Rifts and Refrains

by Devney Perry

  “Uh-huh,” I deadpanned, sweeping my hand toward the room. “And this?”

  “Ruby thought it might be easier with, um . . . you know”—Quinn—“if there was some activity. And she thought Bradley might want everyone close today.”

  Bradley had given the sermon this morning, even though his mother hadn’t been in her usual seat. He’d stumbled through a few parts but had mostly kept his composure. I hadn’t been surprised to see him at the pulpit because he was a man who drew strength from others, especially from his friends and family.

  Or maybe he gave us strength when we needed it.

  He’d lost his mother, but we’d all lost Nan.

  How was he still standing? My mother made me crazy with her meddling and pestering and constant intrusion into my personal life, but if I lost her, I’d be a wreck.

  Yet here he stood stiffly beside Quinn in silence. Both of their gazes were cast to the floor, and their discomfort was beginning to infect the room.

  “Hey,” Walker said as he came through the patio door, slapping my shoulder. “Colin’s out back playing.”

  “Thanks for bringing him over.”

  “No problem,” he muttered, then his eyes locked on his sister.

  Quinn spotted him and crossed the room. She shot me a cautious glance before smiling up at her older brother. “Hey, Walker.”

  “Hi, Quinn.” He gave her a polite nod.

  Her arms raised slightly, like she was going to hug him, but when he didn’t move, they fell to her sides.

  For fuck’s sake. I didn’t want to be here for any of this. Bradley might want people around as he mourned his loss, but I wanted the peace and quiet of my own home. Standing here just made Nan’s absence more noticeable.

  At functions like this, she’d been the one to make light jokes and break the tension. Nan would have made Quinn’s return into a party, chasing any awkwardness from the room. Without Nan here to smooth things over, this lunch was going to be insufferable.

  “Walker . . .” His wife, Mindy, leaned her head inside the house. “Oh, hey, Graham. I didn’t know you were”—her eyes locked on Quinn—“here.”

  “Come on in, babe.” Walker waved her inside. “Mindy, this is my sister, Quinn.”

  Mindy forced a smile and shook Quinn’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too.” It was stifling outside, but Quinn was dressed for winter in that jacket, hood and a pair of ripped jeans tucked into thick-soled boots. Her blond hair, the golden shade of wheat fields in August, hung nearly to her waist. Her eyes, the color of the Montana summer mountains at dawn, blue and gray and flecked with snowcap white near the iris, were lined in black.

  The rock star.

  I wanted to hate her new look, like I wanted to hate her voice.

  I didn’t.

  “Our kids are outside.” Mindy hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll, um . . . I’ll go get them.”

  “Thanks.” A flash of regret crossed Quinn’s eyes. “I’d love to meet them.”

  Quinn hadn’t met her niece or nephew yet. They were six and four. Mindy and Walker had been married for seven years.

  Those numbers, the years she’d missed, erased any shred of pity I had at her discomfort. She should be miserable. She should regret her choices. She hadn’t just left me behind when she’d disappeared to Seattle and never looked back.

  She’d abandoned us all.

  “Mom, do you—” Brooklyn came downstairs with her baby in her arms. She must have been upstairs nursing when we’d arrived. She took one look at Quinn and her face hardened.

  “Hi, Brookie.” Quinn turned and gave her a smile.

  Brooklyn scoffed. “No one calls me that anymore.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Quinn’s face fell and her attention went to the baby named after their father. “This is your son? Bradley?”

  “Yeah.” Brooklyn didn’t spare her another glance before marching past us and storming outside.

  Quinn’s eyes closed and she blew out a long breath. “Wow.”

  “She’ll come around,” Ruby said, walking to Quinn and putting an arm around her shoulders. “It’s good to have you home.”

  “I’m ready for the burgers and dogs!” my dad bellowed from outside before poking his face through the door. “Oh, hey there, Quinny.”

  Quinny. With one word, my dad erased the tension in her face. She smiled, bright and so goddamn beautiful I had to look away. “Hi, Mr. Hayes.”

  “Mr. Hayes.” Dad huffed a laugh. “You haven’t changed.”

