Quinton, page 12
She shook her head. “Nope, don’t think you’ve mentioned anybody.”
“Well, my long-term friend, put it that way.”
“Ah, Helena?”
He nodded. “She got married this weekend.”
“Oh, how nice for her,” she replied, with real joy. “You always did like her.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem.”
She stopped, and it took her a few minutes. Then she winced. “Are you saying you more than liked her?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “She’s been on my mind a lot.”
“Maybe she’s been on your mind because you knew the wedding was coming up and your paths were diverging.”
“Sure.” He gave her a hand wave. “Whatever that means.”
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that you wanted more than a friendship from her. Because, if you had, why wouldn’t you have done something about it in the previous … what? I don’t know. Ten years?”
“Because I thought there was time,” he stated. “I know she wouldn’t be a fan of me in the military. And I was waiting for maybe a time when I wouldn’t stay in the military.”
“Well, depending on how she felt about you being in the service,” she replied, “she probably wouldn’t hang around and wait for you.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “I just kind of feel like it was a lost opportunity.”
Quinton knew how that felt. She nodded. “Which is why I’m giving Stan and me a chance.”
“Seriously?” he asked.
She nodded. “At least I’m trying.”
“And what about him? Is he trying?”
“Yes.” She studied her brother carefully. “I get that you are in a rather odd mood, and, if you don’t want to come that’s fine. I am going to have a shower first, but, after that, I just thought it might be nice to have some family time. I won’t be here for too much longer.”
“Right, because you have a life. You get to leave this prison and to go on to whatever it is that you want to go on to.”
Surprised at the sarcastic and hurtful tone in his voice, she pushed her wheelchair backward. “I don’t really need to sit here and to hear this,” she stated. “My own mood is rather fragile at the moment, so, in self-preservation mode, I’m going to rescind the dinner invitation, and I’ll have that shower. Maybe at the end of that I’ll feel better than after listening to you,” she added. “It’s really time for you to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and to stop playing the poor me card as much as you are. You have the gift of being here. I suggest you start appreciating that.”
“Like you did, huh?’ he asked, with a snort. “You think I haven’t heard all the rumors about how you weren’t going to stay and how everybody had to coax you to stay?” He rolled his eyes. “Like, give me a break.”
She felt the hurt magnifying inside. Was there ever anybody who could hurt you as much as somebody you cared about? She didn’t think so, just like she’d hurt Stan so much. “I get that you’re having a rough time,” she said, “but that’s really no excuse for hitting out and trying to hurt me at the same time.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” he asked, brooding still, as he turned and faced the window. “Just seems like I’m lashing out at everybody, doesn’t matter who, so you’re nobody special.”
“And there we go again. Got it. I’ll talk to you later.” And she pushed his door open and rolled through the doorway, making an awkward job of it because, of course, she still wasn’t used to the wheelchair mobility thing. Now her hands were shaking. She moved through the hallway toward her own room. Her bed was looking awfully inviting. But she was still hot and sticky. She made it to the shower, and, by the time she was clean and redressed, she was exhausted. She curled up on the bed, feeling the hot tears in the back of her eyes.
Ryatt had always been a decent person, never one to really throw out hurtful comments. She wasn’t sure how much Helena’s wedding had to do with this—or was it more about how much he was probably looking back down the long tunnel of his life’s choices and wondering where he’d gone wrong?
Quinton had a few of those tunnels herself. And it was foolish to feel so emotionally overwrought about her brother, who was going through a bad period. He was throwing darts, and she was accepting them. That’s where the problem came in. She needed to just pull the darts free and get rid of them.
Instead it was just a little more than she could handle right now. She closed her eyes and curled up with a blanket tucked up to her shoulders. When she woke again, she wasn’t surprised to realize that dinner was almost over. Knowing that she would wake up hungry and be hangry through the night and ugly in the morning, she pulled herself into her wheelchair and slowly made her way to the dining area. As she stepped in line, Stan was ahead of her, visibly tired and worn out. “Stan?”
He turned, looked at her. “Hey,” he said, walking closer. And then he frowned, as he noted she was getting in line. “Haven’t you had dinner?”
She shook her head. In a low voice she said, “I had words with my brother, went back to my room, and fell asleep.” He studied her gaze, and she realized some tear stains probably remained that she hadn’t even bothered to wipe free.
He reached up a gentle hand, stroked her cheek, and said, “Well, that’s good timing then for me.” He smiled. “Would you do me the honor of eating with me tonight?”
She beamed. “Thank you. I could use that tonight.”
Dennis was nearby, watching the two of them. “Glad to see you showed up,” he said, shaking the serving spoon at Quinton. “You don’t want to make me come down to your room and chase you out.”
She smiled. “You would have woken me up, if you had.”
Immediately he nodded. “Yep, some days are like that, aren’t they?”
“Today’s definitely one of them.” She wandered closer to the buffet line. “What’s for dinner?”
“Roast beef is what I’ve got the most of,” he replied, “but we’ve got some fish left here too.”
