nights in a Best Western prior to that, and Anne Quick hadn’t talked a lot. It had been hard for her to accept what her sons had tried to do, what they had been trying to do for so long. I’m sure it was only because her husband had seen it that Anne even believed the boys had done something wrong.
The whole time we were at the motel, I got the feeling that she believed what happened had been, somehow, my fault.
Fourteen years later she looked smaller and harder, with wrinkles that wouldn’t stay concealed with Oil of Olay. Her hair was still black, but dyed; there was gray creeping in at the roots, like a tide that had come just a little farther than anticipated onto a shore. She was dressed for garden work.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Mrs. Quick,” I said, and I took off my sunglasses and dropped them in a pocket, sheepish. “I’m Miriam Bracca, I don’t know if you remember me.”
The wrinkles around her eyes bunched, as if in committee. She looked me over, and her mouth got tighter, more sour. She had one hand on the door, and from her grip, I thought she might be about to slam it on me.
“Yes, I remember you.”
“I was wondering if I might come in, speak to you and your husband? Is Mr. Quick here?”
“Of course he’s here.” She said it strangely, as if I should have known the answer already. “What do you want to talk to us about?”
“May I come in?”
She adjusted her hold on the door, and then she pulled it back, opening it wider, puffing a disgusted sigh. She waved me in as if it was easier than refusing me entry, then shut the door and came around, leading the way to the den. The interior, unlike the exterior, had gone through some changes. The architecture was early seventies, with a sunken den, and the carpet had been replaced, thicker than the old, blue instead of the tan I remembered. The couch had been replaced, was now a multisection modular monstrosity, the kind where segments can turn into recliners. Through the glass doors into the backyard, I could see the signs of gardening, preparing for the winter, torn-up plants, a wheelbarrow.
Gareth Quick was outside, on his knees, working with a trowel in the flower bed.
“The boys don’t live here anymore?” I asked.
“No.” Anne said it flatly. She pulled the sliding door open, adding, “Well, come on.”
I stepped onto the back patio. Gareth Quick looked up from his work, and his eyes went from me to his wife, and there was nothing in them but confusion. He settled the look back on me and smiled.
“You’re very pretty,” he said. “What happened to your head?”
“This is Miriam, honey,” Anne told him. “You remember Miriam, don’t you?”
“Miriam?”
“Yes, she lived with us for a while, when the boys were in high school.”
The smile stayed in place. He looked, unlike his wife, as if the years hadn’t had a physical effect on him. Even the haircut was the same, reminiscent of the military, close and neat. Like Anne, he was dressed for gardening, but unlike his wife, the clothes didn’t seem to settle correctly, a little baggy where they should have held tight, a little loose where they should have been snug.
Physically, he could have been the Parka Man, but I already knew it wasn’t him. It was his voice, it just wasn’t the same.
And there was absolutely no recognition of me in his eyes.
“The boys?”
“Brian and Christopher, honey. Our sons.”
Alarm crept laboriously across his face.
“What did they do?” Gareth Quick asked, and his voice dropped and wobbled, just the way it had when he’d found them dragging me through the hallway. “What did those little shits do to you, Miriam?”
“Nothing,” I assured him. “I’m fine, sir. It’s all right.”
There were tears in his eyes, and his chin had dropped onto his chest; he wasn’t even looking at us, now. He began to sob.
“What did we do?” he was saying. “God, what did we do that was so wrong, Annie? What did we do so wrong?”
“It’s all right, hon,” Anne said, and she dropped to her knees and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re at home, and I’m here, and there’s nothing to worry about.”
He pushed her hand away, his sobs racking his thin body.
“Could you wait inside?” Anne asked, without looking at me, without taking her eyes off him. “In the kitchen, maybe?”
I nodded and backed off, retreating to the kitchen. It had changed, the cabinets and counters replaced, even the table. I took a chair and waited, and the deja vu stampeded, and for a moment, it was as if I had never left, all of the wounds raw and open.
It was almost twenty minutes before Anne came back, and she was leading Gareth by the hand. An open archway past the table had another view of the den, and she brought him past me, that way, and got him settled on the couch. He seemed perfectly fine with that, and she put the remote control in his hand, turned on the television, and the soft noise of morning talk bubbled into the space.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Anne told her husband.
He nodded, focused on the screen.
She joined me at the table. “Alzheimer’s.”
“I didn’t know,” I said, and started to add that I was terribly sorry, but she cut me off.
“How could you?” She checked over her shoulder, to make certain Gareth was still where she’d left him. He hadn’t moved. “Almost three years, now. He’s not going to be with me much longer.”
“You’re caring for him by yourself?”
“A nurse comes during the afternoons, when I have to go to work. I’m part-time, real estate.”
“I’m a musician,” I told her.
“Is that what you call it?” Her mouth got smaller, even more bitter. “I’d have thought ‘entertainer’ might be a better word.”
“I suppose you could call it that, too.”
“What did you want to talk to us about?”
I thought about spinning a lie, like I had with Sheila Larkin, but it was clear Anne Quick had very little patience, and what amount of it was left she needed for her husband.
“I’m trying to find Brian and Chris,” I told her.
“Why?” This time there was no mistaking the hostility.
“I need to speak to them,” I said.
“You going to sue them? Have them arrested? You looking for some sort of revenge?”
“No, ma’am, I just—”
“They were perfectly nice boys, you know, they were wonderful boys, until you came into our house. They were just wonderful young men, their father loved them so much, he worked so hard for them, to give them everything they needed. Then we took you in, and you destroyed it.”
I stared at her. Someone’s memory was playing tricks, and it wasn’t mine.
“The way you led them on,” Anne Quick continued, her voice like acid. “The way you teased them, they were
My mouth had gone dry. Behind Anne, her husband was still watching television, head cocked to one side, eyes bright with fascination, oblivious.
“I never led them on, ma’am,” I said. “I never did anything to encourage them.”
“You believe what you want to, that’s fine. I’m sure you don’t think of yourself as a slut now. But you sure as hell were one then.”
I tried again, trying to ignore the hostility. “I didn’t come here to make any trouble, Mrs. Quick. I’m just looking to contact Chris or Brian, that’s all.”
“Why? To get them locked up again? To accuse them of attempted rape, to make a big story? Do you need