  No matter how many times Dad had insisted Quinn call him Don, she’d always refused.

  But Dad was wrong. Quinn had changed.

  Too much had changed.

  “Dad!” A bolt of light shot inside, racing past my dad to collide with my legs. My son smiled up at me, both his front teeth missing. Those had cost the tooth fairy five bucks apiece—I was a generous fairy.

  “How’s it going, bud? Were you good for Walker and Mindy?”

  “Duh. Will you play catch with me?”

  “After lunch.” I ruffled his brown hair, a shade that matched my own. “Go wash up.”

  He spun around, ready to blast off because he was a run or run faster kind of kid. Colin Hayes didn’t understand the concept of walking. When he launched, he bumped into Quinn. “Oh. Sorry.”

  She blinked at him, her gaze bouncing between the two of us.

  Colin’s eyes widened, recognition washing over his face, and I tipped my head to the ceiling, stifling a groan. Shit.

  “What the what? You’re Quinn! Quinn Montgomery, the drummer for Hush Note. You’re The Golden Sticks.”

  Quinn’s nose scrunched at the nickname, but Colin kept rambling, his arms flapping in the air as they tried to keep pace with his tongue.

  “Hush Note is my favorite band ever, but ‘Sweetness’ isn’t my favorite song, because Dad’s right, they overplayed it and now it’s ruined. My first favorite is ‘Torchlight.’ My second favorite is ‘Passive Aggression.’ My third favorite is tied with ‘Hot Mess’ and ‘Fast Hands.’ What’s your favorite? Are you allowed to pick one? I bet it’s ‘Torchlight’ too, huh?”

  “Um . . .” Quinn’s mouth fell open.

  “I want to be a drummer. I have a drum set in the basement and everything. Maybe you can come over and we can play.” Colin whirled. “Can she, Dad?”

  I was tempted to say yes and leave Quinn to Colin like a lamb to the wolves. My seven-year-old son would eat her alive with his perpetual commentary.

  Asking questions was Colin’s super strength. From the minute I picked him up at the bus stop to the time I tucked him into bed at night, the kid was a string of question after question, and most of the time he didn’t wait for an answer between them.

  Once, about a year ago, I’d asked him to give me five minutes of quiet and he’d told me that if he didn’t speak, he wouldn’t be able to breathe.

  That was my son.

  Unless you were prepared for it, unless you had years of built-up stamina, the kid could zap your energy in under an hour.

  It would be fun to sic him on Quinn and see how she held up.

  But the way the color had leeched from her face, the way she was staring at him, unblinking, hit me square in the chest. It hit that part of me, the part I couldn’t ignore, that would always protect Quinn.

  Seeing my son for the first time was causing her pain.

  “Go wash up.” I turned Colin’s shoulders and gave him a gentle shove in the direction of the bathroom.

  As he walked, he mouthed oh my gosh and fist pumped.

  I grinned. My son was fucking awesome.

  Most seven-year-old boys didn’t care much about rock bands. They were into basketball and baseball. Colin loved sports, but he devoted an equal amount of time practicing dribbling or his throw to playing on the drums I’d bought him for Christmas.

  He was awful. Truly, awful. But it made him so happy I didn’t care about the noise.

  “You hav
e a son,” Quinn said, barely over a whisper.

  I nodded. “He just turned seven. You didn’t know?”

  “No, I, uh . . .” She shook off the surprise. “Nan told me about him.”

  “They were close.” For Colin’s sake, I was grateful that Quinn was here. She’d be a distraction from the death of a woman he’d loved nearly as much as his grandmother.

  “He knows a lot about me,” she said.

  “That’s Nan’s doing. Not mine.” I wanted to make it crystal clear Colin’s infatuation had nothing to do with me. “I banned Hush Note music in our house a long time ago, but Nan was proud of you. Whenever she’d spend time with Colin, they’d play your music, and she’d tell him all about her famous granddaughter.”

  Tears flooded Quinn’s eyes, but she blinked them away. “‘Torchlight’ was her favorite song too.”

  Because it was a good song, something I wouldn’t admit out loud.

