The Passing Storm by Christine Nolfi

Chapter 6

Outside the studio’s pyramid of glass, the moon played tag with fast-moving clouds. A smattering of white swirled through the air. Rae watched the snow’s descent with her thoughts leaping and turning.

Throughout dinner, a nervous Quinn had talked nonstop about Lark. In between, he plowed through leftovers she dug from the fridge. Macaroni and cheese, lunch meat, a cucumber she hastily sliced—his bottomless appetite left the worrisome impression that he rarely ate a decent meal. When dinner ended, Quinn helped with the dishes before loping after Connor to the living room. They were deep into male bonding over Cleveland’s upcoming baseball season when Rae slipped out.

Confusion vaulted through her. For months, she’d wanted to believe Quinn was a bad kid. Preferred believing it over the proof she’d witnessed directly—of a bashful boy who worked diligently at the craft emporium, and whose grief over the loss of her daughter was tangible and deep.

The police report of the events surrounding Lark’s death had stated they were secretly dating. Add in the reputation of Quinn’s parents, and Rae had assumed the worst. Even Yuna’s ready defense of the teen wasn’t enough to sway her.

Yet the real Quinn bore no resemblance to her worst fears. In many ways, he was emotionally younger than the daughter she’d lost. Less mature, less confident. A teenager perched on the edge of adulthood—a kid who snuck around feeding the neighbor’s dog. A vivid conversationalist who spilled out stories with a lonely child’s enthusiasm.

A surprising logic underpinned his friendship with Lark. There was more to it, of course. Since reading the PD’s report last October, Rae had resisted the truth: destiny had played a role. Her late daughter and Quinn were kindred souls. If they’d grown up in a large city, odds were they never would’ve met and discovered their natural affinity. In Chardon, with a population in the thousands—not the tens of thousands—they’d been given a few brief months to learn just how much they had in common.

The circumstance was both heartening and unsettling. Heartening mostly, Rae decided—Lark had left an indelible mark on her bashful friend. The confidence inherited from her grandmother Hester, the streak of bravado—Lark had possessed the same fire, the same generous spirit. She’d warmed everyone caught in her orbit.

Perhaps Quinn, most of all.

From the driveway, an engine rumbled before cutting off. Quinn, pulling his truck in from the road.

The soft padding of footfalls down the hallway. Two voices, mixing briefly. A door clicking shut.

The moon slipped behind the clouds.

“He’s all set.”

Shadows enveloped the studio. Her father waded through them.

“He’s in the guest bedroom?” she asked.

“Camped out with his homework. Doubt he’ll get very far with the trig. The kid looks exhausted.” Connor arched a brow. She was seated on the floor beside Kameko’s plastic tables and lovingly tended plants. “Do you want a chair?” He flicked on a lamp. “My joints hurt just looking at you.”

“I’m fine.” She eyed the bottle of Johnnie Walker and the two glasses he carried. “You’re breaking out the Scotch?” Other than holidays, they rarely imbibed.

“We both need a drink.”

He peered over his shoulder. His uneasy gaze landed on Lark’s wooden desk and office chair, which they’d pushed up against the wall. Rae had purchased the chair one short week before the funeral. The chair—and a gift card for supplies from Yuna’s Craft Emporium—had been a fumbling attempt to forge a cease-fire with her daughter.

“It’s okay, Dad. Grab the chair.”

“You don’t think she’ll care?”

She’ll care,as if Lark were still roosting in her bedroom, painting her toenails three shades of green and breaking the family bylaws with late-night Zoom chats with her girlfriends. Laughing like a donkey near midnight. Laughing harder when her grandfather revved past the bounds of arthritis and sprinted down the hallway to pound on her door. Leaving butterscotch candies on his love-worn edition of The Complete Shakespeare the next morning to apologize for her antics. Lark skipping down the farm’s long, curving driveway to the school bus as the driver blared the horn.

“Lark’s in heaven,” Rae said. “Get the chair—she won’t mind. We can’t talk in the living room. Our voices might carry.” They’d had enough trouble persuading Quinn to spend the night. Despite the frigid temps, he’d been serious about sleeping in his truck.

Connor fetched the chair. She filled both glasses with Scotch.

She took a generous sip. “Did he call his parents?” Fire sluiced down her throat, and she grimaced.

“No need. They left tonight. Vacation in Atlanta.”

“They threw Quinn out, then left on vacation?”

“According to Quinn, his parents got a nice payout on a lottery ticket—they tossed the kid a birthday card with fifty bucks inside, then told him to move out.”

“How long are they gone?”

“Ten days. They’re visiting a fellow mechanic who retired to Atlanta. The man worked with Mik Galecki at the auto dealership. It’s anyone’s guess how they sobered up enough to walk through airport security.”