She wasn’t sure what kind of fish but it was battered. Yum. She hesitated.
Dennis quickly offered, “How about a little of both?”
She smiled. “That sounds great.”
He loaded her plate with the two meat dishes and lots of vegetables and handed it over to her. With Stan at her side and doing a couple more trips, they finally made their way out onto the deck.
“At least by eating at this hour,” she noted, “it’s cooled down.”
He nodded. “I’ll go grab dessert because Dennis will be cleaning up soon. Do you want something?”
She smiled. “Yes, get me whatever you are getting, and would you mind getting me some water too, please?” He nodded and disappeared. She took their plates off the trays, stacked the trays on another table, and sniffed the food on her plate. She was really hungry now.
She almost wished that she’d asked for twice as much meat. But maybe Dennis wouldn’t close up quite so fast. She took a bite of the roast beef, without waiting for Stan, and then moaned. “Oh, God, that’s good,” she whispered.
Stan returned moments later with two large pieces of chocolate cake and water bottles for both of them.
She pointed at her plate. “The roast beef’s really, really good. I wish I’d gotten more.” He nodded, looked at his plate, and added, “I’m really hungry too. Hang on.” He disappeared again.
She didn’t even bother twisting around to watch whatever Stan was doing, as she took several more bites. When he returned, he brought her a plate with just roast beef and gravy on it. She stared at it, smiling.
“No point in waiting until after Dennis has already put it all away. We can share what we want off this plate.”
She laughed. “No matter how hungry I think I am, or how delicious this roast is, I still don’t think I can eat everything on both plates.”
“Well, good for you,” he said, “because I’m going to give it the old college try.” And he did. They both tucked into their meals. After the first pangs of hunger had abated, Stan asked, “Is your brother okay?”
“Another bad patch,” she replied, with a shrug. “He’s shooting darts at me.”
“Ah, dang. When those suckers find a home, they hurt.”
“They sure do,” she admitted. “But I can see that, at the moment, he’s just looking at his life choices—wondering if he should have changed a few of them.”
“I think we all do that at times,” Stan agreed. “I was in my third year of vet school when I wondered what I was doing there.”
She stared at him in shock. “No way.”
He nodded. “I just got back an exam, where I hadn’t done anywhere near as well as I thought I should have, and the professor had written a caustic comment on the top of the first page. It will never leave me, but he said, And you’re one of the ones we let in? … Why?”
“Ouch.” Quinton stared at him in shock. “I hope you got him in trouble for that.”
Stan laughed. “No, he was right. I was one of the ones allowed into the veterinary school. And I hadn’t done as well on that exam as I thought I should have. And maybe his word of warning was a wake-up call. I don’t know, but I certainly spent some time doing some soul-searching and trying to figure out just why I was where I was.”
“And what was the answer?” she asked curiously, as she tackled her vegetables.
“The answer was simple. I always wanted to work with animals,” he stated. “I could have been an MD, a surgeon, but that didn’t appeal. Working with people as patients, you must have a special ability to deal with them, and I didn’t think I had it.”
She slowly put down her fork, reached across, grabbed his hand, and squeezed. “You’re wrong. You’re very good with people.”
Surprised, he looked at her fingers. He squeezed her hand gently, then forked up a bite of meat into his mouth, chewing while considering her words. After he had thoroughly chewed and swallowed that bite, he said, “Thank you. It’s not something I often get told.”
“And that’s one of the things that’s the problem with life,” she noted, “is I think we forget to tell people anything.”
“No, you’re right,” he agreed. “We tell them the bad things, but we rarely tell them the good things.”
“And I’m just as guilty,” she admitted. “As I’m sitting here thinking about it,” she realized, “I feel like I haven’t said anything nice to my brother in a very long time.” Stan kept eating, while she thought about it. She sighed. “And maybe, … maybe the darts he’s throwing are because he feels unloved.”
“I think everybody feels that way too much of the time, and, when they feel unloved—that they aren’t worthy of love, which causes them pain and hurt—they lash out.”
“I did tell him to stop lashing out at me,” she added, with a half smile. “So my self-confidence showed up. Maybe I should have told him also that, regardless, I love him anyway.”
“There’s nothing stopping you from doing that,” Stan told her gently. “You’re here for a while longer. Make sure that finding a way to mend some bridges with him is part of this.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice.” She looked over at the extra plate with the roast beef and back at him.
He grinned. “There’s lots on that one plate. Have as much as you want.”
They each took one slice, and still one more remained. He cut it in half and divvied it up between their plates. When he was done, she scooped the last of the gravy off the plate onto hers.
“I really do like the food here,” she murmured.
“I do too,” he agreed, “and I’m blessed. I get it all the time.”
She smiled. “You are, indeed, blessed.” By the time she had finished the roast beef, she was stuffed. She pushed away the plates and said, “My gosh, that was a lot of food.”
He nodded. “And we don’t have to eat the cake right now,” he suggested. “We can just sit here and relax for a while.”
