The Man Upstairs (You, Me & The Kids)

by Pamela Bauer

  “Actually, she hasn’t.”

  “What about Quinn?”

  She shook her head. “He hasn’t, either. Do you want to tell me?”

  She dropped down onto the picnic table bench. “I don’t know where to begin.”

  Leonie sat down beside her. “Well, one thing I know is that Quinn loves you.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Not with words, no, but every time he says your name there’s a light in his eye I’ve never seen before.” She placed a hand on her arm. “That isn’t why you broke up, is it? Because you thought he didn’t love you?”

  She shook her head. “No, I know he loves me.”

  “And you love him, so what’s the problem?”

  Dena looked away, out at the children playing ball across the street. “It was just the wrong time for us.”

  “Because of Sara and Kevin?”

  There was no censure in Leonie’s eyes, simply compassion.

  “They’re only part of the problem. I’m not the kind of woman Quinn needs right now.”

  “He seems to think you are,” she said gently.

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “He didn’t need to. I told you. It’s in his voice when he says your name, it’s in his eyes when he sees you.”

  “So why can’t I believe it?”

  “Because you could be right about the timing. Maybe you’re not ready for a man like Quinn.”

  Dena could have told her she was right but chose to remain silent.

  “Are you a cautious person by nature, Dena?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not reckless.”

  “Do you dip one toe in the water before going swimming to see how cold it is, or do you just dive right in?”

  “I dip a toe. Why?”

  “I’m just curious. That’s all.” She brushed the flecks of grass from her knees and stood. “Come with me into my office. I want to give you something.”

  Dena did as she requested, following her landlady into the house, down the hallway to her office. Once there, Leonie went straight to her desk and sat down. She pulled a notepad from her drawer and wrote some numbers on it. Then she folded it in half and gave it to Dena.

  “This is Quinn’s new address. Hang on to it…just in case the timing changes,” she said, her eyes full of encouragement.

  Dena slipped the paper into her pocket, not wanting to look interested in what was written on it. She’d already revealed much more of herself than she’d intended. But as soon as she was on the stairs going up to the second floor, she pulled it out.

  It wasn’t the house number and street, however, that held her attention. It was the quote imprinted at the bottom of the notepaper. It was by the philosopher Bertrand Russell. “Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”

  FOR FOUR DAYS Dena wondered if she’d see Quinn before he moved. By Friday night she had resigned herself to the fact that he wasn’t going to come see her before he left. She had the feeling that he had been avoiding her, just as she’d been avoiding him.

  From Krystal she’d learned that Quinn had hired movers who would be at 14 Valentine Place early Saturday morning. Dena didn’t want to be around to witness his departure and arranged to work on Saturday.

  As luck would have it, she saw the moving van pull away from the curb just as she stepped off the bus on her way home. She used the side entrance and went straight to her apartment. She didn’t miss, however, that the silver SUV still sat parked near Leonie’s garage.

  She wondered if he’d stop and say goodbye to her. There was no reason he should, not after the way she’d treated him. That didn’t stop her heart from racing when there was a knock on her door.

  She opened it to find Sara standing in the hall. “Sara, hi. I thought maybe you’d already gone.”

  “I came by earlier but you weren’t here,” the young girl said. “I wanted to say goodbye and to tell you that I’m really glad you stopped me from getting on the bus that night I wanted to run away to South Carolina.”

  Dena stared at her, thinking how much she looked like Quinn. They had the same blue eyes, the same dark hair. She hoped that in time they developed the kind of father-daughter relationship they both deserved.

  “Thank you for saying that. I know how hard these past few months have been for you.” She stepped aside and motioned toward the apartment. “Do you have time to come in for a soda?”

  She nodded. “I think it’ll be okay, because Quinn’s talking to Leonie.”

  At the mention of Quinn’s name, Dena felt a pain in the area of her heart. “I’ve got root beer and lemonade and bottled water,” she told Sara as she held open the door on her tiny refrigerator.

  “I’ll take root beer, please.”

  Dena handed her a can and gestured for her to sit on the love seat. “I hear your new house is pretty cool.”

  She popped the top of the can and took a sip. “I get my own room. Quinn says I can change the color if I want. It’s an ugly blue right now.”

  “And Kevin likes the house, too?”

  She nodded. “He’s got his own room, too. Plus there’s two extra bedrooms, so if I want my friends to come stay, they can.” She took another sip of her root beer. “I still miss my old house, though.”

  “I’m sure you do. You’ve had to deal with a lot of changes these past few months, Sara. When you thanked me for talking you out of leaving for South Carolina…does that mean you’re starting to like living here in Minnesota?”

  “I like summer and I’m sorta getting used to having Quinn be my father.”

  “Sorta?” she gently prodded.