  And Nan had had impeccable taste when it had come to music. She’d taught Colin about the classics, not just Hush Note.

  My God, we were going to miss her. Yesterday and today had been such a flurry of activity that it hadn’t sunk deep that Nan was gone. I expected to walk onto the patio and see her in the chair beneath the umbrella, sipping a huckleberry lemonade and reapplying the hot-pink lipstick she’d worn at all times.

  “Let’s eat,” Mom called.

  Quinn kept her head down as she walked to the sliding doors, then slipped outside.

  I raked a hand through my hair, finally able to breathe now that she was out of sight. Everyone had better eat fast because I was not sticking around long.

  What I wanted was a quiet afternoon with my son at home, answering his questions and playing catch and remembering the woman who’d been just as much a grandmother to me as she had been to Quinn, Walker and Brooklyn.

  I waited for Colin to come running from the bathroom and led him outside, getting him seated at the kids’ picnic table in the yard before I sat down on the deck with the adults.

  Nan’s chair was empty.

  I pulled out the chair beside Dad, three seats away from Quinn, but before I could sit, my mother, carrying a bowl of her famous potato salad, hip-checked me and plopped down in the seat.

  “Nice, Mom,” I muttered.

  She smiled and her eyes darted to the empty seat beside Quinn. “Sit down so we can eat.”

  My jaw ticked as I sat, inching away from Quinn as far as possible. Walker was on my left and I was practically sitting on his lap.

  “Let us pray.” Bradley held out his hands.

  Quinn stared at my hand, keeping her own beneath the table, until everyone was linked and waiting on her. She extended one hand across the table to Ruby and the other slipped into my palm.

  A shiver ran up my arm to my elbow, and my mind blanked as Bradley prayed.

  Quinn’s hand fit in mine no differently than it had when we were fifteen and going on our first date. Or when we were sixteen and lost our virginity to each other. Her skin was smooth and warm. Her fingers were too dainty to make such loud music. Her palm was too familiar to belong to this beautiful stranger.

  “Amen,” Bradley said, and Quinn’s hand slipped out of my hold, much like when we were eighteen and she’d walked away from me at the airport and cut herself out of my life.

  I wiped my palm on my jeans, erasing her touch.

  Quinn stiffened.

  “Your room is a little different than the last time you were here,” Ruby told Quinn as she dished salad onto her plate. “We put a queen-size bed in there and got rid of your old desk. But I think you’ll like it.”

  “Oh, um . . . thanks, Mom, but I have a reserva—”

  I bumped her knee with mine. Hard.

  “Ouch,” she muttered, scowling up at me.

  I glared right back. There was no way she was hiding in a hotel after being away from her parents for so many years.

  “Fine,” she grumbled through gritted teeth.

  “What was that?” Ruby asked.

  “Nothing.” Quinn shook her head. “I hope it won’t be too much trouble.”

  “We’re just happy to have you home.” Ruby looked at her daughter like she was trying to memorize her face in case Quinn went another decade before returning home.

  Throughout the meal, I caught Bradley looking at her in the same way, though his stares were full of apology.

  He’d messed up with Quinn. He’d pushed her too far. Yeah, she’d screwed up too. She’d made a stupid decision at eighteen, but her punishment had not fit the crime.

  Bradley and Ruby loved their children. They were good parents who’d always done their best to protect their kids from harm. I tried to do the same with Colin. It wasn’t until he’d been born that I’d learned true fear. Maybe if I’d been in Bradley’s position, I would have reacted the same way. I would have let my fears get the best of me too and put blinders on to my child’s own desires.

  There was a fine line between protecting your kids and stifling them.

  Bradley had crossed it.

  And he’d been paying for that mistake for nine years.

  The meal passed quickly because there wasn’t much conversation like we normally had at Hayes-Montgomery get-togethers. There was too much sorrow in the air. Too much grief. The empty seat under the umbrella weighed heavily on us all.

  When the meal was over and the dishes were done, I waved Colin inside from the yard and bid my farewells.

  “Do we have to leave, Dad?” Colin asked.

