They list the official cause of death as a second stroke.
I call my sister and told her that if she wants to say goodbye she better get there soon. She's the only person in this world that my father likes after all. He had used the last bit of energy to spew one final found of hate my way.
Frannie doesn't understand what happened. She just stands there looking at me,. Willard holds her close. "He just wanted you," she keeps whispering.
Sam drives me back to my parents' house. I don't say anything. I know he wants me to feel better. That he thinks the evil spell that once held me is broken with the death of my father but it isn't. I feel worse. His death didn't kill the monster inside me.
Puck is waiting for me when I get home. He's still in his uniform. His patrol car is in the driveway. I don't ask if he's on duty. It wouldn't matter if he was. It's not like a lot of crime happens in Lima.
He has a cup of coffee on the table waiting for me. The need to drink is still there but I've found that I don't need to drink to get through everything in my life. At least for now.
"I thought you'd be gone by now Q." He looks at me over the rim of his cup.
"I tried but here I am."
It was like something was holding me here or someone.
I pull the picture from my father's room out of my pocket and hand it to him. On the back my father had written 'my family'. He had drawn a heart around my head on the back as well.
Getting up, I go to the fridge and pull out the last bottle of beer. One bottle couldn't hurt.
"He's dead," I say as if saying it out loud truly confirms it.
We sit in silence. Puck drinking his coffee and me cradling my beer. What if my parents deaths was worse, not better? Now all that was left was the past bearing down on all of us.
"Do you feel better now that he's gone?" He has the same look he had that night at the hotel. Like he's fighting back tears and is silently begging me for forgiveness.
"Nothing will ever help. You know that.
We were back where our story had ended seven years ago.
Beth was five that day. As much as I tried to forget her that was one thing that I never could. How old she would be every year. What she felt like to hold in my arms. Her smell. The way her eyes had looked into mine. Those were things I'd never forget. She was one of the things I could never drink away. Her and her brother.
It was fitting that that would be the day that Puck managed to track me down in a hotel in New Jersey. He had managed to fund out what restaurant I was working at and my boss told him where I'd be.
His mohawk was gone along with the hatred he once had for the world. Instead in it's place was a mature young man. A man that was so different than the little boy I had had a child with.
After the binge I was coming off it took me a moment to recognize him. My mind always associated him with Lima. To see him at my hotel door in New Jersey tied my stomach up in knots.
It was raining like every defining day in my life. He was on his way to see Kurt and Rachel in New York.
I had settled into a pattern at this point. Work at some rundown restaurant, drink away whatever money I made and then move on after the manager fired me for either showing up drunk or not showing up at all. I wasn't hoping for salvation. I knew that would never come. I was looking for a peace that never would happen. Some jobs lasted longer than others. Some paid more. Some people tried to help but everything always ended the same way. With me trying to numb the pain and failing.
"I have to tell you something." He moved to the bed to sit but thought better of it. He turned to look at me.
Puck had always made me feel safe. We shared more than a daughter. We shared a love for each other. Not a romantic one. More like a sibling one. He was one of the few men in my life who had made up for the wrong he had done to me.
"I was there that night. I saw your father leading you out of the party. He looked so mad. I hid in the back of his car."
I shake my head, going to a case of beer in the corner but finding it empty. No. I hid from anything that took me back to that night. The kind of car my father drove. Parties. Red clothing. Men. Cabins. Hope. Love. Sex. My leg started to ache.
"I don't want till talk about this," I said.
"I was there the whole time."
He's next to me now, his voice shaking. His closeness pinned me to that spot.
"It was storming. I couldn't hear what your father was saying over the rain but I could tell it wasn't good. That something was going to happen."
"Shut up." I walk to the window, looking at the cars below. I remember hearing something moving in the back of the car that night.
"I wanted to help you. To protect you. That's why I went but I saw how angry he was. I…"
"Enough," I say but my voice is too soft.
"He was hitting you and yelling and you were trying to get away…"
I run at him, using all my strength to push him. He's stronger than me but he wasn't expecting this. My knees hold him in place as my fist hit him. "Stop!" I yell as I keep hitting him but it's too late. I'm back on the bridge and my father is on me. And now? Now there was more to know about that night.
"I wanted to help you Q. To save you but I…. I play it over and over in my mind trying to figure out why I froze. I think I was afraid. Afraid he'd kill me too."
I climb off him, laying my head in the carpet and wailed. He reached for me.
"Don't touch me," I crawl away from his hand.
"I'm sorry."
I had learned there was always more to feel. When you get to what you think is the bottom everything opens up and you keep falling. The list of ways a person can hurt you was endless. There was only one thing worse than being hurt and that was the denial of it. I didn't have someone that saved me. A father willing to protect me. A nurturing mother. A sister that adored me. All I had was my rage.
"What's worse? Watching or doing?" I lean against the wall, my eyes pinning him in place.
"I was eighteen Quinn."
"So was I," I pointed out. "Did you see everything?"
"I saw him push you and tear your clothes."
He was uncomfortable. He wasn't about to say if he had seen it all and I wasn't about to make him. He had to have known. He had found me without underwear and with bruises in that area. He had carried me and felt how my pelvis had throbbed. And what about Sam? Had they speculated?
I would never know because I would never ask. I had more to protect than just my pride. I had to protect my baby. Who would love him if they knew the truth? Who could love a freak of nature?
I don't know how long we stay like that before he finally leaves me there. Neither of us mention that it's our daughter's birthday. Happy birthday Beth.
I go to a liquor store and restock my supply. A week later I end up in the hospital from alcohol poisoning. I fail yet again at ending my pain.
I don't see him again until my mother's suicide.
"I should have stopped him," Puck says as we sit at the table after my father's death.
I move to the cupboard and pretend to be looking for something. Anything is easier than sitting there with him.
"Help me please," he begs.
I turn to look at him. I wonder if Beth looks like him. She'd be twelve now. Did she have his eyes? Mine? Whose hair? Whose lips? Height? Arms? Build? Did she have that birthmark that haunted my dreams? Would she ever know me? Know how much I loved her. Know how much I wanted to keep her but couldn't. Not just because I was young but also because of who my parents were. I didn't know how to be a mother. Not for her. Not for her brother. Not then and not now. Did she know she was better off without me in her life?
"Don't you need forgiveness?" he asked.
Did I? Would forgiveness really set me free like people liked to say? Or was that just a myth weak people said?
"I would have stopped him if I could."
He laid his head on the table and started crying. He appeared younger in his sorrow. More like the young man that I had a daughter with. I felt something stirring inside me. I move closer and take his hand in mine.
He isn't who you think he is….
"I know." I squeeze his hand and meant it. The truth was that he couldn't have stopped my father. No one could.
He's surprised by my kindness and so am I. I had been positive the loving part of me had died that night. I lived on one side of the hard line and everyone else lived on the other. Except my son who walked that line.
My sister, Puck, and I were the only ones to attend my father's funeral.
I watched his casket being lowered and felt nothing for him. Not forgiveness or hate or happiness or even rage. I was numb again.
I wondered if Puck and Frannie and I would have been friends if we had been strangers. If blood and sadness and pain didn't connect. Would we have liked each other if things had been different?