruined her, not the other way around.
“And yeah, she was sad when he was gone, but she was much happier as time went on. Now, she’s almost like she used to be. And I think my dad just never had it in him to be what she needed.”
“Are you afraid you’re too much like your dad and I’m too much like your mom?”
I nod. “Yeah. I’m just me. Just boring Quin.”
“Boring?” She leans back and looks me in the face. “Are you kidding me? Mr. Eagle-Scout. Mr. I-Help-Old-Ladies. Mr. I-Take-Casseroles-As-Payment. I don’t think you understand how much I want a family like yours. How much I want and all your so-called boringness.”
“I don’t know how that could be. I really don’t,” I say. “I like sharing women with Bric and Smith because there was never any pressure to be perfect at everything. Smith compensated for me in ways… well, I’m not sure how. But he did. I know he did.”
Rochelle laughs, shaking her head at me.
“And Bric was the same way. He was good at things I wasn’t. He was someone you could enjoy who was totally different than me. I liked the us, Rochelle, because I thought it was the only way I’d ever keep a woman like you satisfied. I come from a perfect family and even my dad couldn’t do it right. And when you stayed, I mean, good fucking God, when I realized you were staying—that things were working, you know?—I just couldn’t picture me being enough for you. I couldn’t picture you being satisfied with just me.
“How can I compete with weird Smith? How can I compete with Bric’s dominance? Isn’t it better to let them do what they do best? And me do what I do best? It worked for a while. I just finally gave in and decided you’d never want me all by myself. You’d say you did, but you’d be wrong. Just like my mom. And one day I’d wake up and tell you to stop wearing those ridiculous clothes. One day I’d wake up and realize I’d ruined you.”
“No,” she says, pressing her face into my beating heart.
“It could happen,” I say. “It might take you a lifetime to realize it. Like my mom. You could wake up one day and realize you’re happier with me dead than you ever were with me alive.”
Chapter Thirty-Four - Rochelle
“Well, I was not expecting that.” I am stunned by his admission. This whole time he wanted to share me to make sure I stayed. And I wanted to share myself to make sure he stayed. “We are so stupid,” I say.
He laughs. His body rumbles from beneath me. “If I had known that Smith bowed out of the game, I’d have said something. I would’ve told you I loved you. I would’ve figured all this out much sooner. But he didn’t tell us. I didn’t know, Rochelle. I had no idea he stopped playing.”
“He stopped playing because he figured me out, Quin.”
“What do you mean?” Quin asks.
I take a deep breath and try to gather my thoughts. I’ve thought about this so much over the past several years, but thinking about it and putting it into words are two very different things. I told Lucinda, but it was messy and emotional. It took weeks for her to work out what my problem was. Why I was doing the things that made me hate myself.
I don’t have weeks to set this right with Quin. I have this one chance to make him see me the way I want to be seen. One chance to explain myself and not have him see me the way that Helen woman does.
“When I was six my mother picked me up from school one day. She never usually picked me up. I rode the bus to a babysitter’s house after school. My parents both worked. And then one of them would pick me up at dinner time and take me home. We never ate dinner together. It was me and my mom and my brother, who was several years older, so he didn’t need a babysitter. Or it was me and my brother and my dad. But we were almost never together as a family.
“So this day she picked me up and she said, ‘We’re going to my friend’s house for dinner. He’s got a little girl your age too. You can play with her.’ I was like, ‘OK. Cool. I like playing.’ But she took me to her boyfriend’s house.”
“What?” Quin says.
“Yeah,” I say, a little lost in thought as I remember that day. “They disappeared into the bedroom. Told us girls to play dolls. I can even remember those dolls. Though I don’t remember the girl’s name. I never saw her again. The next time my mother announced she was taking me to another friend’s house, there was no other child to play with while they had sex.”
“What the fuck?” Quin asks. “Your mother was… like a prostitute?”
“No.” I sigh. “I think if she was doing it for money it might make it better. She did it… well, she did it because she felt she had to.”
“What did your father say?”
“As you know, my father has mistresses too. Helen, apparently, was one of them. I don’t remember her coming over, but he brought so many women over to our house when my mom wasn’t there. That was before my mother started taking me to meet her boyfriends. She did it out of revenge, I think. She knew he took me and my brother places with his mistresses. And I think she was jealous of that. She had every right to be, of course. But she didn’t have every right to use me a pawn in her game of marriage.”
“That’s fucked up. I’m sorry that happened to you, Rochelle.”
“Do you know what the really fucked-up part about it is?” I ask. But it’s rhetorical, and Quin makes no move to answer. He’s just listening. “Did you know that children who know their parents are cheaters are twice as likely to cheat in their relationships too?”
“I know you didn’t cheat, Rochelle.”
“Well, you’re more certain of me than I am. I didn’t cheat,” I say, looking down at him. “I never cheated on you guys. And do you know why that is?”