“The assholes.”

Connor withered her with a look. “Language.” He brushed the sparse hair from his forehead. “Why is cruelty easy for some people? I’ve heard rumors about Quinn’s parents same as everybody. Lots of nasty scuttlebutt. Still, I never thought they’d stoop to throwing their kid out. On his birthday, of all days.”

Rae latched her restless gaze on the wall of glass. Snowflakes pelted the ground outside. Dread came trundling up her gut as she recalled the one instance when she’d unintentionally tangled with Mik and Penny Galecki. Out of habit, she avoided the couple. The reasons were dark and complicated—and unknown to her father.

After a moment she said, “I’m not remotely surprised. Mik has a solid work history, but everyone knows his temper is unpredictable. Throwing wrenches at the younger mechanics, giving them a hard time—I heard he’s not allowed near the dealership’s clients now because he’s so testy.” Mik was the lead mechanic at Marks Auto Dealership, a muscular bear of a man. “Penny isn’t much better. She can’t hold down a job for more than ten minutes.”

“And she gets into barroom brawls with other women. Who does that? If you ask me, Penny has a drinking problem.”

“Dad, both of the Galeckis are alcoholics. Their idea of a good time is sitting around in bars. As for Quinn, I assumed . . .” Remorse prevented her from completing the thought.

“That the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree? I thought the same—he was just like his parents. A hell-raising delinquent. A piece of trash, luring my granddaughter into situations a fourteen-year-old had no business contemplating.” Pity etched Connor’s features. “Here’s a fun fact. The boy hiding out in our guest bedroom can make a crème brûlée. He walked me through the steps.”

Once, Rae had attempted a basic American pot roast. “Quinn’s into French cuisine?” She’d served up rawhide.

“There’s a YouTube show on French cooking he watches. Most boys his age double-dare each other into filming dumb stunts for YouTube. Quinn’s torqued up about next week’s show, the basics of cheese soufflé. I should get him a gift card from Williams Sonoma for tidying up the barn. Buy him a set of whisks or something.” Connor frowned. “What right did we have to judge him?”

“Save your shame, Dad. I’m doing enough penance for both of us. I feel terrible in about ten different ways.” She declined to add their assumptions reflected poorly on Lark’s memory. As if the terrible boy they’d imagined could’ve secured the friendship of the bright, beautiful girl who’d stood at the center of their lives.

“I’ll tell you this much. I know what my granddaughter would expect us to do.”

Rae glimpsed the path laid out before them. “Lark would want us to do right by Quinn.” Would a benevolent hand guide them past the dangers?

“Are you ready to make it official?”

On all major issues they voted. With Lark no longer alive to play tiebreaker, they arrived at too many stalemates.

Not this time.

“We can’t leave Quinn out on a limb.” Rae wiggled her fingers in the air. The fear she’d find a way to manage—cowardice went against the grain. “Even if he wanted his parents to reconsider, I’d attempt to talk him out of going back. The situation’s not healthy. Family Services has short-term foster homes, but they’d struggle to find an emergency placement for a teenager who’ll graduate from high school soon. It’s more likely Quinn would land in a group home.” The prospect didn’t bear contemplating.

“If we ask him to stay, he’ll accept. The boy hungers for a homelife. We can’t make this sound like charity, though. He’s got his pride.”

Rae hadn’t been much older than Quinn when she became a mother. Still, she’d learned quickly that even as a toddler, Lark wanted to perform big-girl chores. Helping to pick up toys in the living room or fold dish towels. Later, she’d helped Connor with vacuuming and dusting as Rae’s advancement at the Witt Agency demanded longer hours.

Regardless of age, pitching in gave a child a sense of belonging and purpose.

“Give Quinn a list of weekly chores,” Rae suggested, “to let him know we rely on him. It’ll boost his confidence.”

“I’ll talk to him in the morning.” Connor swirled his drink, studied the amber liquid. “How will this play out, when his parents get back from Atlanta? Will they care that we’re putting their son up?”

The reservation in his voice sent a chill through her. The Galeckis loved a good fight. They didn’t need a reason.

“They did throw him out, and he is of age.” Uneasy, she reconsidered. “We should factor in their cruelty. Did they expect Quinn to live in his car until they returned from Atlanta? Then come back home?”

“I wish I knew. They don’t view him like a son, that’s for sure. More like someone they can kick around. That’s my basic takeaway from our conversation tonight.”

“What else did you discuss? You were in the living room for a long time.”

