Chapter 16
Davian
Odd Coincidence
Runaway Train
Soul Asylum
I was a terrible cook. And as good as Lara was at baking, Monica was the one of the three of us who, if she hadn't become a lawyer and eventually a law professor, would definitely have ended up on one of those cooking shows.
Unfortunately, she wouldn't be here for another half hour, and until then it was up to me to keep the overly curious little four-legged friend away from the thawing ingredients while Lara was preparing the puff pastry dough.
“Dad, relax. Streusel is way too small to reach it.”
Streusel, whom Lara had made a new member of the family without consulting me, looked cute with his white, brown, and caramel-spotted fur, floppy ears, and ice-blue eyes, but within the last month since the little guy had been here, I felt like I had to childproof the house.
Wet carpet edges, shredded pillows, and broken dishes – which were now breaking every other day – were just the tip of the iceberg.
This dog lurked around every corner as if fate had sent him to tear apart the home I had worked so hard to build for my daughter and me.
A four-legged reminder that not everything that seemed safe actually was.
The little one sat down on his hindquarters, tilted his head, and began to wag his tail.
I leaned against the doorframe with my arms crossed and narrowed my eyes.
“Dad,” Lara laughed, wiping the flour from her hands. “You should see yourself.”
“That dog is a little devil.”
My daughter grinned as if I had lost my mind. And maybe I had. I just didn't know if it had happened over the last ten years or on that evening when Quillon Veritas had appeared in this town.
The fact that it wasn't even her real name didn't make it any better. Every day I learned something about this young woman that made it more and more forbidden to even think about her.
With great effort, I forced myself to banish the images of the blue ink stain on her cheek or the remnants of it on my thumb from my memory and rolled up the sleeves of my light blue shirt.
“Need help, Pumpkin?”
“No!” She spun around, her ice blue eyes wide with playful horror. Her peanut-brown apron with colorful autumn leaves was covered in flour. “Stay out of the kitchen. Monica will kill me if I let you ruin any ingredients.”
I grinned. “You’re exaggerating.”
We both knew she was right. My mind wandered quickly elsewhere, so I often forgot that something was in the oven and completely ignored the clanging of egg timers.
The doorbell rang and Streusel immediately lifted his head, knowing that this was a new opportunity to escape the house and explore the sprawling neighborhood until the three of us caught the dog again after hours of searching.
“Wow,” Lara looked at the clock above the wide-open doorway where I was leaning. “It's not even eight yet.”
Monica was usually half an hour late and had a real talent for not arriving on time.
Back when they had still gotten along well, Joseph had always criticized Monica, saying, Germans are never a minute late.
Monica was one of those Maplecrest residents whose parents had fled Germany after the war to go into hiding among like-minded people. She didn't talk much about her childhood and youth, let alone her reporter father, who had worked undercover for Nazi member Julius Streicher for Der Stürmer.
“Dad?”
I blinked myself back to reality.
“Yes, I'll go right away.”
I quickly shook off my stupor, strode through the cream-white hallway, which consisted almost entirely of built-in bookshelves – mostly filled with law books on the ground floor – and grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck before opening the front door.
“Monica, we really need...”
My voice trailed off.
Beth’s Story
Carlos Rafael Rivera
What the...
“Quill?”
She stood there, mirroring the confused expression on my face, her gray eyes slightly widened. She was still wearing the midnight blue knit sweater that I had come to identify with her, the sleeves pulled slightly over her fingers as if she were cold.
What in God's name was she doing here? How did she know where I lived?
My heartbeat quickened and, as always when I was face to face with her, I wanted to make time stand still.
“Davian, I...” she began, her voice faltering, looking overwhelmed, as if fate had blindly led her to this door, but someone pushed past me.
“Oh my God, Quill?!”
Lara literally threw herself into her arms.
Quill held my gaze. Hers, full of confusion and... regret.
My mind was racing, and even when my daughter pulled away from her and grabbed her shoulders wildly, I didn't understand what was happening.
“You came to see Streusel!”
“You...” Lara turned to me. “...know each other?”
A very bad premonition struck me, but I fought it off.
“Dad.” Lara stepped diagonally behind Quill and pushed her forward. “May I introduce. The girl who talked me into climbing onto the roof of the high school gym at midnight two years ago, just to eat pizza, listen to Bryan Adams, and look at the stars.”
