It's my son's twelfth birthday today. I'm standing outside his school, waiting for him to come out. I have been sober for one year, six months, ten days and fifteen hours. My bones aren't sticking out like before. My body won't break in a hug. I keep a bag of Hershey's kisses in my purse to help with the craving. My mother's note is also in there. Her message to me from beyond the grave.
He isn't who you think he is….
One thing about being sober is the feeling of being uncomfortable every where you go. It's one feeling that'll never go away no matter what.
I've been gone for eleven years.
I knew I'd leave Lima and my son. What I didn't know is if I'd ever return. Sam had been right. If I was to leave I needed to get gone and if I stayed? I didn't know how to do that.
Lucien and I sat in the car for hours that day and talked about his life. He said he missed me despite not knowing me.
"Is that stupid?" His eyes never left me.
"No." Who was I to judge how he felt?
I took him to breakfast and we discovered how we both loved blueberry pancakes and bacon. My body began to ache. I wanted to drink more than I wanted to be in his life.
I called Sam while I was in the bathroom pretending to go and asked him took come get us. I don't tell him he's only taking Lucien until he arrives.
He doesn't act surprised, knowing all along that was how it'd go. Disappointment settles into the pit of my stomach. A part of me hoped he'd fight for me to stay. The other part knew that was foolish. Lucien wasn't as understanding and wanted to know why I was leaving.
"I'm not a good person," I try to explain as I watch tears appear in his eyes.
"But you're my mother," he points out to me.
I didn't understand that to him if I wasn't then neither was he. Explaining to him that I was positive he had more of Sam in him than me and more of me than my father was pointless.
"That's not true. She means she's sick. She needs to get better," Sam explains.
Lucien looks at me as if I was about to fall over died.
"I haven't been myself for a very long time." I use my sleeve to wipe away his tears.
They both let me go in the end though Lucien makes me promise to come back when I'm better.
"There's worse things than leaving," Sam points out as he walks me to my car. The only thing I can think of is coming back.
Lucien stands by his father's side and watches me leave for the second time in his young life.
I drive through the night and end up at Holly's old apartment. A neighbor tells me where she's buried. I tell Holly everything that day. I barely have a voice in the end. It's the first time I say out loud what happened to me that night. It's something that I can only say to the person who mothered my child. I need her to understand the reason for my actions. I whisper a thank you before I leave. It feels like a boulder has been lifted from my shoulders.
I reward myself by checking into a hotel with a couple cases of beer and a pizza. My purse still contains my mother's papers. There is still more questions that need to be answered. The only thing left to run from was myself and I was nothing.
I lose track of how many bottles I drink and end up waking up in the hospital.
"You're awake," a familiar voice says.
Opening my eyes, I take in the sight of Lauren Zizes sitting in the chair next to my bed. It's almost like no time has passed except for the fact that she's wearing scrubs.
My throat burns from having my stomach pumped. I don't know how long I've been asleep or how I got to the hospital.
"Do you know who you are?" she ask as she helps me sip a cup of water.
The sun shines into the room casting everything into a yellow haze. The air is a mix of bleach and bacon being fried for breakfast. I'm too alive to be dead.
"Do you know who you are?" Lauren ask again, setting the cup down.
I try to think of an answer to her question. I'm alone. I'm Quinn Fabray. I'm dead inside,. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a daughter who was raped by her father. I'm a sister and a half sister. I'm my mother's daughter. I'm a woman, I'm broken. I'm an ex-glee member. I'm a person who had dreams for a better life. I'm lost. I scroll through the list, trying to decide what one fit me best.
I start to cry and she takes my hand.
"I'm a mother."
Lauren helps me find a sketchbook like the one Sam had given me all those years ago. I start to draw again as I go through therapy. I continue Luc's adventures from where I thought they had ended on the ground near my father's cabin. Her enemy isn't the Hand anymore. It's replaced with Barley.
It's a struggle to stay clean. One I fail at a lot during the first few months. I stay with Lauren in her apartment. She makes sure that I eat and go to meetings. She's still in contact with some former glee members. They stop by till check on me when she's at work but none of them stay long. I fill the sketchbook with images of Luc and slowly draw myself back to life.
Lauren let's me stay with her until I know where I'm going next. I tell her I might never know but she doesn't believe that. I write Sam a letter though I suspect she's already told him where I was. It's easier than a phone call and more personal than a text. I let him know I'm alright and thank him for raising my son.
I write a letter to Beth and send it to Rachel. She tells me she'll give it to Shelby. She can't promise that Shelby will actually give it to Beth and if she does that's up to her on when. I'm ok with that. Beth will never be mine. I may have given birth to her but I'm not her mother. That honor goes to Shelby. I put the star of David necklace that Puck gave me into the envelope so they she'll have a part of her parents with her.