“His homelife for a few minutes. Seemed like too hard a topic. I didn’t want to press. School, a little. Mostly we talked about Lark. He misses her something awful. I believe our bold girl was his only real friend.” Considering, her father took a sip of his drink. “Until Quinn started yammering on about her, I hadn’t noticed how much we avoid talking about Lark. Treating anything related to her as off-limits. What’s wrong with us?”

“It’s only been a few months. We’re still in shock.”

“We’re doing a lousy job of honoring her memory.”

A distinct possibility, and Rae’s shoulders sagged. The grief over losing her beloved daughter was vast, an ocean of uncharted depths she could easily drown in.

“Don’t underestimate the shock,” she insisted. “I dropped her off at a slumber party the weekend before Halloween. Three hours later, the police called. I was texting Lark, worried when she didn’t respond. It’s sheer luck I heard the landline. You’d fallen asleep in front of the TV. Everything happened so quickly . . .”

“We lost your mother the same way, when you were in high school. Too fast. There wasn’t time to prepare.”

Her mother’s death sixteen years ago had been an upheaval. An earthquake severing Rae’s childhood from the hard changes that came like successive blows.

So many hard, scarring blows. The fog of depression falling over her father after the White Hurricane took her mother. Rae’s acts of defiance, with their unforeseen consequences. The humiliation she felt, just a few months later, when she graduated from high school without Connor in attendance and her pregnancy still a secret. How the startling changes to her body, later that summer, forced her to reveal the pregnancy to her father. Connor’s anger surfacing from the depths of his depression when she refused to name the man responsible for her condition.

You’re not having this baby alone, Rae! We both know who’s the father—don’t try to stop me from making him own up for what he’s done.

Dad—no. This is my baby. Don’t you dare interfere.

The arguments didn’t last long: Rae threatened to leave Ohio. If Connor followed through on his plan to seek out the culprit, she’d go. He didn’t want to lose his daughter, or the unexpected grandchild growing heavy in her belly.

Then Lark’s birth, near the end of that year. The gloom from Hester’s death broken by a newborn’s cries. The demands of the tiny, wriggling life galvanized Connor, who regained his emotional footing. He became less introverted and fiercely devoted to his daughter and new grandchild. And Rae found new meaning in her shattered life.

“It was hard when we lost Mom,” Rae said, “but at least she enjoyed a long life. Not long enough, but she had us, and years of touring galleries.”

“Your mother still had time left to live.”

“I didn’t believe I’d survive losing her. Then I got Lark.”

“She made everything worthwhile.”

“Yes, but she wasn’t here long before she was taken from me. Dad, I lost my child,” Rae said, the bitterness thick in her voice. “I hate everyone who took her away from me. Her stupid little girlfriends and Katherine Thomerson—I hate the whole dreadful series of events.”

“The anger’s not healthy, Rae. It’s tearing you up.” Gentling the criticism, her father rested his palm on her shoulder. His tenderness nearly pulled a sob from her throat. She was swallowing it down when he added, “You have to get past it. Lark’s death was an accident. A rotten, heartbreaking accident. No one’s to blame.”

“I can’t change how I feel. Why did Katherine leave the house after the slumber party began?”

“She wasn’t gone long. It’s not like she let Stella invite her friends over and then left for hours.”

“Running an errand was stupid and self-centered. She left a house full of adolescent girls racing around. Lark never should’ve died. What’s safer than a sleepover with a bunch of girls staying up late, giggling? Only my daughter ended the night in the morgue. Not that I’ve let myself off the hook. Far from it.”

Disapproval thinned her father’s mouth. “We’ve been over this too many times. We both knew Lark wanted to skip the party. She wouldn’t give the reason. A falling-out with one of the other girls, or an argument—she wouldn’t explain.”

“I encouraged her to attend. You didn’t.”

Broken, she recalled the text Lark sent minutes before her death. A cry for help.

An accusation.

Should’ve stayed home.

On her shoulder, Connor’s fingers tightened. “What about grief counseling? I can make a few calls.”

“For you, maybe. Not for me. I’m getting through this in my own way. I’m not ready to deal with the sorrow. Only in small doses. Let too much in, and I’ll never find my way out.” Rae laughed, the sound hollow even to her own ears. “I’m sure of one thing. Having Quinn staying in our guest bedroom is Lark’s final payback. Her way of getting in the last word.”

You have your secrets, Mom.

Surprise! I have a few of my own.

“Waging battle was never her intention, Rae. You do keep secrets. I’ve always respected your privacy. I held out hope you’d explain someday. Even if you didn’t, I thought you’d have the good sense to fill Lark in.”

“She asked the hard questions too soon. I wasn’t ready . . .”

“The decision was never yours. Lark decided when she was ready. She needed answers.”

There was no refuting the claim. A child without a father listed on her birth certificate would eventually have questions.