Canes of Divergence (9 page)

“Right.
”

“Yeah, well, Nathaniel flipped his lid. Insisted that they bring me and Abigail to him
right then
. Apparently, bats have really tiny, sharp teeth, and they can bite you without you even feeling it, especially if you’re asleep.”

“Okay, that’s even creepier.”

“Yeah. I’m not fond of them. Louis teased us the whole time we were getting ready to go and see Nathaniel, about how we were going to have to get twenty shots with big needles in our stomachs.”

Thomas bit his lip, clearly
trying not to laugh again.

“Be nice. We believed him.
Apparently, it used to be true, when they first invented rabies shots. By the time we got to Nathaniel’s office, I was so scared my dad practically had to drag me inside.
Fine, laugh.
”

“I’m sorry. What happened?”

“We did have to get shots. Not twenty, and not in our stomachs, just three.”

“So not so terrible?”

“The first two
hurt
, and you know me – at least back then – I’m pretty sure there were tears involved. But Nathaniel promised I’d never have to have those ones again, even if I found another bat in my bedroom. The last one wasn’t quite as bad, but we had to come back four more times after that to have more of those.”

“Did you ever get back at Abigail’s brother?”

“We didn’t have to.” She chuckled. “Nathaniel was so paranoid about rabies that he said everyone who was in the house had to get the shots. Louis was older and bigger than us, so he had to get more of the ones that hurt than we did.”

“He deserved it.”

“Yeah.” Quinn’s lightheartedness over it had disappeared again, though.

“So what you’re telling me w
ith your little story is that we can’t wash this up for you?”

“No. For once, we’re dealing with a situation that I actually know something about.” A
fter Nathaniel’s extreme reaction to the bat, she’d done her research on rabies. At the time, it had probably been to try and convince her parents that she didn’t need the rest of the shots. But what she’d read had changed even her mind. The shots always worked, but without them, rabies was fatal. Always.

She tried to shake that thought out of her mind, but failed.
“I know that if we were in my world, he’d be giving those shots to Emma and Ben. Maybe the rest of us, too. Who knows?”

“
Don’t tell this to Emma, but I’m pretty sure that if Jacob and Nathaniel manage to get more made, that’s exactly what will happen.” He brushed her hair back from her shoulder. “There’s still a chance we’ll have some medicine in time. And there’s also a chance that Nathaniel treated the wound quickly enough, and got it clean enough that he wouldn’t get sick, anyway. He practically did surgery on William’s arm down there. It’s so clean you could probably eat off of it.”

“I don’t really need that mental image, Thomas.”

“I’m trying here, okay?”

“I know. Thank you. I feel really bad now that I wasn’t down there in the clinic with him.”

“Hey, Quinn, you were upstairs taking care of his son. You can’t do everything. I think he was glad you didn’t have to be there when they realized, you know…”

“Yeah.”
She swallowed. “I should go and see if he’s out of the bath now.”

Thomas’ brow furrowed. “
It’s William, Quinn. You might want to give him a few minutes. When’s the last time you ate?”

She shrugged. “It was before we went outside.”

“
Tsk. Tsk
. You can’t be doing that anymore. You have to take care of my nephew’s mother, you know. Let’s go and get some food into you, and then you can come back and deal with Will.”

“I’m a queen
. You can’t boss me around.”

“Try that one on someone else,
Your Majesty
,” he said, beginning to pull her down the hallway toward the common room. “I don’t care what kingdom you’re the ruler of; you’re still my little sister.”

“I’m not your
little
sister. I’m older than you.”

“
That
is a technicality. I have thousands of days on you.”

“I was born first.”

“I see it how I see it.”

Bristlecone, Colorado

A
FTER THE CONVERSATION
with his father, Zander knew there was no chance he would be sleeping that night. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been angrier or more confused. Had his father been serious? Was this the deal now? It was either major in business and do exactly what his father wanted him to do or … was there even an
or
?

It was because he was st
ill awake at two in the morning, stewing in his room, that he was the first one to hear Owen cry out. He quickly closed the browser window where he’d been looking at military recruitment websites – any way to escape sounded good right now – and dashed across the hall to the guest room where Annie and Owen were sleeping.

“Hey, Owen,” he called softly, flicking on a low lamp, and crossing the room to kneel by the bed.

Both children were still asleep, although Owen was thrashing and whimpering, sending the covers everywhere. Zander didn’t know how Annie was sleeping through it.

“Owen,” he called again, laying his hand on the little boy’s back and rubbing gently. “Hey, wake up, buddy. I think you’re having a bad dream.”

For a second he thought it had worked; Owen’s kicking feet grew still, and he turned over, facing him now.

“Have to go,” he said. “She needs help.”

“No, it’s okay, Owen, you were just dreaming.”