“I hear you. That sounds like a good idea too.” She smiled and looked across at him. “I’m really glad you were late today. Hopefully it wasn’t a terrible day.”
Stan smiled, patted her hand gently, but didn’t say anything.
But Quinton was perceptive enough to know that something was up. “I gather it was terrible.”
He nodded. “A surgery didn’t go well, and I had to put down an animal. It’s never a good day when you have to start off your morning killing something.”
She winced. “No.” She stared off at the hills. “You may have wanted to work with animals, but you need to be commended because I can’t imagine that would always be easy. And that’s what makes you such a good veterinarian, your compassion and humanity.”
“It’s also,” he stated, with a half smile as he looked at her, “why I hurt a little more easily than I’d like to.” He knew she would immediately feel guilty, due to their recent breakup, so he added in a stronger voice, “And maybe, maybe your brother’s like that too.”
“He’s always been a softy. He’s always been an animal lover. And I know that he’s very easily affected by people who’ve walked out of his life.” And then she stopped. She sat here, stared at him, and said, “You know what? That’s why this friend of his who just got married is affecting him so badly.”
Stan looked at her, and she quickly explained. He nodded. “Ah, so he was wondering if maybe she could have been somebody better than a friend?”
“I think it was always an idea in the back of his mind, but, if it wasn’t more than just an idea to consider, I think he would have done something about it. Yet the fact that she’s married now, I think in a way, is bothering him the most because he may be afraid that that will end their friendship.”
“It may not end it,” Stan said, “but it will definitely change it. Nothing like a marriage to bring in another person who may or may not gel with a group of friends. I’ve seen a lot of couples break up—or couples who break up with friends—because a new person joined the group and wasn’t necessarily a great match.”
She smiled. “It’s funny how to think that a union—supposedly to make us better—ends up separating us from all of what we know sometimes.” She nodded. “I’ve had friends like that. And when they chose somebody we were just completely shocked by, they just smiled and said it was their choice. One friend in particular, she walked away from us, and that was that,” she explained. “We were all quite upset about it. I haven’t thought about her in a long time.” Quinton stared off in the distance. “It’s … Again it’s those glances down the tunnels of our past.”
Stan smiled, pushed the chocolate cake toward her, and said, “And that’s making us gloomy, so let’s have something sweet to lighten it up.”
She laughed when she looked down at the size of the piece. “Are you sure you didn’t squish two pieces together in order to make it look just like one?”
“Nope, sure didn’t, but they were the two biggest I could find.” He grinned, as Quinton picked up her fork and tackled it. He was surprised at the amount of food she could put away. But a healing body required sustenance. And definitely sustenance was required when she was back here doing as much of the rehab work that she was doing. “How’s your progress?”
She nodded. “Well, it’s going. Unfortunately Shane says I’ll be still at it for six more months, likely six months,” she corrected, “doing these kinds of exercises and stretches every day, before I can get into a biweekly routine.”
“I don’t think that sounds all that bad,” he noted. “I’ve seen patients here for longer than that. So it really does sound like you’re on track.”
“Maybe … but somehow it doesn’t seem like it. It feels almost like a life sentence.”
He looked at her and smiled. “I don’t think a life sentence is quite the right phrase. How about a gift of life instead?”
Chapter 12
Stan’s words once again hung around in Quinton’s head for the next few days. Stan was busy in town, had a conference, and so she didn’t have dinner with him for the next couple days. By the time Friday rolled around, she found herself missing him something terrible. And something was good and solid about missing him. I should be missing him, she realized. Stan should be somebody she didn’t want to be apart from. She just didn’t realize how much she would miss him. She also missed her brother, and yet he was right here, just distant, and she had to give him his space.
She realized that she had some mending there to do too. Late Friday afternoon, after one of her appointments had been canceled, she headed to her brother’s room, not at all sure if he was even there. But knowing her time at Hathaway House was starting to run out, she knocked on his door.
He called out in a much stronger voice, “Come in.”
She opened the door, stuck her head in, and asked, “Hey, are you up for a visitor?”
He smiled, nodded, and replied, “Yeah, we probably should.”
“Probably should what?”
“Talk,” he said. “I presume you’re leaving soon.”
She winced. “I think I have another week.”
“A week can go by just like that,” he noted, with a snap of his fingers. “I’ve been here almost seven weeks now.”
“Any improvement?”
“You know what? For the first time today, I’m not feeling like rubber on pavement spread so thin that it can’t cover the road,” he murmured. “I’m tired, but it’s not an exhausted tired. It’s more of a feel-good accomplishment.”
She smiled as she stared at him. “All of that sounds like an improvement.”
“It is. And I owe you an apology,” he said abruptly.
And again she stared at him in surprise. What had happened to her brother?
“I was a fool, and I was hurt and was hitting out at you.”
“And why were you hurt?”
His grin turned lopsided. “I was wallowing, wallowing in the what-ifs. But they weren’t what-ifs with any kind of sincerity. They were just what-ifs of life.”
“Helena?”
