The Inconceivable Life of Quinn

by Marianna Baer

  “A psychotic delusion?” Preston said, the words melting in his mouth like rich chocolate.

  “Let me emphasize, I’ve never spoken with a patient who actually has this belief, so I’m not talking about any one case specifically. Rather, I’m speaking in general about a case in which a girl might believe she conceived without intercourse or other very intimate contact with semen. We all know that’s scientifically impossible. There must be sperm for a pregnancy to occur. So, yes, I would classify the belief that a pregnancy is immaculate as a psychotic delusion. It’s serving the purpose of protecting the girl from a truth too awful to confront.”

  “That’s not what Immaculate Conception means,” Quinn muttered. Hugo rested his snout on Quinn’s lap. She paused the show and took him out of the room, shutting him in the hall, then resumed play. She didn’t want him to hear what they were saying.

  “What sort of truth might that be?” Preston Brown asked.

  “I would imagine it to be sexual abuse by someone the victim trusts, someone who would rock the victim’s whole world if she acknowledged the person had hurt her in this way.”

  Quinn’s guts began to rise up her throat.

  “Most likely someone in the girl’s family. Or a close, trusted family friend.”

  “I see,” Preston said, his face a mask of concern. He turned to the third guest. “Would you agree?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “There’s no understating the damage and trauma sexual abuse can cause when inflicted by someone trusted and loved by the victim. Our minds go to incredible lengths to protect us from the truth sometimes. Would you rather face the fact that you were raped by your father or brother, maybe brutally and repeatedly over a period of years, or believe that you were chosen by God?”

  Raped by your father or brother. No. No.

  “Over a period of years?” Preston said.

  “Quite possibly. The victim would have a protective habit of dissociating during the abuse, separating herself from the physical reality of it. The delusion of a virgin pregnancy would be taking that to the next step, a cover story provided by her subconscious so she can keep out the truth. We live in a culture of ‘specialness,’ where young people are encouraged to think of themselves as being a special snowflake, as it were.”

  The words convulsed in Quinn’s stomach. She wished she hadn’t let the baby hear them.

  None of it’s true. None of it.

  But even though she knew these people were lying, and she didn’t want to hear another word, she kept watching, like she was bound to the chair.

  “I challenge you,” the psychiatrist said, “to find any mental health professional who doesn’t hear a story like this and wonder if it is serious sexual abuse by someone the girl thinks she loves.”

  “That’s quite a statement,” Preston Brown said.

  “We can also look at the girl’s emotional and mental history for clues,” she continued. “Has there been emotional disturbance in the past? Trouble in school? Depression? Withdrawal? Regression? Physical signs of abuse?”

  “So, long-term psychological issues might suggest long-term abuse, which ended in pregnancy?”

  “Yes. Most definitely.”

  By the end, Quinn was totally numb. This show, this show that millions of people watched and listened to and believed . . . On this show, people were talking about it like that was the only option, and anyone watching it would be thinking, “Oh, well, that explains the Quinn Cutler situation.” How could those experts have pretended to know anything about her? And she was sure that the rest of her family had seen the show, or at least knew what had been said on it. Obviously, this was why her father had dropped out of the election. Who would vote for a monster?

  And Ben. This was why he wanted nothing to do with her. Who could blame him?

  Now that Quinn was here, now that she’d gone this far and had seen this much, she couldn’t stop. She typed her name and “pregnant virgin” into a search engine.

  When she saw the number of hits—1,781,570—the room tilted and spun as if she might pass out. She gripped the chair again and closed her eyes. Her heart seemed to wait for a full minute until deciding to beat again.

  She started following the links. Link, after link, after link. She lost herself in the seemingly endless trail of blog posts and tabloid articles and even articles on more respected sites.

  All of these people, all of these random people who knew nothing about her, they all thought they knew what the real story was. And while there were plenty who thought she was just a “lying slut” who didn’t want to own up to her mistake, there were also plenty screaming that she was a victim, and that it probably was someone in the family. “What else would be so bad that she’d lie about it?” they all said. “Who else would she care about protecting?” They thought her father had organized a massive cover-up.