  “Yeah.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go home and play catch. Go say goodbye.”

  “Okay.” He hurried through the house, giving hugs and high-fives before racing to the front door, leaving it wide open for me to follow.

  I didn’t search for Quinn as I strode down the hallway. I didn’t glance at her suitcase. I kept my eyes on my son. The best thing in my life. Quinn might have wrecked me years ago, but it was the reason he was in this world. No matter the hurt, my kid was worth it in spades.

  “Graham,” my mother called as I cleared the doorway.

  “Damn,” I muttered. “What’s up, Mom?”

  “You’re leaving already?” She hurried to catch up, walking with me down the sidewalk. “What about Quinn?”

  “What about her? She’s not long for Montana. I picked her up. Now I’m going to go home and get on with my life.”

  She frowned. “Maybe you two should talk.”

  “No.”

  “She’s a beautiful woman.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not interested, so please, don’t go there.”

  “But—”

  “Eileen, would you leave him alone.” Dad stepped out of the Montgomery house, closing the door behind him. “He’s a grown man.”

  “Fine.” She pouted, then crossed the grass to the house next door.

  “See ya later.” Dad shook my hand and followed his wife home.

  My childhood home and the Montgomery house were mirror images of each other. The Hayes’s house was a sage green instead of slate blue. Both homes were simple but nice with sprawling front lawns and yards big enough for kids to have adventures. Above the front door on each, the pitch of the roof was interrupted by a dormer window to a bedroom.

  At my house, that room had been mine. At the Montgomerys’, it was Quinn’s. A curtain flickered, and I looked up to see Quinn standing in her window.

  Her eyes were aimed at me.

  Once upon a time, I would have smiled up at her. I would have waved. I would have silently motioned for her to sneak down and meet me on the sidewalk for a midnight kiss.

  That was a different lifetime.

  Now she was just a woman in a window, and once the funeral was over, the woman would be gone.

  I just had to avoid her for a week.

  Easy enough.

  Chapter Three

  Quinn

  I woke up with a splitting headache and the sun streaming on my face.

  T
he latter was likely responsible for the former. I preferred to wake in sheer darkness and let myself adjust before braving the light. There were times when I’d shower in the dark at my penthouse, relying on fumbling and muscle memory because the sunshine seemed to trigger these morning skull-splitters.

  But with the noise drifting up from downstairs and the brightness beaming through the window, there’d be no rolling over and sleeping until noon. When my parents had redecorated my former bedroom, they’d replaced more than just the bed. The blackout curtains I’d had as a teenager were gone, and in their place were light gossamer coverings.

  Why hadn’t I insisted on the hotel?

  Because at one time, I’d been a part of this family, and now I was an outsider. So I’d deal with the morning headaches for one week because, at the moment, I didn’t want to rock the boat. My goal was to survive Nan’s funeral, spend a little time with my parents, then get the hell out of Montana.

  I slid from bed and shuffled to the bathroom I’d once shared with Brooklyn and Walker. The shower didn’t help my headache, and I winced blow drying my hair. There was no need for my normal heavy eyeliner and shadow since I wasn’t planning on leaving the house, so I opted for a light coat of makeup. Maybe if I looked more like the teenage version of Quinn than Hush Note’s Quinn, my family would relax.

  By some miracle, I’d survived yesterday’s lunch, but I wasn’t sure if I had the energy to sit through another.

  Dinner had been marginally less painful simply because it had only been Mom and Dad across from me at the dining room table. Dad had opened his mouth about fifteen times, ready to say something only to clamp it shut. Mom had attempted small talk for a few minutes before giving up.

  Conversation had been nearly nonexistent through the meal, and I’d excused myself early to settle into bed, blaming my sudden fit of fake yawns on the travel and the time change. Mom had seemed sad to see me retreat up the stairs. Or had she been relieved?

  Avoid. That was the plan for this week. I’d stay out of everyone’s way, not spark any conflicts or discussions of the past, then retreat to my life.

  Dressed in a pair of jeans and a simple black tee, I swallowed three Advil down with a guzzle of water, then braced to go downstairs.