Page 25 of The Heartbreak Hotel

Nineteen

Quinn’s wearing a beanie shaped like a fox face, orange ears pointed skyward. He runs ahead of us down the sidewalk, kicking up leaves, oblivious to the tension that expands and contracts like a held breath between the two adults behind him.

“Goldie lives in New York,” I tell Henry, just to say something.

He agreed to come to the park without hesitating, but now that we’re halfway there and still haven’t spoken, I’m worried that inviting him was the wrong choice.

We ran into Bill and Martina walking Custard on our way out the door, and seeing Henry with him again reminded me of the dynamic from back in August: Henry, silent with me.

Henry, open and lit up and loosened with everyone else.

“I only get to see Quinn a couple times a year.”

“He loves you,” Henry says. He’d watched Quinn bound down the stairs and into my arms when Goldie left, completely unfazed by her going. I’m not too big to admit that it gave me a silly sort of satisfaction after what she’d said to me.

“It’s super mutual,” I say, and a smile tugs at the edge of his mouth. “He’s my favorite person.”

“Is she doing it alone?” Henry asks. “Or does he have another parent?”

“Just Goldie.” Our footsteps fall in tandem, our shadows stretching long across the sidewalk. “She had him with a donor. She, um—” I catch myself before saying doesn’t trust men . “She’s always known exactly what she wants, and never hesitated to get it.”

Henry nods, watching Quinn hop two-footed over a crack in the pavement. “Looks like she’s doing a good job.”

“I mean, yeah. She’s a perfect mom.” She came into motherhood like she was made for it: stern but warm, fun but boundaried.

Something she’d never seen modeled, she picked up straightaway.

There’s never been a problem Quinn has presented to her that she hasn’t been able to solve.

Goldie can be callous, but I’d trust her with life—mine, and anyone else’s. “Goldie’s good at everything.”

“Hm.”

I look over at Henry. “What?”

He shrugs, glancing at me. The way the autumn light catches his eyes is criminal. “She’s good at everything ? That can’t be true.”

“Well, you just met her,” I say on a laugh. “Give it some time, and you’ll see.”

“Can she cook?”

“Better than anyone I know.”

“Run?”

“She does the New York City Half every year.”

“Draw?”

I tilt my head back and forth. “Decently.”

“Give her sister the credit she deserves?”

I catch his eyes, narrowing mine. “Ha-ha.”

Henry shrugs again. “I mean it. Giving people we care about space to be themselves, instead of the people we want them to be, is a skill, too.”

“That’s true,” I say slowly.

“And you’re good at it.” The breeze blows hair over his forehead, and he reaches up one hand to push it back. The threads of silver at his temples glint in the lowering sunlight. “I didn’t mean to listen, the other day, when I finished fixing that door. But I heard what you said to Kim.”

“About being sad?”

“About grieving how you need to.” Henry digs his hands further into his pockets, shoulders coming up to his ears.

I picture him in the doorframe that day: his fingers working the rag, his low voice as he stepped around me toward the garden door.

“You told her that the way she is is okay. I think she needed to hear it.”

It’s so validating that my initial urge is to push back on it, thrust away the discomfort of being seen so clearly. But instead, I make myself say, “Thank you, Henry.”

He turns to look at me, holds my eyes. I understand. “You’re welcome.”

“Lou-Lou, look !” Quinn points ahead of us, where Elk Run Park’s brand-new jungle gym rises from the mulch in all its polycarbonate glory. It’s surrounded by pine trees and the ring of distant mountains.

“I told you,” I say. Henry and I stop next to him, and Quinn absently clenches a hand into the bottom hem of my jacket. “What should we do first?”

Quinn takes it all in, his lips parted. There are a few other families at the park—twins in matching sweaters on the swings, a group of teenagers clustered around the slide. October wind blows, crisp and cold, but Quinn is unfazed.

“Monkey bars?” He looks up at me with a combination of glee and mischief in his eyes.

“Good choice,” Henry says, as I drop a hand onto Quinn’s fox-capped head.

“You know your mom’s rule about monkey bars.” They’re a big, whopping no , right alongside trampolines and contact sports. “But she’s not here, huh?”

Quinn lets out a thrilled yelp and runs into the mulch pit.

“I should help him,” I say to Henry. “Be right back.”

He nods, hands in his jacket pockets. I can feel him watch me go, and when I lift Quinn up to reach the bars, Henry takes a seat on one of the benches at the edge of the park.

“I like your friend,” Quinn grunts, breathless as he hoists himself from bar to bar. I keep my hands around his rib cage—I can betray my sister a little , but not all the way. “Does he live with you in the big house?”

“No,” I say, glancing at Henry again. With one arm hooked over the back of the bench, coat falling open to show a flash of red flannel underneath, he looks like an autumn dream—like an ad for hayrides and spiced cider and pumpkin carving on a back porch at dusk. “He owns the big house.”

“He lets you live there without him?”

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s called a landlord, when you own a house and other people pay you to live there.”

“Landlord,” Quinn repeats, testing it out. He grunts again, little fingers reaching for the final bar. “ Land. Lord. ”

“You done?” He hangs vertical from the bar, strip of his tummy exposed to the cold. I lift him up and he melts into me before dropping to the ground. “Or want to go again?”

“Go again. But I’m gonna get a drink.” He points to the water fountain near the entrance of the park, then starts running. “I’ll come back!”

I slip my hands into my coat pockets, hunching against the wind.

Quinn crosses the mulch, arms swinging, and when he takes the ledge up onto the pavement his sneaker catches the wooden barrier.

I watch him fall in slow motion: his arms flinging forward, his shoe popping off, the horrible thud as he hits the ground.

