Page 37 of Mr. Wolfe's Nanny

I don’t stop here all that often anymore but it would’ve been her birthday today and I couldn’tnotpay my respects. Today though, I wanted company with me here.

“Do the children realize what today is?”

I shake my head. “I don’t think they keep track of dates except Christmas and their own birthdays. I meant to mention it earlier but I hated to start their day off that way.”

“I understand but I think remembering her is important for them, too. We could pick up some cupcakes on our way to get them. Just a little way to broach the topic,” she suggests.

“Sugar makes everything better, I suppose,” I say, half jesting. I do want my kids to remember their mother, the best they’re able to, and know without a doubt she loved them both so very much.

Quinn gives me a warm smile, that same bewitching smile she gave me at the shop earlier. Her intoxicating fragrance surrounds me and I take her hand in mine. We need to talk about what happened the other night but not here.

“Do you bring the children here much?”

“Occasionally but not lately.” I don’t want my children to be weighed down by their father’s melancholy. “Ryder gets sad and then angry afterwards. Jill doesn’t really understand how her mother can be here and also in Heaven. She was only a baby.”

Tentatively, Quinn rests her head on my shoulder. “My parents were buried in Colorado. We didn’t have a place for it here and…” She stops, takes a breath. “It was convenient. My grandparents paid for it and that was that. I’ve only been there once since it happened.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. I don’t need a headstone to remember them. They’re always with me wherever I go. Don’t you feel that way, too? Or does this place make it more… real?”

I look down at her and those hazel eyes, like a kaleidoscope in the brilliant autumn sunlight, stare back at me. “Yeah, I guess so.”

The pain of Kathy’s revelation is strong today and Quinn is here with me. Quinn has shared her pain with me. I can do that, too.

“You lost them suddenly,” I start with. She stays quiet, waiting. Always patient when I need it. “What if they’d known the wreck would happen beforehand but kept it from you?”

Her eyes widen. “She knew and waited to tell you?”

“She was around seven weeks along with Jill when she got the diagnosis. She didn’t tell me until it was impossible to hide it any longer. She was in her third trimester by then.”

“Oh my God, Theo. That must’ve been…”

Devastating.

I close my eyes, refusing to cry. “She was afraid I might insist she start treatment right away which of course she couldn’t if the pregnancy was to…” I bite my lip to stop it from trembling.

“I didn’t see it even when she was throwing up every day well past the first trimester. She said she had hyperemesis gravidarum, the severe sort of morning sickness that doesn’t go away until the end of pregnancy. It wasn’t that. It was a brain tumor, an inoperable one.”

“Theo…”

“We weren’t perfect but we loved each other, had since we were college kids. I always tried to be a good husband and father but I worked long hours and, all the while, she hid it from me. Why?” I’m not asking Quinn and she knows that. She holds my hand.

“I was angry for a long time about that after she was gone. Felt guilty for being angry, too,” I say, staring at the flowers.

Quinn’s arms encircle my waist. “Do you still feel that way?”

I squeeze her against me. “Not anymore. Not really.”

But I know it’s part of my issues, why I’m afraid to trust, to love again. To love is to risk. You can love a person so much and still lose them. And trusting someone else can leave you burned.

“Life goes on,” Quinn says quietly by my side at length.

It does. My heart thuds heavily in my chest. It’s a strange and wonderful organ and capable of so much love if you allow. But do I dare?

18-Theo

Nadine’s at school for pickup when we arrive. She’s already surrounded by other moms and I can’t handle another encounter today. She had been Kathy’s friend but she made an ass of herself in front of Quinn last month. I’m still not happy about that. I’m not exactly happy that I didn’t say something about it either.

---