Lauren and I visit Holly's grave when I reach three months sober. I tell her what happened as we stand in front of the headstone. She doesn't judge me as she listens. Just lets me get it off my chest and gives me a hug afterwards. I'm slowly unthawing inside.
She helps me get a job at the hospital café and I finish out my last semester of college. This time I pass my classes. I save up enough money to return to Lima. I buy another sketchbook and she helps me wrap it. I put it in my duffel bag along with the few clothes that actually still fit.
My mother's documents are still in my purse. Someone at my meeting had told I wasn't looking for the answer to my problems but the courage to face them. I think they're right. My mother's note is still on top.
He isn't who you think he is….
I still don't know what it means. Sam. My father. Puck. But I believe she meant my son. She was right. He's so much more.
Dumping the papers onto my bed, I sort through the . Her social security card. Birth certificates for her, my father and I. Baby photos of her three children. At the bottom is an envelope from Holly. It's addressed to me. Another letter to me from beyond the grave.
I open it and read the familiar handwriting.
"Q,
I know you need to know this in order to achieve some happiness in your life. I knew you'd send up home eventually.
I love you,
Holly Holiday"
Looking at the papers, I smile to myself and think about how she had swabbed my mouth the day I had Lucien. She did a paternity test.
I find Sam's name on the page and sigh in relief when it says there's a 99.99 percent chance that he's the father of Lucien Samuel Evans.
A picture falls into my lap. It's the one Holly took the day I had my son. I look so young and I start to cry.
I get up early to avoid saying goodbye. I've never been good with goodbyes. Lauren is waiting on the couch. She hugs me before walking me my car and it's then that I realize I never asked her what her life has been like since leaving Lima. The only thing I know is that she's a nurse in the emergency department.
She must sense that I finally want to know.
"He's in prison and the baby is in a better place," she says before closing the car door.
The first stop I make in Lima is to see Puck. I find him sitting behind his desk at work. I'm not surprised he went into law enforcement. Between Beth and what he saw that night we grew up.
He smiles at me as I enter his office, closing the door behind me.
"You look different," he comments, getting up to give me a hug.
"I'm fatter," I point out but he shakes his head.
Not that," he sits back down. "I never thought you'd come back to Lima."
He cancels his meetings that day and we stay in his office for hours. I show him the papers and we discuss the past. He says he still talks to Sam, Frannie and Cooper. Even spends time with my son. He shows me a picture Rachel sent of Beth. It's hard to talk about her but I don't feel my heart breaking like it once did at the mention of her name. He tells me he's getting a divorce but never mentions her name. In the end it doesn't matter who.
"You ever feel like you're running and you're not sure if it's away from something or toward it?" He ask.
"There is always something to run away from. If you keep looking back you can't see what you might be heading toward." It's something I had learned in one of my meetings.
"Something good?"
"I think we get to decide that for ourselves."
Frannie had moved into our parents' old house as her and Willard prepared for the arrival of their daughter. After talking to Cooper and realizing how many young girls were having babies they decided to adopt. They also decided that the city was no place to raise a child.
Sam's father had agreed to sign over the house to Frannie. I heard it was an awkward meeting when Cooper met his birth father but that a part of him finally felt whole because he knew where he came from.
I stand holding a shopping bag as middle schoolers run past me. I always wondered if I'd be able to pick him out in a crowd. I think the better question would have been would he have known me?
He came running out the door a few minutes later with a group of friends. I wave when I see him. At first I think he's going to run past me or flip me off but he isn't me. He stops in front of me. He's almost my height now. He smiles at me.
"My dad said you were coming home. You're not sick anymore?" He looks into my eyes.
"Almost. Happy birthday," I hand him the bag. "Just wait for your father before you open it."
Sam had agreed to wait by his truck while I did this. Lucien looks surprised, like we can't imagine both his parents here together.
He smiles as he approaches, giving our son a hug before taking my hand.
"You like your present? He wished you'd come home," Sam explains.
I feel something in the pit of my stomach. In the past I would drink this feeling away but rehab had taught me to breath instead. It has been so long I forgot what joy feels like.
Sam gives my hand a squeeze. Our relationship still needs a lot of work but I know it'll be worth it in the end.
Lucien opens the bag, pulling out the sketchbook. I explain how his dad gave me a book just like this. I had sketched out his birth for him with drawings of Holly and Sam. He laughs at how shocked his dad looks in the drawings.
"Well I was pretty scared," Sam shrugged.
" Were you?" Lucien ask me.
"For a very long time," I admit.
Are you still scared?" My son wants to know.
"I'm working on it," I promise, pulling him into a hug.
I let him go and he turns to the next page. It's blank.
"Aren't you going to finish it?" He closes the book and puts it back in the bag.
In time I'll show him the adventures Luc has with Barley but not now and not in this book. This is his.
"It's not mine to finish. This is your story."