In the silence before he starts crying, I gasp, “ Shit. ”

I’m running before the word’s left my mouth, but Henry’s bench is only a few paces away from Quinn, and he gets to him first.

Quinn’s in Henry’s lap before I’m off the playground: Henry’s knees pressed to the pavement, Quinn’s fox hat tucked under his chin, the lost sneaker already scooped into one hand.

“You’re safe,” Henry says—that low, soothing voice. The first thing I noticed about him, back in his office in August. “Did that hurt you?” Quinn pauses mid-sob to look up at Henry, his eyes tracking over his face like he’s unsure whether he remembers him. “Or just scare you?”

I stop beside them, kneeling. Quinn’s watery eyes come to mine. “Scare me,” he squeaks, looking back up at Henry, who nods. My heart thrashes between my ribs.

“That was a big fall,” Henry says. All of him has softened—the cut of his shoulders, the tension he holds in his jaw. That line between his brows, gone now. “It did look scary.”

“Hey, buddy,” I say shakily. When I hold my arms out, Henry pours Quinn’s trembling body into them. “You okay?”

“I’m okay,” Quinn says wetly. “Just scared.”

“Yeah,” I say, meeting Henry’s eyes over his shoulder. Thank you , I mouth.

Henry says, “He’s all right,” and slides Quinn’s sneaker back onto his socked foot.

When he places his hand on the back of Quinn’s head, it strikes me that he’s done this before.

He looks more comfortable in this moment—knelt in the dirt with a sobbing Quinn—than I can remember seeing him since that day with Custard on the lawn.

“Do you have nieces and nephews?” I ask, holding Quinn close as his breathing slows.

Henry’s hand drops into his lap. “No,” he says. And before I can ask anything else, he helps me to my feet and adds, “Should we get him home?”

Henry stands in the door to my bedroom, watching me pull the covers up to Quinn’s chin.

There are guest rooms free, but he prefers to sleep with me—the most adorable kind of slumber party.

My bedroom is at the back of the house, its windows overlooking the garden, oddly shaped and all the more charming for it.

The bed angled into a corner, lamp arcing up behind it; two reading chairs in front of the biggest window; an antique lowboy dresser extending along the far wall, scattered with framed photographs and perfume bottles.

Quinn’s baby-sized suitcase sits at the foot of the bed.

I’ve cleaned his scraped palms and covered them in the requested kisses. Aside from being shaken up, he’s perfectly fine—a relief for several reasons, not the least of which is that now I don’t have to call Goldie.

“He all right?” Henry asks quietly as I close the door behind us.

It’s nearly five o’clock, well past Quinn’s usual naptime, but after the drama of the park, he didn’t protest a second nap.

My guests are in their rooms, the usual late-afternoon lull where the house is quiet: everyone resting as the sun goes down, or getting ready for dinner.

“Yeah,” I say. We lean into opposite sides of the stained wood doorframe, facing each other. The long hallway is dimly lit by milk glass sconces; under our feet, a woven runner muffles the hardwood floor. Henry’s collar is half upturned from taking his coat off. “Thanks for your help back there.”

Henry shrugs. “I’m glad he’s okay.”

I take him in: soft flannel, dark jeans, arms crossed over his chest. Hair rumpled from the wind. Eyes gone nearly navy in the shadowy hallway.

“Can I ask you something?”

Henry’s voice is soft. “Of course.”

“What’s your family like?”

Henry inhales, arms tightening around each other like he’s protecting himself. “Normal,” he tells me, not an answer at all. “I’m an only child. My parents were teachers. They inherited this house from my dad’s parents, who built it in the fifties.”

I tip my head to one side, studying him. The way he’s tucked in on himself.

“What?” he says.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

The line appears between his eyebrows. This time, I don’t stop myself from reaching into the space between us—drawing one fingertip over his skin to smooth it out. Henry holds his breath until my hand drops back to my side.

“You look scared,” I say softly. “To talk to me about this.”

He doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t say anything at all. He only swallows—steadying—and lets out a breath that parts his lips, shows me the pink of his tongue.

“I won’t make you,” I say. When I tip back against the wall he leans toward me, making up the distance. “We can talk about something else—like the garden.” His eyebrows lift, and I say, “What’s going on? I’ve seen you arguing with Joss twice now.”

“We aren’t arguing,” Henry says. I notice the present tense: that whatever they’re fighting about, it isn’t resolved. He shifts his weight, bringing us another hair’s breadth closer. “Just discussing.”

I tilt my head. “Discussing quite animatedly.”

“I have a lot of opinions,” Henry says, “about plants.”

I narrow my eyes, feel my mouth betraying me into a smile. “Really.”

“Really,” he echoes.

“I wouldn’t expect that from you.”

“No?” He doesn’t blink, doesn’t move his gaze from mine. “What would you expect from me?”

I press my lips together. I never know, is the truth. Henry has surprised me in every single way.

“I expect that you make your bed every morning with hospital corners.”

He lets out a short breath, halfway to laughter. “Correct.”

“I expect that you hated group projects in school.”

A real laugh, this time. His eyes close, his teeth flashing, and I want to make him laugh again and again and again. “Correct,” he says.

“I expect,” I say, slowly, testing my resolve, “that you still think the Comeback Inn is silly.”

Henry tips closer to me. “Incorrect.”

I pull my lower lip between my teeth. “I expect you’re annoyed by how often you’ve had to come over here since I started this.”

Henry’s eyes dip to my mouth. “Incorrect.”

“I expect,” I say, slowly, “that if I asked you to stay for dinner tonight, you would say yes.”

Henry’s lips twitch, like he’s fighting a smile. He uncrosses his arms. “Correct.”