caught up in it. But the guilt, man, it's a killer. So, there was a chance to move to here and I took it because it got me away from that situation."
"So, you got away?"
"But not clean away. This woman, she's calling me on my phone, all hours. She's getting desperate. I'm scared out of my mind she's going to get hold of Sarah's number and then..."
"So, what are you going to do?"
"I don't know. What would you do?"
I close my eyes briefly, push back bad memories. "I haven't been in your position."
"I can see that. You're not like that." He shakes his head. "But you have been hurt..." He gasps. "Quinn...? Quinn cheated on you, didn't she?"
I run a hand through my beard. That tells him everything he needs to know.
"But you're still together," he points out. "You forgave her?"
"She carrying my baby," I point out.
"Still..."
"I love her."
"I love Sarah."
"Then you'd better tell her before she finds out the hard way. Believe me, you don't want to go down that road."
"Is that how you found out, the hard way?"
When I say nothing he shakes his head. "Damn," he says. "I bet that was a bit of a shock."
"You can say that again."
"Did you know him?"
"My boss."
"Damn," he says again.
"I didn't see it coming. I thought she loved me. I thought I loved her. But it wasn't enough. And when I caught them the whole thing just fell apart. But we're better, or will be. That's why you need to tell her. Get it out in the open. Be honest."
Quinn is bursting to tell me something as we walk back to our car. I know her, I know when she's got some secret, some news that she can barely contain. I guess that in the last year she'd stopping telling me things and I hadn't noticed. She was feeding Wade with all her gossip. It was intimacy that was rightly mine that she gave to him. The thought stings a little, but I push it back like all my dark musings and memories. The warehouse of my mind has a corner that I don't ever wish to visit, and it's getting cluttered.
"Oh my god," Quinn says. "Ted has been sleeping with someone from his work."
"How do you know that?" I ask her.
"Sarah told me. She got a call last week from this woman. She says that she's been sleeping with her husband."
"And she believed them?"
"This woman starts telling her all sorts of things that only a lover would know."
"And she hasn't told Ted this."
"That wasn't a question. You're making a statement. You know?"
"Ted told me. But he doesn't know she knows."
"Well, she does."
"Clearly. What did you say to her?"
"Not much. I mean, it's a shock. I guess I just told her a little bit about my experience, and that helped I think."
My mind is going back to what Ted had said to me, what I had said to him. This was all too fast. They'd opened their lives to us in painful detail and they hardly knew us, and we'd done the same. Something was not quite right here, but maybe I'm being paranoid.
"Me too," I say.
I just can't shake the feeling that we've both done something very foolish.
Sunday
I'm sitting on the floor in the sunroom of my family's home with Wendy's kids tearing around me. Paul sits on a chair in the corner, watching me with amused detachment.
"You could help me, you know?" I tell him.
"You'd doing great all by yourself," he says back. "And you need the practice."
"So do you."
"You're closer to it than I am."
Phillip is avoiding the house like it's riddled with the black plague. And it kind of is to him. It's full of chattering women, two of which are pregnant. It's not his scene at all, nor is it Paul's, or mine. But I've done what has been asked of me. I've delivered Quinn safe and sound into the arms of my family - my mother, Alice, Wendy, and a few others that Quinn knows from out this way. We lived not far from here for a while before we were married.
And that task complete, another was thrust upon me: babysitting.
After an hour Wendy comes and rescues me. Paul hasn't moved and she's noticed it.
"Hey, sis," I say.
"You're still alive?" she asks me sardonically.
"Only just."
She sends the kids over to Paul and they attack him all at once. He hasn't a chance.
"How you going?" I ask her when we have some space.
"Fine. What about you."
"Don't deflect. It's not served either of us well all these years. How about we try something different for a change?"
"But I'm so good at it."
"You are," I say with a smile.
"Alright," she says, sitting next to me. "I can't pretend that things haven't been hard. I mean, I'm looking after those guys by myself." She motions to the kids as they pull Paul to the floor and sit on him. "But that's nothing new. I guess I miss having that extra person backing me up. For all his faults Barry was good at that."