My very bad premonition turned into a devastatingly heavy truth.
When I had called Lara's former friends two years ago and she hadn't been with anyone, not even with Monica, I had freaked out.
Just before I had almost called the police, she had come back in the middle of the night, at 3:21 a.m., saying that her new best friend had shown her the stars and then walked her all the way to Maplecrest.
Until today, I had been convinced that this friend – about whom Dilara kept telling me questionable stories every two weeks – really needed to get her life on track quickly. And yet I had never allowed myself to make a final judgment about her.
Unlike the spoiled girls from Maplecrest, who had only used Lara for homework and other favors, this girl had been there for her.
Lara had never once come home under the influence of alcohol.
Three months ago, my daughter had asked me to take the girl in temporarily because her father was causing her problems and she was grieving over her mother's alcoholism. Her now dead mother.
I couldn't pull myself together and break out of my stupor, while the dog began to squirm in my hand.
Lara's best friend couldn't possibly be... Quill.
I had thought it would be difficult to reconcile the woman from the bridge and the one from my lecture hall. But Quill and my daughter's best friend?
A stone hit me. Unexpectedly. Hard.
I had pushed my fingers into Lara's best friend, kissing her as if there were no damn tomorrow. A girl a year older than my daughter.
This wasn't just twisted and sick... I was fucked if Lara found out.
What had I done?
Lara's gaze fell on the dog, which I was still holding by the neck and which was wagging its tail because it was by now used to me treating it that way.
“Oh my God, Dad!” She pulled Streusel out of my arms and he immediately began licking the flour off her apron.
“Come here, Streusel.” She turned to Quill, who had been staring at me until now, and presented the dog – whose nose was now covered in flour – as if he were a gift basket.
“May I introduce? Your godmother, Quill.”
The fact that Quill was like family to my daughter hit me like another blow.
What kind of terrible father was I? Why couldn't I see Quill as a girl?
Three seconds. That was all I was allowed to look at her. That was the rule I had tried to burn into my brain when I had asked her to join me for a little private chat in that deserted classroom. And I had failed miserably.
“God, you're finally getting to know each other. And I thought it would never happen,” Lara said with a grin, and Quill smiled too, albeit a little hesitantly.
I cleared my throat, seeking eye contact, even though I was concentrating on sounding like her friend's cool dad and not like Davian from the bridge.
“The girl who dares to study at Maplecrest among all the men.”
Her cheeks betrayed her with a flush of color. And as always, that mere reaction sent a tingle through my stomach.
The fact that she was here and that she could now appear here out of nowhere more often was a risk for me, but what if I was overreacting?
What if I could lock these emotions, along with the memories, in a box deep inside me until I forgot that any of it existed?
After all, I had managed to do the same with my writing.
“Oh, right.” Lara looked between us before fixing her gaze on Quill, while the puppy was already licking her necklace. “How could I forget that you stand out in every lecture?”
Lara was about to walk through the door. Then she stopped and the smile disappeared from her almost always cheerful face, as if she had remembered something unpleasant.
“Oh, um...” She turned to us in the hallway, looked at Quill with a spark of panic in her eyes, then looked back at me with a hesitant smile. “Dad... When I told you that my friend dropped out of school...”
And then I understood how strong her bond with Quill really was. My daughter didn't usually lie.
“There's no reason to lie, Lara.” I looked back at Quill, who I had never seen so overwhelmed. “I know what your friend is doing at Maplecrest.”
Returning To Methuen
Carlos Rafael Rivera
“Wait a minute.”
Lara paced back and forth while I leaned against one of the kitchen cabinets with my arms crossed, trying not to look at Quill, who was examining the photos on the refrigerator that Monica had taken of Lara and me over the years.
The one of Streusel was new. Lara had decorated the paper frame with orange and brown hearts.
Only now did I notice the yellow linden leaf in Quill's hair.
“Am I getting this right?” Lara paused and looked between us. “You both are lying to Monica?”
“I'll tell her I'm leaving.” Quill took a deep breath and turned away from the refrigerator. “She just doesn't want to accept it.”
Lara nodded and finally looked at me.
“And I don't think it's necessary for your friend to get in trouble with the administration.”
Quill was deliberately playing with fire, but if I could avoid it, I definitely wouldn't throw her to Arnold's mercy.