Page 44 of What Love Can Do
Anything, say anything, her brain screamed at her.
But Mom had her where she wanted her—her gaze a magnetic hold of guilt. Lilly would perpetually feel eight years old whenever she was around. Her mouth couldn’t move, and she knew she would live to regret it.
Tell them. Tell them you love Quinn. That you’re together and intend to stay together.
By the time she got around to forming a sentence encompassing what she felt, Quinn had slipped out of the kitchen.
Seventeen
Unbelievable. Quinn stormed into his bedroom and slammed the door shut. “Get up,” he barked at Conor, still in bed, surfing on his phone in his underwear. Was that how he planned on living his whole life? “Get up.” He smacked his foot through the sheets. “We’re leaving.”
“What? Why?” Con sat up in bed, alarmed by Quinn’s harried entrance. Since Con was little, he was usually quick to react and please Quinn, being three years older, so Quinn took advantage of his rank over him every so often.
“We’ve been here long enough,” Quinn said, throwing open his suitcase in the armchair and slamming his balled-up shirt inside. “We’ll get a room at a cheap hotel on the road.”
“What happened? Why are you half naked?”
“Nothing happened. I’m ready for a change of scenery, that’s all.” He almost yelled but kept his disdain under his hat under tight restraint. It wasn’t Con’s fault that Lilly couldn’t face her mother’s judgment.
“So that’s how it is?” Con stared at him motionless. Quinn could feel resistance coming. “You decide we cremate Mam’s body, we do it. You decide we come to America, and we do. You decide we spread Mam’s ashes here, and that’s the plan. Now you’re ready for a change of scenery, you snap your fingers, and I’m just supposed to jump? Is that how it works? Everyone operates on your timeline?”
Ouch. “No, that’s not how it works. You’re welcome to stay if you like, but I’m leaving. I know when I’m not wanted, and I’m not about to beg.” Quinn stomped through the room, collecting random articles of clothing off the floor.
“Is this about Lilly? About the Phillipses? What?”
“No, it’s about the fucking Pope, you maggot. Yes, about them. I’m tired of trying, only to be set aside,” he huffed.
“You need to give them time, you dry shite. We’re the new men in town. Two weeks is not an eternity. You can’t just barge in here with your big man self and expect people to fall in love with you. This isn’t the RLI.”
It was so like Con to mention Quinn’s rugby league in such a disgusted tone. Then again, he wouldn’t expect someone who’d never amounted to anything to understand. “I don’t expect anything, that’s the problem.” Quinn paused, hand on hips, to unload on his little brother. “I’ve let the wind push me wherever it wants. Mam says, ‘Come help me with the Yankee. I need you,’ and I go work at the restaurant. Rita says, ‘Let’s up and visit Manchester,’ and I go, even though I really want to take her to Paris for the weekend. I come here, and meet Lilly, and think about buying Paul’s pub, only Lilly’s leaving for six months, so I push the idea of the pub aside.”
He was ranting, and he knew it, but perhaps he’d held this all in way too long.
“Like Mam wrote in her journal,” he continued addressing his quiet, perplexed audience, “she didn’t know what would happen, where the wind would take her… In the end, she accepted her choices, but she gave up her passions, and after that she didn’t expect much from anyone. That’s why she told us to go find our passions, Con, because she didn’t want the same to happen to us. Don’t you see that?” he stressed.
“What are you talking about?” Con shrugged, like that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “Mam loved her life.”
“No. She loved us. Not her life. Didn’t you read all she wrote? Her dreams were bigger. Not once did she mention she wanted to manage an ailing restaurant in the suburbs or live in a house too small for us. But she was too proud to face her family again, to hear our grandfather say she fucked up. So she stuck it out.”
“You’re mad, I swear it. What’s this got to do with anything?”
“What it’s got to do with is that Mam accepted it. These people snubbing here.”
“Quinn, what choice did she have?”
“She had a choice. She chose to stay away. She could have faced them. Stood up for herself and made them accept us. Not that they would have, but she should have tried harder. What does someone have to do to prove themselves worthy in Green Fucking Valley? Own a fucking vineyard? What, like the O’Neills are not worthy of association with the Parkers and Phillipses, because we’re not wine family? What makes them so fucking special?” He charged into the bathroom to collect all his items, grabbing toothbrushes and contact lens case and mouthwash and throwing them into his travel bag.
“Actually, we are wine family,” Con reminded him, sticking his head into the bathroom. “Or have you forgotten what you told me about Mam’s sister, Suzanne. A woman you met, I’ll remind you, because of Lilly.” He raised his eyebrows over bright greens. “Quinn, is that what this is about? You’re pissed at Mam because she didn’t try harder to stand up for us, and you’re pissed at Lil for doing the same thing?”
Quinn shouldered him aside on his way back into the bedroom. Sometimes he hated his little brother—especially when he was right.
“She lied to us, Con. Told us she had no other family when it wasn’t true.”
“To protect us, Quinn.”
“To protect us or to protect her? Because then she wouldn’t have to do the hard—”
“Where are you going?”