that way anymore.”
“Okay,” she says, turning back, “have it your own way.”
“I will. And I’ll feel something when I’m ready to feel something. I’m not going to be pushed into a response that isn’t real.”
“Fine.”
A minute of silence ensues. I don’t know why I’m treating her this way. She doesn’t deserve this, but maybe Grant’s sudden death has brought something out of me that’s lain hidden.
“Just so you know,” she says, looking at me now, “if I wasn’t fighting you now, I’d be crying. He helped us when we were unhelpable.”
“That’s not a word.”
“You can be an complete ass sometimes, you know that?”
“I think you’ve told me a few times before.”
“I don’t care that it’s not a word. You understand what it means. He helped you to forgive me again, and I’m not going to let you screw that up again, you hear me? You don’t have to feel anything until you’re ready, but I’m feeling something and I need you.”
We’re out on the interstate now, heading south, to the city. I take a deep breath and sigh.
“You’re right,” I say.
“Of course I am.”
“I’m sorry. I guess this has got me freaked out. He was like a father to me in such a short amount of time. It’s like I’ve lost another one.”
She reaches over and puts a hand on my arm. “We don’t have to go to the grave, if you think it’s too much.”
“No. I want to see him. I want to remember him.”
“Okay,” she says quietly. “Let’s go see him.”
The plaque of Thomas Ezekiel Altman is cemented onto a brick wall in a garden of hibernating roses. The wall is full of plaques like his, row upon row of children, some remembered, some forgotten. Ours is someplace in between.
We used to come here often at first, just about every week, but then time and busyness began to tug us away from him. Then it was once a month. And then, when our lives collapsed, not at all.
His birthday came and went when I was in my self-imposed isolation. I didn’t get out at all, least of all to visit the child that started the decay that infected us. But that was unfair. He wasn’t to blame. We both were for letting it happen. But his death started it all. I guess I don’t know if Quinn came. I don’t think she did. There is a little slot on the plaque for leaving a single flower, and Quinn left him one whenever we came. There is no evidence of there being one in the last few months. I could ask her, but then I’ve already been an asshole once today. I don’t want to push my luck.
“Hello, my little boy,” Quinn says, tracing a finger over the fading brass plate, over the black letters that spell his name. “I’ve missed you.”
I have my arm over her shoulder, but I say nothing.
“You’re going to be a big brother,” she says, and I guess I’ve got my answer. She hasn’t told him yet. “Your little sister, she’s almost here. She’s growing so big.” And she tells him of Rachel and I listen. I feel the loss again of his future, mapped out for him by his mother, so cruelly ripped from him and her, by God or fate or some horrible accident. They said there were no way of telling that it would happen, and no explanation for it. It was one of those random and tragic things that happen.
And I wonder why I can’t feel for Grant. Perhaps it’s because it’s too soon. Perhaps it will come eventually. I know that it frustrates Quinn, but she’s going to have to learn to deal with that. Everything in its own time.
It’s okay to cry – or laugh – there is no correct response. But it’s also okay to just be, too. It’s okay just to let it come in its own time. I’ll have to tell my mother that.
In the next episode of Twenty Four Weeks…
Wade gives Judd a sizable bonus… Grant’s life is laid bare at his funeral… Quinn makes a confession…
“We were friends before and you took Quinn away from me. I’m never going to completely get over that. But I have forgiven you. I guess it takes some time to fully trust you. And I do. And this deal – we both know that it’s got nothing to do with me. But you telling me all this, it means that you don’t want this to kill our friendship. So, I’m letting you off the hook. You do what you need to do to get this deal done. I’m right behind you – and I’m good with it leaving me behind.”
Wade sits there, kind of shocked, but kind of impressed.
“You’re not the same man that I knew.”
“No. And neither are you. This thing with Quinn, it’s changed both of us, for better I think.”
“Really?”
I nod my head.
“Look, buddy, I’ve got something for you.” He hands me a piece of paper. I don’t look at it.
“What’s this?”
…
“...So I guess I’ve got this answer to give him,” Wendy says. “I just don’t know what answer is. What the answer could be. Who do I want? Barry? Horey? What do I want?” She sighs. “What do you think I should do?”
“I don’t know Wendy. You’re actually asking me for advice this time?”
…
I take Quinn out tonight, to her favourite Thai place. It’s not our date night, but I don’t want get locked into a routine. I want to be spontaneous. But I haven’t been anything of late.
She knows something’s wrong when we sit there for ten minutes not saying anything. I’m not looking at her. I’m looking everywhere else.
“Judd... I’m worried about you.”
“I know. I’m worried about me too.”
“I don’t know how to help you.”
“I don’t know that you can.”
“But you won’t even let me love you. You’re closing yourself off from me again, and it’s breaking my heart.”
“I’m sorry. I am. I know I’m doing it, I just can’t help it.”
...
Quinn’s forehead is beaded in sweat. Her face is red, swollen, congested with pain and fear. I am behind her, she is leaning against me. My arms reach around her, hold her hands. Our fingers are locked together, mine are white. I’m trying to ignore the pain in them because she has pain all through her body.
“You’re doing so well,” the midwife tells her, but I don’t think she is. Quinn is distressed, but she has no time to cry. Another contraction takes her away from me.
She screams, swears, grunts. She pushes, pants, groans. She delivers.
…
“…I think that we’re going to part ways with this deal,” Wade tells me. “I don’t like the thought of it, but I’d feel a whole lot better if I knew that you and your family are taken care of. I mean, I was almost part of that family at one point.”
“You still are.”
“What?” he says looking at me with raised brows.
“Like it or not, you’re part of my story, Quinn’s story, and even my baby’s story. Some parts we’d like to erase, but we can’t. And I wouldn’t want to anyway. I have to take the good with the bad.”
“And it was bad for a while there.”
“Worse for some.”
Download regularly the Episode Guide for updates on this series. Additionally there is an Adult version (contains adult themes, coarse language, sexual references, high-level sex scenes and some violence) and downloadable audio books of these episodes (adult version).
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