  And people knew she’d seen a shrink as a kid. How did they know that? Wasn’t that kind of thing confidential? They were using it as proof. Long-term abuse. Troubled child. How did they know? And quotes . . . Quotes from parents of kids she’d gone to school with that year, in second grade. Talking about how withdrawn she was. How they knew there was something strange. They knew that she used to run away, that she’d run from school one day. Obviously, she’d been running away from an abusive home. Quotes from anonymous neighbors about how there was something off about her, something not right.

  Troubled child.

  Liar. Compulsive liar.

  Taught to lie young by parents who lied.

  No more lies, Quinn!

  And—oh, god—a headline: Report: Cutler Broke Daughter’s Arm. Holy shit. They knew about that? That was a one-time thing that had happened out of his fear. One time! He’d felt terrible. He wasn’t a child abuser. And her arm hadn’t even been broken—just dislocated. He’d been scared. She was wrong to be in the water and scare him. It had been her fault. She could have drowned.

  And then there were the photos.

  Pictures she didn’t even recognize of herself in second grade. Always standing by herself, hands clasped in a worried way, looking off into the distance. Troubled child. Abused child. Where had they gotten these?

  And photos from the last couple years. One of her stretching—bending forward over one leg propped on a fence—in her spring track uniform, those shorts that were like a bathing suit. A close-up of her ass, the bottom of one cheek peeking out . . . Look how the slut dresses . . . Sexually promiscuous girls are often victims of childhood abuse . . .

  And the photos of her dressed as Mary, of course. Everywhere. Delusional. Traumatized and delusional. The trail of links was essentially infinite (1,781,570!), and Quinn found herself mesmerized, unable to stop looking. And she began to wonder . . . Which of these stories was true? Which of these versions of Quinn Cutler was the right one? Because she didn’t know anymore. Maybe she was delusional. Maybe it was from trauma. Look at all this proof.

  She knew it couldn’t be what people were saying, though. No matter what the “experts” on that show thought. She may not have known who she was anymore, but she knew that her father and brother wouldn’t hurt her. She’d known that right from the beginning.

  Of course you think that—you’re in denial! That’s the whole point! Aren’t you listening to what the people are saying? It makes sense, doesn’t it? All your feelings of guilt as a child? And he did hurt you! Remember that pain?

  There was an easy solution. An easy solution to this. Her hands trembled as she typed in different search terms related to incest and DNA tests. After finding out what she needed, she called her obstetrician’s office and told the receptionist that it was an emergency, but not a life-or-death physical sort of emergency that an ambulance could help. The receptionist must have heard the desperation in her voice, because her doctor called back minutes later.

  “You know the DNA test you did?” Quinn said, her voice shaky. “With my friend? The paternity test?”

  “Well, yes,” her doct
or said. “I didn’t run the test myself, though.”

  “But didn’t you help? Like, I mean, didn’t you send the blood and talk to the testers or something?” Quinn scratched her arm as she spoke, suddenly itchy all over.

  “I did. What’s up, Quinn?”

  “When that came back, you’d have been able to tell if . . . if the baby’s DNA wasn’t right, right? You would have been able to tell, and you’d have told me, right?” Her words were coming out too quickly.

  “What do you mean? If there were genetic abnormalities?”

  How could she put this? “No. I mean, if there was too much, um . . . gene overlap, between me and the father.”

  “Oh,” her doctor said gently. “Yes, Quinn. We would have been able to tell. There certainly was nothing to indicate that.”

  “Okay,” Quinn said, letting out her breath. “Thanks.”

  “To be very clear, the father isn’t someone closely related to you,” the doctor said. “But Quinn? Is there a reason you asked? If you need to talk to me in person, about anything, I’m always—”

  “No!” Quinn said. “No, I shouldn’t have even asked.”

