Part 14 PG-13
Quinn was on the midnight shift on her birthday. The other nurses had a little party, as they always did for each other.
When she got home, she went to sleep, and slept through till five. She got up and got dressed. She had about 12 messages on the phone, which always had the ringer shut off, since she set it that way for midnight shifts. She had once turned in back on for the day shift, but when she forgot to turn it back off, and phone rang while she was trying to sleep on a midnight shift, she found it so annoying that rather than try to remember to turn it off and on, she just turned it off for good.
She turned her cell phone on. She had 7 messages on it.
Someone knocked. She went to the door. Zander was there with two presents. "Happy Birthday," he said.
"Thank you," she hugged him awhile. "Come in. Are you any of these messages?"
"No. I knew you were on midnight, so I knew when to show up."
She smiled and went to kiss him again.
"Aren't you going to open these?" he asked.
"OK." She took the one he picked as first.
It was a pearl necklace.
"Thank you, that's so beautiful."
"Like you."
She kissed him awhile more.
"What's this?"
It was a book for beginners to learn Russian.
She hugged him again.
"I'll help you," he said.
She felt speechless, and choked up, and didn't know why.
Somehow it meant something to her more than expensive jewelry. It was like being asked to be a member of the family, or something.
"Thanks," she said, wiping her eye. "Thanks, Sander, for wanting to teach it to me."
He touched her face, not having expected her to be affected as much. He kissed her cheek. "You might want to kill me after trying," he said. "But never mind that. I have somewhere to take you before we get to your folks'"
"OK," she said.
They went down to his car; he had brought the Porsche.
They drove to a little street near the river, called Blake Street, in the older part of Port Charles. He pulled up in front of number 32.
"How did you know?" she asked, delighted.
"I work for a lawyer, you know. I've learned how to search the titles. I looked under Danny's fathers name."
"James Connor."
"Yeah. I found out he owned this one, number 32, from the 1970s to 1995. It looked like he bought it from another relative in the 70s, who owned from back into the 20s."
"His father. My grandfather lived here as a boy and still lived with his parents there even after he was married and had children. Some time after my great-grandmother died, my great-grandfather sold it to him, but still lived there with him and his family."
"So Danny had his grandfather living in the same house with him as he grew up."
"He did."
"Did you ever visit it?"
"When I was a kid. My grandparents still lived in it back then."
They leaned against the car, and looked at the house. Some children were playing on the sidewalk a little way up.
"There are a lot of memories on this street," Quinn said. "Thousands of stories, probably, of Irish immigrants long gone. Thousands of kids have played right there where those kids are playing."
"Including Little Danny."
"Yeah," she smiled, and sighed. "And all the characters that lived here. My grandparents and great aunts and uncles all told the same stories about the man who lived in number 28 way back when."
"Who was that?" Zander asked her.
"Well, he was named Hugh Duffy, and he was old even then," she said. "When my granddad was a little boy. Little things, nothing really dramatic. But they make a picture, or a history, a kind of slice of life."
"What did he do?"
"One thing he did was he came over the house - he was good friends with my great-grandfather - and saw that Aunt Maggie – she was a girl then - was drawing this figure skater, with her legs split, and he looked at the picture and said well, it looks like that girl done broke her straddle."
Zander laughed. "That does not sound good," he said.
"My great-grandfather - Michael - asked Hugh what a straddle was," Quinn said. And he looked quickly at my grandfather, who was still a boy, and said to my great-grandfather, I can't tell you now Mick, the boy's here."
Zander laughed. Quinn laughed with him. "You like that story?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "You like it too, don't you, Quinn?"
"Then there is another one from when my grandfather was a boy. Hugh was painting his house. Jimmy, my grandfather, came along and said he didn't like the color. Hugh went in and yelled to his wife, Peggy, we have to go back and buy another can of paint. Jimmy doesn't like the color!"
"Does Jimmy like that story?"
"But of course. And he really liked Hugh. That's why he was always stopping to talk to him. Hugh sat out on his front porch a lot. Now, see those two front windows? That's where they always had the picture of Kennedy."
"John F. Kennedy?"
"Yes, they kept that there even years after he was assassinated."
"He was sort of one of them, made good, then?"