Owen didn’t respond, and that was when Zander realized his eyes were still closed.

He stayed there, perfectly still, watching him. His little body relaxed, and his breathing became deep and even. Maybe the nightmare, or whatever it had been, was over.

Just as he reached for the blanket, to cover both children back up for the night, Owen’s eyes opened, and he sat up so quickly that
it startled Zander and he jumped back.

Owen looked around for a moment, his eyes wide, like he didn’t recognize anything, and he couldn’t figure out where he was. Finally, though, his eyes settled on Zander. “I need to go home,” he said, “now.”

“Owen, honey, it’s the middle of the night,” Zander’s mother called from the doorway. “Nobody is at your house.”

The look of panic on Owen’s face was gut-wrenching. His whole little body began shaking, and all of the color drained from his face.

Maggie rushed over to him and sat down on the edge of the bed. “It’s only for a couple of days, Owen, your mom and dad will be back on Monday. We’re going to go stay in a hotel tomorrow night. Won’t that be fun?”

Zander was
sure Owen couldn’t hear her. He was still staring at Zander, his little fists winding over and over again in his pajama shirt. “I need to go home. I need to go home right now.”

He looked at his mom. “Maybe I could take him over to his house? He might sleep better if he was in his own bed.”

Owen’s hands stopped twisting.

“We’re leaving in like six hours, Zander.”

The hands started going again, and now Owen’s body began rocking back and forth.
How was Annie sleeping through this?

Zander looked at Owen. “Do you want to go to the hotel tomorrow, Owen? And go swimming with Annie and Ashley and Sophia?”

“No.” Owen shook his head emphatically. “I need to go home. I don’t want to go to Colorado Springs. I need to go home right now.”

“Sweetheart, your parents aren’t there.”

“Zander said he would take me. I need to go home.”

His mom looked at him helplessly. Owen had never spent the night here before. Maybe this was why.

“I could watch him, Mom. Tonight, and tomorrow, too. It’s not like I have anything else going on.”

Owen grew very still now and looked at both of them.
“Please, Zander?”

“Can
I talk to Zander for a minute, Owen?”

Owen nodded
, though his hands were twisting again. “Can I read or something?”

“You don’t want to rest?”

“I’m not going to fall asleep, Maggie. I need to go home.”

“Okay, we’ll be back in a minute, bud,” Zander said.

“Are you sure about this, Zander?” his mom asked as they slipped back down the hall toward the kitchen. “It’s kind of a big responsibility. I don’t even know if it’s a good idea.”

“I’ve watched the kids lots of times before, Mom. I’ve even watched
Ashley overnight.”

“This is someone else’s child, Zander. And it would be for tomorrow night, too. What if he gets upset again?”

“I’ll be at his house, like he wants. I can always call Megan and Jeff and ask for help.”

“Maybe we should just call them now.”

Zander glanced at the clock on the stove. “It’s two thirty in the morning. That’s what? Four thirty in Atlanta? Do we really need to wake them up for this?”

“They would want to know.”

“They want to know he’s okay. If I take him home and he’s fine, I’ll call them first thing in the morning. If I take him home and he’s still upset, then I’ll call tonight.”

“What are you going to do if he’s still upset?”

“What would you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t his grandparents have him this weekend?”

“They’re on vacation.”

“Well, then there’s really no choice, is there? Megan and Jeff can’t just come home from Atlanta in the middle of the night. We know he’s going to be upset here. He’ll probably be fine if I take him to his house. Anyway, he’s a great kid. I can hang out with him until Sunday. We’ll be fine.”

“We might not be home until late Sunday evening.”

Zander shrugged. “Stay until Monday if you want. There’s no school that day.
I really don’t mind.”

“Well, Megan and Jeff will be back Sunday night.”

“Whatever, Mom. Seriously. Just let me take him.”

“All right.” She started to nod, but then she frowned. “Why are you still dressed at two thirty in the morning?”

“I just … hadn’t gone to bed yet.”

“What time did you get home?” she asked suspiciously.

“Don’t worry, it was before curfew. You can ask Dad.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“Uh-oh. Zander, what’s wrong?”

He told her everything his father had said earlier.

“Oh, Zander, I’m so sorry. He and I have been arguing about that. I thought I’d talked him into changing his mind, but I guess not.”

“Is he serious?”

“I think he thinks he’s doing what’s best for you, Zander.”

“Isn’t there something you can do?”

She opened the dishwasher and started stacking the clean plastic cups from the top rack. Zander’s chest tightened.

“Isn’t it your money, too, Mom?”

She paused, the stack of cups balanced in her hand like a miniature rainbow.
“What are you going to major in instead?”

His gaze fell to the floor now. “I don’t know for sure,” he mumbled.

