Page 47 of The Heartbreak Hotel
“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, whoppingno, 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 alittle, 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 doorto 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 perfectlyfine—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.