"What about Horey?"
"What about him?"
"I thought maybe..."
She sighs. "Horey isn't up to raising kids, especially not his own. I love him, but this is all a little more complicated than me just shaking up with him. I mean," she says, rolling her eyes, "he lives with his mother."
"So do you," I point out.
"True. The thing is, I'm not really with anyone right now. I'm still trying to decide what I want, and that will take some time, and I don't want to make that harder by adding sex into the equation."
"Believe me, I know exactly what you mean. When Quinn and I were trying to sort things out we didn't... you know."
"Really? Not even when you found out you both still loved each other?"
"Even then. We kind of held off until we did the vows. It wasn't easy, but it does give you some kind of clarity."
"I thought you were out of there pretty fast that night."
I grin. "I'm amazed that you could remember anything about that night."
"I did drink a bit, didn't I?"
"Just a bit."
She sits up. "You must be getting excited about the baby."
"I swing from excitement to terror on a regular basis, sometimes several times in the space of a minute. Does it get any better?"
"Maybe when they move out," she suggests.
"So I can look forward to, what, eighteen or so years of this then?"
"Wait until she starts to date," Wendy says with a laugh. "I think that terror will be multiplied by a hundred."
"Oh, she won't be dating until she's a least thirty."
"Good luck with enforcing that rule."
"I can be very determined."
"That you can."
My mother sticks her head into the room and calls Wendy back in. Something about a nappy contest. I imagine they'll try and pin a nappy on a doll as quick as they can. We'll be using disposables so this kind of activity is for amusement only. And, of course, that is precisely why they do it.
I come over to Paul and save him from Wendy's children. They move on, finding their own entertainment that doesn't involve inflicting injury upon one or two of their uncles. We talk about the store. We talk about Phillip. We talk about our babies, finally coming after all these years. We've both had our struggles in that regard, but we're here at last, two brothers soon to be fathers. I don't think that I've even been closer to him as I am right now, because we're becoming bonded to something wonderful and precious. We're sharing a rite of manhood together. He seems softer now, like this child that is coming has knocked off all his sharp edges. I find that I like this new Paul. I hope he likes the Judd that I have become.
As we drive back to the city I find myself looking at Quinn. I can't stop glancing at her. There is no reason to it. She looks the same. But there is something about her that is different somehow, I can't explain it. She smiles back and places a hand on my thigh, in a familiar place t
hat has my blood rush southward. But she doesn't fondle me, and regardless she'd find it near imposable through my thick coat. She keeps the hand in that one place, resting lightly. It's loving and intimate and I find that I don't want her to move it after all.
Later we lie in out bed and read under lamp light. The city never rests below us. Rachel kicks and does flips inside Quinn's growing belly.
"Did you have a good time today?" I ask her.
She turns to me and smiles. "I did. I was really worried that your family wouldn't take me back in, but they did."
"They didn't have a choice."
"They could just ignore me, but they don't. This baby shower today is proof of that."
"I suppose you're right."
"And Wendy asked my advice today."
"What?"
"I know. She's never done that. She's the capable one. She's the mother. She never makes a mistake. And she asked me for advice."
"She's not perfect."
"I know, but I've always felt a little intimidated by her. And then, she just had to look at Barry and she'd get pregnant, and we had so much trouble. I kind of felt like a failure."
"You never were a failure."
"I know that. It's just the way I felt. I could only image what Alice felt when she found out that I was pregnant - and we weren't even together. She must have thought it was so unfair."
I sigh. "It was tough for her. But things have a way of working themselves out. You're pregnant. She's pregnant. And Wendy is working out her life."
"Do you think she'll go back to Barry?"
"I think moving to Hong Kong is a bit of a sticking point. She loves him, but does she love him that much? And she loves Horey, but she can't live with him." I laugh.
"What?"
"I was just thinking of a conversation we had before you had the bleeding. I said that none of us are happy. She said that we all love who we can't have and crap on the one's that love us."
"I don't think that's true."
"It sure