“Then I don’t know what else I can do, Zander. It’s really hard to argue that we should just pay for you to go and major in ‘not business’ at some college you haven’t even picked yet.”

“You told me the other day that you
want
me to go off to college and be an adult and live my own life.”

“And part of
being
an adult is making those decisions. Especially if you’re asking someone else to pay for them.”

He didn’t have an answer for that.
He stared at her in silence, trying to wrap his brain around what she was saying, knowing that she was only trying to soften the blow – she agreed with his dad.

It was different than the conversation with his dad had been a couple of hours ago.
Although the end result was the same, she wasn’t threatening him or trying to force him to make the decision she wanted him to – her expression as she looked at him was full of empathy. He couldn’t be angry with her.

A sudden noise from the doorway made both of them turn.

“I’m sorry,” Owen said. “I just really need to go home. Can Zander please take me home now?”

“Yeah, buddy. I’m going to take you home in just a few minutes. Can you just go and start getting your things together?”

With a look of overwhelming relief in his eyes, the little boy nodded and disappeared back down the hall.

“Look, Zan,” his mom said, “we’ll talk more about this. If it was entirely up to me, I would probably let you have a
year or two of college to figure out what you want and decide what you’re going to do. But I can’t keep fighting your father on something when I don’t know what I’m fighting for.”

He nodded. “I know, Mom. Thanks for trying.
I guess it’s my fault for not knowing what I want to do with myself, really. I just … learning about business and taking over Dad’s office someday – that’s not it for me. But I don’t know what the right thing is, either.”

She stretched up on her toes, and he grinned, leaning down so she could kiss him on the forehead.
“Maybe you haven’t been able to make a decision because the right thing hasn’t presented itself to you yet.”

“You think a college major is just going to drop out of the sky?”

“Maybe,” she chuckled. “Or maybe it’s something you don’t know anything about yet.”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“I know. I sound crazy. I just think there’s something more for you out there, Zander. I thought maybe you’d find it at college, but I could be wrong about that.”

“But you don’t think it’s doing exactly what Dad did?”

“I love your father, Zander. He’s a good man, and he loves all of us, and I’m grateful for his business, for the work that he does, and the way he’s always been able to support our family with it. But no, it’s not what I imagine for you.”

“She’s right.” Owen’s voice startled both of them again. Zander hadn’t heard him approaching at all. “You’re not supposed to grow up and sell buildings.”

“Oh?” Zander held out his hands, forgetting for a moment that Owen didn’t usually allow much contact. He remembered before he actually grabbed the little boy, but Owen surprised him and stepped forward, allowing Zander to scoop him up and set him on the counter so that the two of them were at eye level. “What am I supposed to do when I grow up, then?”

Owen looked into his eyes with such seriousness that a little shiver zipped down
his spine. “I don’t know yet, but I think it’s important.”

He
didn’t know how he was going to manage something “important” with either no college, or some mountain of debt from student loans, but he wasn’t going to say that to Owen. He just smiled. “Well, Owen, all I know is that it’s almost three in the morning, and it’s
really
important right now to get you home and to bed. I’m going to go and warm up the truck for you.”

His mother followed him outside, carrying Owen’s backpack. Zander opened the door of the truck, tossed Owen’s big pillow and blanket inside, and turned the key, flipping the heater on.

“You’re not too upset to drive, are you?”
she asked.

“No. Two hours ago, I probably was, but I’m not now.”

“It will all work out somehow.”

“It’s hard to see it that way right now.”

“You will, though. I know I don’t say this enough, Zander, but I’m proud of you. I always have been, of course, but watching you now … you’re becoming a really great young man. Taking Owen tonight – caring for him instead of having a weekend to yourself – not many eighteen-year-old boys would do that. When you do decide what you want to do with your life, I think it will be the right decision the first time.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“I love you, Zander. More than anything.”

“I love you, too.”

“Be safe, okay?”

He nodded
and leaned in to her hug, wrapping his arms tightly around her. He didn’t know why, but something about this felt … off. Maybe it was just because she was worried about his reaction, but it was like something had changed, and he didn’t know what. It was ridiculous, but he couldn’t chase away the thought that he wouldn’t be hugging her like this again for a long time. He almost couldn’t let go.

“I’ll go get Owen,” she finally whispered against his ear, before kissing him on the cheek, and then turning and heading back into the house.

*          *          *

“You’re sure you’re okay
with this, Owen?” Zander asked when they pulled into the driveway of the Robbins’ house. “Nobody is here.”

“You’re here.”

Zander grinned, reaching for Owen’s backpack. “That’s true. I’m here.”

“Thank you for bringing me home,” Owen said, as Zander helped him down from the cab. “I
know you probably didn’t want to baby-sit tonight.”

“You’re not a baby, bud. You’re my friend. All I’m doing is hanging out with my friend.”