  She hung up and was hit by a wave of shame and dizziness and horror, even worse than before. She got cold and needed to vomit. She didn’t make it to the bathroom. Puked on the hallway floor. The acid filled her mouth and burned her throat and tasted as ugly as everything she’d just heard. She tried to keep herself together, got paper towels from the kitchen, and cleaned up the mess. She brushed her teeth with a finger and swirled mouthwash and looked in the mirror—her hair was ratty, her eyes bloodshot, her face puffy. Had she really just called her doctor to ask that? Needed proof of something she knew in her bones? Oh, god. What was happening to her? Didn’t she know anything?

  QUINN

  Quinn locked the Kalbitzers’ apartment door behind her and made her way downstairs, clutching the bannister for support. She could barely feel her feet. She didn’t want to go home. She wanted to go outside and run and run and never come back. She wanted to run to the ocean and swim out and feel the freedom of weightlessness, or maybe sink to the bottom or drown or whatever it would take so she could escape all of this noise. The still morning sea, deeply asleep . . . That’s where she wanted to be, underwater in a still morning sea, asleep. Unconscious. Alive and safe in that underwater world, or just dead. Either one.

  Like her grandmother.

  As she reached the downstairs hall and wondered which way to head—out the front door to take off and escape somewhere (where?) or out the back door to go home—she realized that the one thing in this world that could make her feel better was Jesse. Despite everything, she wanted Jesse so, so badly. And unless he had other plans, he’d be home from school soon. There was no energy in Quinn’s limbs to take her back upstairs. So she walked toward the rear door of the building and slid down against the wall, sitting with her knees up, in a spot where she could lean forward and see a portion of the front door, but where she wouldn’t be noticed by people who were coming in.

  The hallway was cold and dingy. Quinn squeezed her knees against her body and tried to think of anything other than all of the hideous words that everyone out there had been hearing and reading while she’d been in her protective cocoon, oblivious. “A still morning sea, deeply asleep. ’Til warmed by the sun it rolls up the beach.” She whispered the words over and over. Finally, she heard the building door open. She leaned forward and peeked past the stairwell—just an old man. But as soon as she’d sat back, the door squealed again, and it was Jesse, thank god.

  She was about to stand up when she noticed there was someone with him. Caroline. Quinn leaned back and closed her eyes. If I can’t see you, you can’t see me.

  “Hello?” Jesse’s voice echoed through the space. “Did you hear something?” he asked Caroline. Quinn must have made a noise without noticing it. She eased her way up to stand, then took a silent step toward the back door.

  “Hello?” Caroline’s voice this time.

  Quinn opened the back door as quietly as possible, but it still emitted a wheezy groan. Once she was out, she ran.

  “Quinn, wait!”

  She kept going. Almost tripped over a cinder block at the back of his yard.

  “Quinn!”

  “Shhh!” She stopped and turned, and Jesse was on her already, his hand on her shoulder. “People will hear you.”

  “Well, just wait, then,” he said, catching his breath. “Just wait a second. What were you doing in there? What’s wrong?”

  She stared into his worried eyes and couldn’t even speak.

  “What’s wrong?” he repeated. “Why were you hiding in there?”

  “I was . . . I was waiting for you. I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “So talk. You didn’t have to leave. Or hide. Why are you so upset?”

  She couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Her jaw just hung a bit open. The voices of Preston Brown’s “experts” and the words from all those articles and comments filled her brain. She imagined Jesse watching and reading and wondering . . .

  A look of recognition passed across his face. “You went online,” he said. “Didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “That show . . .”

  “Oh, god, Quinn. I . . . I . . . God.”

  “You know . . . you know it’s not . . .”

  “Of course,” he said. But he had hesitated before saying it, and Quinn knew that he had considered that it might be true. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She shrugged and pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. They stood silently for a moment. She didn’t know what she’d expected Jesse to say or do to make it better. There was nothing.

  “I should go home,” she said. “I’m not supposed to be out. Someone will notice.”

  “I’m coming with you.” His hand was still on her shoulder.