  “It’s hard to think of anyone but Doug Grant being my dad,” she said with a touch of both sadness and innocence that tugged at Dena’s heart.

  Dena dropped down beside her on the love seat. “It’s going to take time, Sara, to get used to the idea of having another father in your life. No matter what anyone else says, Doug will always be your father, too. He loved you and you loved him, which is why it was so painful for you to lose him.”

  “Quinn told me that he and my dad were best friends in college and that they looked out for one another. He said that even if nobody had ever found my mom’s letters, he would have adopted me and Kevin.”

  Dena didn’t doubt that it was true. She’d seen how attached he’d become to the children before the news of Sara’s parentage had surfaced. “He’s a nice man, Sara. You’re lucky to have him. I know it was a shock finding out the way you did that he was your father, but you have to remember that it was the same kind of shock for him. He had no idea that he had a daughter.”

  “It’s all my mom’s fault,” she said quietly. “She told a lie, and I don’t understand why. Didn’t she think I had a right to know the truth?”

  Dena didn’t know what to say to comfort her. “You’re angry at her, aren’t you?”

  She nodded miserably. “I don’t want to be. Quinn says that everyone makes mistakes and that my mom did what she thought was best for me.”

  Dena knew it couldn’t be easy for Quinn himself to come to terms with Patsy’s deception, yet he was doing his best to see that Sara didn’t blame her. She felt a surge of admiration for him.

  “Quinn says we both need to remember the good things about her. He’s going to help me try to get over being mad at her because he doesn’t want me to grow up and still be angry at my mom when I’m old. Anger isn’t good for a person. It keeps you from being happy.”

  Emotion blocked Dena’s throat, and she had to swallow before she could speak. “Quinn’s a very smart man.”

  Sara took another sip of her root beer, then said, “Well, one good thing about all of this is that I now have a grandma and grandpa.”

  “You’ve met them?”

  “They’re really nice. I never knew my other grandparents because they died when I was a baby,” she explained. She looked at her watch. “I’d better go. I promised Quinn I’d only stay fift
een minutes.”

  And those fifteen minutes were up and she would soon be walking out of Dena’s life for good. Just as Quinn would be. She could barely stand to think about it.

  Sara set the root beer can down on the coffee table as she stood. She reached in her pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “I wrote our address down in case you want to come visit us. Quinn said you could even though you and he—” she pulled a face “—well, you know.”

  Dena nodded. “I’d like that,” she told the girl, knowing perfectly well that the way things were between her and Quinn, it would be unlikely she’d stop by the house.

  “So I guess I’ll say goodbye then,” Sara said as she stood next to the door.

  Dena felt tears welling in her eyes. She gave Sara a hug, trying to keep her voice level as she said, “I’m going to miss seeing you around here.”

  “I’ll miss you, too,” she said in return. “It’s too bad you and Quinn can’t be together.”

  Dena bit down on her lip and simply nodded. When she’d swallowed back the emotion, she asked, “Do you know why we aren’t?”

  “He said that right now it’s important that we learn how to be a family—just the three of us.” She looked up at her with such uncertainty in her eyes that Dena’s heart ached.

  “And he’s right. You are a family—a brand-new family, and it’ll be good for you to get to know each other without anyone else around.”

  She didn’t look convinced. Dena suspected that Sara was as confused as she was. “I have to go.”

  Dena opened the door for her and watched her walk away, feeling as if she took a piece of her heart. She wanted to go with her downstairs to the kitchen, to see Quinn one last time, but she didn’t. She simply watched from her window as the SUV moved away from the curb.

  As the sun set and the room grew dim, she lay on the bed, staring at the bobblehead doll. Quinn was gone from her life. So was Sara. As she thought about her conversation with Sara, she remembered her saying that she didn’t want to grow up and still be angry at her mother.

  Which meant she didn’t want to grow up and be like Dena. She pulled open the drawer on her nightstand and dug beneath the small stack of papers until she found the photo she kept hidden there. It was a picture of her mother holding her when she was a baby. Like every mother, she had love in her eyes as she gazed at her daughter.

  For what seemed like the millionth time, Dena wondered where that love had gone. How could she have turned her back on her children? It didn’t make any sense, but then she realized that what Sara’s mother had done hadn’t made any sense, either. Both women had deceived their daughters. Dena’s mother had abandoned her when she had needed her most. Sara’s mother had kept her biological father from her. Dena felt a rush of anger toward both women.

  Then she heard Sara’s words. “Anger isn’t good for a person. It keeps you from being happy.” Dena knew they were really Quinn’s words.

