sophie.

Chapter 4

Mom was coming home that night for dinner. And I admit, I probably gave you the wrong idea about what the average Quinn family dinner was like. I imagine that, right now, you could see us all sitting around a table, eating quietly with some delicate family china that clinked really loudly and only proved by comparison how silent we were. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Well, on the other hand, when us three were together, it was anything but awkward.

I heard the slam of the door and made my way to the second-story foyer, looked over the ledge, and saw my mom with her various suitcases propped up against the wall. Her hair was frizzy, not because of her job – it wasn’t that particularly strenuous: she was the head graphic designer for an airplane-parts manufacturer based in Lincoln – no, it was because of the local airport, which always carried a feel of electricity in the air. To put it mildly, no matter how careful you were heading inside or out, your hair always ended up as a mess. Trust me, I know. I’ve experienced it.

I guess I could say that Lincoln had been a bit selfish with my mom. I’m not exactly sure about the specific arrangement, but I knew that she was meant to stay in Lincoln for two weeks and spend the rest of her month at home. Since then, though, the contract had apparently switched over to three weeks, and I hadn’t cared to notice until it was too late to bring it up. I wasn’t complaining, honestly; given that my dad and I both have jobs, and neither were the most stable in the employment pool (it was either I didn’t get paid enough, or his “high-risk-high-reward” method had failed to succeed), mom was pretty much the single family member consistently keeping us financially afloat. So I allowed her to go out of town without complaints, and decided to use the time I still had with her to realize how much, as a mother, she meant to me. It wasn’t as dramatic as it sounds.

Anyway, it wasn’t like my mom was returning from Zimbabwe after forever or something, so we didn’t do much more than welcome her home and give her hug, a smile, and a nice warm cup of coffee. She gladly accepted the cup after shedding her winter coat, and while she took a sip, dad shot me a wordy glance completely separate from the situation at hand: namely, Adrien. Or rather, in his eyes, something akin to, I don’t know, Adrien’s compensation fees (my forte isn’t legal jargon if you haven’t been able to tell). Somehow, though, before I could shoot back a responding glance, mom’s eyes fell to my boot, and suddenly she was all focused on that.

“Your leg!” my mom said, and for whatever motherly reason, she started babbling nonstop, gesturing at the thing as if it were some sort of liability (and not in the actual sense that it was a broken leg, but more-so in the sense that it was an irretrievable anchor tied to the S.S. Sophie Quinn). I guess I forgot that she hadn’t been home at the time of the crash or something, I can’t remember. No, strike that; I knew that she hadn’t been home. I just didn’t want to dwell on the awaiting catastrophe that paired with my mom’s return. I figured that dad had filled her in over the phone, but of course, her sense of dramatization always called for a type of acting in which she was completely caught off-guard by things. It made sense, actually. Like overreacting happily to your child’s mud pie.

Then I came across the conclusion that my foot was a metaphorical mud pie. Whatever.

So she went on about it. At first she skirted around the topic of the drunk driver that caused it, but when she began to address it, her naturally brilliant and lighthearted demeanor became a more serious, concerned, motherly kind of tone. But I didn’t allow her to expound on her questions; I gave her a look, a look that meant Please hold your questions until the end of the flight.

Apparently, though, the “end of the flight” was midway through dinner when I was trying to enjoy a conversation devoid of Adrien and all related subjects. But it was inevitable: I knew that mom didn’t know about Mr. Drunk Driver and that dad did, and I knew that, eventually, one or the other would broach the subject. I also knew that we weren’t going to leave the dinner table until I made a solid and final statement regarding the topic, so I sighed preemptively. It was like an impromptu press conference.