From Dead to Worse

I came out, a little neater and more awake than when I’d entered, Quinn had a mug of coffee for me. I took a sip and instantly felt better able to cope with whatever was coming. But not in my bedroom.
    “Kitchen,” I said, and we went to the room that had always been the heart of the house. It had been dated when the fire had gotten it. Now I had a brand-new kitchen, but I still missed the old one. The table where my family had eaten for years had been replaced with a modern one, and the new chairs were lots more comfortable than the old ones, but regret still caught at me every now and then when I thought of what had been lost.
    I had an ominous feeling that “regret” was going to be the theme of the day. During my troubled sleep, apparently I’d absorbed a dose of the practicality that had seemed so sad to me the night before. To stave off the conversation we were going to have to have, I stepped to the back door and looked to see that Amelia’s car was gone. At least we were alone.
    I sat down opposite the man I’d hoped to love.
    “Babe, you look like someone just told you I was dead,” Quinn said.
    “Might as well have,” I said, because I had to plow into this and look to neither the right nor the left. He flinched.
    “Sookie, what could I have done?” he asked. “What could I have done?” There was an edge of anger in his voice.
    “What can I do?” I asked in return, because I had no answer for him.
    “I sent Frannie! I tried to warn you!”
    “Too little, too late,” I said. I second-guessed myself immediately: Was I being too hard, unfair, ungrateful? “If you’d called me weeks ago, even once, I might feel different. But I guess you were too busy trying to find your mother.”
    “So you’re breaking up with me because of my mother,” he said. He sounded bitter and I didn’t blame him.
    “Yes,” I said after a moment’s inner testing of my own resolve. “I think I am. It’s not your mom as much as her whole situation. Your mother will always have to come first as long as she’s alive, because she’s so damaged. I’ve got sympathy for that, believe me. And I’m sorry that you and Frannie have a hard row to hoe. I know all about hard rows.”
    Quinn was looking down into his coffee mug, his face drawn with anger and weariness. This was probably the worst possible moment to be having this showdown, and yet it had to be done. I hurt too bad to let it last any longer.
    “Yet, knowing all this, and knowing I care for you, you don’t want to see me anymore,” Quinn said, biting each word out. “You don’t want to try to make it work.”
    “I care for you, too, and I had hoped we’d have a lot more,” I said. “But last night was just too much for me. Remember, I had to find out your past from someone else? I think maybe you didn’t tell me about it from the start because you knew it would be an issue. Not your pit fighting—I don’t care about that. But your mom and Frannie . . . Well, they’re your family. They’re . . . dependent. They have to have you. They’ll always come first.” I stopped for a moment, biting the inside of my cheek. This was the hardest part. “I want to be first. I know that’s selfish, and maybe unattainable, and maybe shallow. But I just want to come first with someone. If that’s wrong of me, so be it. I’ll be wrong. But that’s the way I feel.”
    “Then there’s nothing left to talk about,” Quinn said after a moment’s thought. He looked at me bleakly. I couldn’t disagree. His big hands flat on the table, he pushed to his feet and left.
    I felt like a bad person. I felt miserable and bereft. I felt like a selfish bitch.
    But I let him walk out the door.

Chapter 14
    While I was getting ready for work—yes, even after a night like the one I’d had, I had to go to work—there was a knock at the front door. I’d heard something big coming down the driveway, so I’d tied my shoes hastily.
    The FedEx truck was not a frequent visitor at my house, and the thin woman who hopped out was a stranger. I opened the battered front door with some difficulty. It was never going to be the same after Quinn’s entrance the night before. I made a mental note to call the Lowe’s in Clarice to ask about a replacement. Maybe Jason would help me hang it. The FedEx lady gave a long look at the door’s splintered condition when I finally got it open.
    “You want to sign for this?” she said as she held out a package, tactfully not