  She began to cry, thinking of what might have been if she hadn’t let her own bitterness toward her mother keep her from being happy. Because she knew now it was the anger she still carried for her mother that had prevented her from thinking of a future with Quinn. Why hadn’t she realized that sooner? Now it was too late. He was gone from her life. He’d told Sara it was better for the three of them if she wasn’t in their lives.

  Unable to stop herself, she went up to the third floor, needing to be in a place where he’d been. To her relief, the door wasn’t locked. She stepped inside, stunned by its emptiness. Gone was the baseball mitt chair, the leather sofa and the entertainment center. She pushed opened the bedroom door and felt a pain in her chest. The bed where they’d shared their passions might not have ever been there.

  She’d hoped that his scent would have lingered in the air, but the only smell was that of disinfectant and soap. As she passed the closet she saw hangers but no clothes. Unable to bear the emptiness, she was about to leave when she noticed something in the back. She slid the door all the way open and discovered his summer jacket.

  She reached for the sleeve and brought it to her face, hoping that it would have a trace of his scent on it. She wasn’t disappointed. It smelled like the campground where they’d taken the kids on the fishing opener weekend.

  She closed her eyes and inhaled its freshness. It tickled her nostrils and tormented her heart. Fresh tears fell as she pulled the jacket from the hanger and slid her arms into the sleeves, relishing the feel of having something that belonged to him around her neck. She waltzed around the empty rooms, remembering what it was like to be with him, and ending up in the bathroom, where she gazed into the mirror so she could see how she looked in his jacket.

  “Isn’t this how we first met—in a men’s washroom?”

  She turned and saw him standing in the doorway.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I wanted to see how I look in this,” she said, gesturing to the jacket.

  “You’re crying.”

  She swiped at the tears on her face with the back of her hands. “I…I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

  She wished he would come and take her in his arms, but he stood in the doorway staring at her. “I’m here now.”

  She swallowed with difficulty. “Didn’t you want to say goodbye to me?”

  “No. Saying goodbye is something I never want to say to you, Dena. You ought to know that.” His voice was tender and sweet, like it had always been after they’d made love.

  “Is that why you didn’t come to see me? You never even told me you were moving…you didn’t call, you didn’t stop in.”

  He stood with his hands in his pockets. “And if I had, what would you have told me? That you wanted more space, that you weren’t ready for the kind of commitment I wanted?”

  She looked down at the floor, knowing he was right. She sniffled, then said, “I don’t know. All I know now is that I’m miserable, and now it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what, Dena?”

  “For us.” She couldn’t stop the rush of tears. “Sara told me about the three of you being a family and that it’s better if I’m not in the picture.”

  Then he moved closer to her. “I only said that to try to cheer her up because she was hoping you were going to be in the picture. But me? I never thought that living without you would make anything better.”

  She looked at him through her tear-filled eyes and saw the same sincerity that had attracted her to him in the first place. He was the man she loved, the man she’d caught and released. How could she have been so dumb?

  “Dena, you’re the one who didn’t want to make plans for the future.” He tugged on his ear. “I have to admit, it was a first for me. I never expected to fall in love with a woman who wanted nothing but sex from me.”

  “That’s not true. I wanted more, Quinn. It was just that I was afraid.”

  He lifted her chin with his finger. “Afraid of what? A future with me?”

  “Yes,” she answered honestly. “I didn’t understand why I could never get past my ninety-day mark with men. I thought it was because I hadn’t met the right guy, but then I met you and the same thing happened.”

  “You said your career was more important than anything else in your life,” he reminded her. “I understand those feelings, because at one time they were true for me, too.”

  “And it’s what I wanted to believe. When I was growing up, to work hard was the only way to get my father’s attention, but even work was a convenient excuse to avoid dealing with the real issue.”

  “And what is the real issue, Dena?”

  “My fear of being hurt again. My mother left when I was thirteen. She didn’t die like Sara’s, she simply chose not to be a part of my life.”

  “I know. Sara told me.”

  “And you didn’t tell me you knew?”

  “You’re such a private person, Dena. I wanted you to talk to me, to share your hurts and disappointments, but you always pulled back whenever I tried t
o get too close to the real you.”

  She knew she had. It had been a self-defense mechanism. “Sara told me what you said to her…about her letting go of her anger toward her mother.”

  “It’s something we have to work on. Both of us do.”

  “I’d like to work on it with you, if you’d let me.”

  He gave her his answer by taking her in his arms and kissing her. “Are you sure about this?” he asked when their lips finally came apart.

  “Yes. I know it’s going to be a challenge.”

  “Me or the kids?” he asked with his crooked grin.

  “Both, but you ought to know that if there’s one thing I love, it’s a challenge.”

  And she’d spend the rest of her life proving it to him.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-4066-7

  THE MAN UPSTAIRS

  Copyright © 2003 by Pamela Muelhbauer.

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