"I guess they thought so. He was born rich though."
"So maybe they were thinking of the whole family more than just him."
"You're right, I think Zander. Yeah. More like his grandfather was one of them, but then that family had succeeded. So all the rest thought they might too, I suppose."
They looked at the house a little longer.
"Then there is the famous case of Mary O'Herlihy."
"How did that case go?"
"She lived there, I think, at 26. One night way back, it must have been the twenties or earlier, something went wrong with the street lights - they created an eerie glow instead of the regular light. So, Mary got her rosary beads and her blessed candles and came over to my great grandfather's and pounded on the door. No one came right away, and she pounded and yelled let me the hell in, damn it! It's the end of the world! Open the goddammed door Mick Connor, and let me the hell in!"
"She thought it was the end of the world?"
"Yeah. They let her in, and they could hear her, and said, Mary, your language! And she said, we'll, damn it, it's the end of the damn world and he wouldn't let me the hell in!"
Zander smiled.
"They all thought it was funny," she explained. "So the story gave them a good laugh. They told it over and over and laughed at it over and over every time. Somehow it doesn't get old and stays funny, to the next generation."
"So you've got to picture these cars not here," he said. "Or much older models. And you can see that path from 26 to 32. How old was this lady at the time?"
"I don't think she was really old, because she was still yelling so loud and cursing like a sailor. I picture her in her 40s or 50s I guess."
"With her hair pinned up the old fashioned way."
"Wearing a cotton dress, faded, clean, but worn. And her rosary beads and her blessed candles."
"Did she run or walk?"
"Walked," Quinn decided. "But very fast. It was the end of the world after all."
"When the end of the world comes, are we supposed to go to the neighbor's?"
Quinn laughed. "That's what makes it funny, Sandy, nobody knows what the heck her purpose was - it seems to go without saying she wasn't about to be alone at the end of the world."
"I don't blame her, really!"
"How dull it would be today! She'd just call the electric company. And she'd have her prescription for Xanax!"
"Wonder why she didn't stop at Hugh's, he was closer. Must have been something about the Connors. She felt safer with them."
When Quinn and Zander got to Danny and Kathleen's, it was already crowded. Zander was really happy, being introduced to the old man, who sat in a chair, skinny and pale, not seeing or hearing too well, but his mind still alive, as you could see it in his eyes. Quinn's great-grandfather. "This is Zander, Granddad," Danny said. "Quinn's sweetheart."
Zander smiled at the old fashioned term – it fit the man's age.
Mike's wife, Kitty, had died a few years back.
"Pleased to meet you," he said, shaking Zander's hand. It did not seem he could manage much more, but he made Zander smile. Zander whispered to Quinn, "so that's Mick Connor, who wouldn't let poor old Mary in."
Quinn laughed. "And this is Granddad," she said to Zander, turning to another older man. "Jimmy Connor, who didn't like Hugh's house paint."
"You've been telling him Hugh Duffy stories, have you, Quinn?" Jimmy shook Zander's hand too. He was in his 70s, white haired, with a strangely young looking face. "You may hear a lot of those if you spend much time around this family."
"Yes, and I also understand that I'll hear them over and over," Zander said.
Jimmy and Danny laughed uproariously, along with Anne, Jimmy's wife, Quinn's grandmother.
Joanna had come over, and so had Oksana, Pete and Rosa, Lisa and Diana, and even Sergei. There was a big cake, there being so many people, with candles and the words "Happy Birthday Quinn" in green icing.
Zander took Quinn back to her place. She smiled as he took her face in his hands and kissed her. She took his hand, and walked back with him to her bedroom.
"Thanks for a beautiful birthday, Sander, it's the best one I've every had." She leaned her chin on his chest, feeling happy, and relaxed, as she always did after he made love to her.
"How come you've been using Sander?" he asked. "I like it, I only wondered why."
"It's what the people closest to you use," she said. "I hope I earned it."
"Yes," he said. "I mean, you don't have to. But you are closest."
"I love you," she said, "I will earn that too, by my actions."
He pulled her closer and pushed her head down on his shoulder. He hugged her a minute. "You don't have to earn anything," he said. "And I love you."
"This is the best birthday I've ever had," she said.
"So far."