  “What about Caroline?”

  “Don’t worry about her. Matt was just locking his bike. He’ll be there already.”

  They went in through the kitchen door using Jesse’s alarm code; when her parents got the alert, they’d just think he was here bringing school stuff. In Quinn’s room, Haven did her usual dance for him—pressing her side up against his legs. He reached down and patted her absentmindedly, his attention focused on Quinn, who had begun pacing.

  “Do people believe it?” she asked.

  “You mean people around here? At school and stuff?”

  She nodded.

  “No. No way. No one who knows your family would ever believe it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well . . . I mean . . .”

  “Oh, god. I think I’m going to be sick again.”

  She held her stomach and hung her head, eyes shut tight. She was shaking. “We should have released the results of the DNA test. If my father knew this was happening, we should have told people. We can prove that it’s impossible.”

  “It’s okay, Quinn,” Jesse said. “This isn’t . . . No one believes it here. Not really. And . . . and it’s all going to blow over.” He moved closer and stroked the top of her head. “I mean, your DNA test results are no one’s business. You shouldn’t have to prove something with them. People just want a story, you know? The sicker the better. They don’t know you. It’s just a story.”

  “It’s my fault,” she said. “My fault for not being able to tell what happened.”

  “It’s not your fault,” he said. “None of this is. It’s . . . it’s people. They suck. The world is sick. Not you.”

  “Do you know what I’ve done? To my family?”

  He was still stroking her hair, and she concentrated on the feeling, letting it soothe her. God, she’d missed him . . . “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s all going to be okay.” He repeated it, over and over.

  After a few minutes, she opened her eyes and lifted her head, then turned so they were face-to-face. She reached her arms around his waist and hugged him tight, and he hugged her back, and s
he’d almost never felt anything as good as his body pressed against hers. She breathed in his smell, a little less sandalwood and a little more sweat, since it was the end of the day. And all she wanted was for him to stay with her. To never be left alone again. She pulled back from the hug, and, on impulse, rose up and touched her lips against his—hesitant, at first—both their lips a bit dry. But his were warm and soft and . . . Jesse.

  Everything else disappeared. The world was just this—the touch, the connection, the love and safety and desire . . . All of the need and want from weeks without him surging inside her like a tsunami, swelling until it felt too big to fit inside her body. Her legs trembled underneath her. Blood shush-shushed in her ears.

  Shush-shush. Shush-shush.

  The rhythmic crashing of waves.

  The shaking of her legs.

  That other impulsive kiss, that night on Southaven . . .

  The dock shook when the waves crashed against it. It made her legs shake, like they were shaking now. The dock shook as the waves crashed against it.

  The waves had been crashing against it.

  The waves had been crashing against it.

  Quinn and Jesse pulled back from each other at the same time.

  “Wait,” he said. “This . . . this isn’t . . .”

  She held her hand against her chest to keep her heart from beating out of it. “Oh my god,” she said.

  “I know. That shouldn’t . . . we shouldn’t—”

  “No,” she said. “Jess . . . That night. That night in Maine. I couldn’t have been swimming. I couldn’t have been swimming at all.”

  Quinn stayed in her room while Jesse ran home. He’d left his phone there in his bag, and he needed it to check the Southaven tide charts for the previous May online to make sure that she was right. But she already knew. She was right. She paced back and forth, like the tide itself, back and forth. She couldn’t be on both sides of the room at once. And if the waves had been crashing against the dock when she was with Marco, and the water was as high as she was picturing, then it was physically impossible she’d been swimming at Holmes Cove the way she remembered. It would have been getting near low tide, and at that beach the tide went far, far out and left a terrain of small, sharp rocks and shells interspersed with larger rocks covered with barnacles, and clumpy blankets of slimy, thin-ribbon seaweed, way too slippery to walk across. And even if you could get across all of that—next to impossible to imagine in the dark—the water was too shallow for too far out to swim in. High tide was the only possible time to swim off the rock the way she thought she remembered, lowering her body into the deeps . . .