Page 124 of Turning Back

“When I was six my mother picked me up from school one day. She never usually picked me up. I rode the bus to a babysitter’s house after school. My parents both worked. And then one of them would pick me up at dinner time and take me home. We never ate dinner together. It was me and my mom and my brother, who was several years older, so he didn’t need a babysitter. Or it was me and my brother and my dad. But we were almost never together as a family.

“So this day she picked me up and she said, ‘We’re going to my friend’s house for dinner. He’s got a little girl your age too. You can play with her.’ I was like, ‘OK. Cool. I like playing.’ But she took me to her boyfriend’s house.”

“What?” Quin says.

“Yeah,” I say, a little lost in thought as I remember that day. “They disappeared into the bedroom. Told us girls to play dolls. I can even remember those dolls. Though I don’t remember the girl’s name. I never saw her again. The next time my mother announced she was taking me to another friend’s house, there was no other child to play with while they had sex.”

“What the fuck?” Quin asks. “Your mother was… like a prostitute?”

“No.” I sigh. “I think if she was doing it for money it might make it better. She did it… well, she did it because she felt she had to.”

“What did your father say?”

“As you know, my father has mistresses too. Helen, apparently, was one of them. I don’t remember her coming over, but he brought so many women over to our house when my mom wasn’t there. That was before my mother started taking me to meet her boyfriends. She did it out of revenge, I think. She knew he took me and my brother places with his mistresses. And I think she was jealous of that. She had every right to be, of course. But she didn’t have every right to use me a pawn in her game of marriage.”

“That’s fucked up. I’m sorry that happened to you, Rochelle.”

“Do you know what the really fucked-up part about it is?” I ask. But it’s rhetorical, and Quin makes no move to answer. He’s just listening. “Did you know that children who know their parents are cheaters are twice as likely to cheat in their relationships too?”

“I know you didn’t cheat, Rochelle.”

“Well, you’re more certain of me than I am. I didn’t cheat,” I say, looking down at him. “I never cheated on you guys. And do you know why that is?”

Quin nods. “Because you had all three of us. That’s why you played the game, isn’t it? Because you thought you’d never be faithful.”

I nod. “I have cheated on many boyfriends. All of them, in fact. Every single time I’d find a guy I liked, we’d date and I’d fuck it all up by finding a new one. And all it would take to make that switch legitimate was one conversation. Two words. It’s over. That’s it. But I never did that. I just kept hurting them. Over and over and over. And I never understood it until Lucinda explained it to me. That the children of cheaters are twice as likely to cheat too. They see it as… normal. Something people do.”

I look down at Quin. I love him so much. I never wanted him to know this about me.

“It’s not normal,” I tell him. “I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want my children to grow up seeing me in that way. So I left home. I left them all behind and on that last day, I told them why. I left my brother too. He was already repeating their mistakes. Girls used to come to our house crying. Begging him to come back to them. It was drama, Quin. My whole life was drama. My brother learned to cheat from my father. Those girlfriends who came over to cry and beg him to take them back were just like the girlfriends who came to our house as kids. Some of my father’s mistresses got pregnant and had babies. They all sued for child support. So the whole town got to hear about my cheating father. He even divorced my mother to marry one just so he wouldn’t have more support taken out of his paycheck. That’s when I left home. I couldn’t take it anymore. I hated it. So I left them all behind. But my brother and I were close growing up. And one day he found me, even though I never wanted to be found.”

“That was the man you were fighting with the day before you left?” he asks.

“Yes. Smith saw me fighting with my brother. He told me my parents had changed. They were back together and would I like to come home for Christmas. I think he was truly surprised when I said no. I was pregnant and emotional. And Chella and I had been planning on her taking my place in the game for months. So I just called her up, met her at Lucinda’s, and we set it up last minute. I’m sorry I left. It was a cowardly move. But life overwhelmed me at that point. I didn’t want to be reminded of who I was. What I was. And I didn’t know if the baby was a boy or a girl, but either way, if I let my brother take me back to that life, it would become a cycle. Something that couldn’t be broken.”

“So you left.”

I nod. “I’m very sorry I hurt you. I loved you, I just thought you weren’t interested in me that way and it was better to make a clean break. Start all over again. Stop playing those childish games. Stop pretending that you and Bric were my cure and face up to the reality that if I wanted to change who I was, I had to leave you behind.”

He’s silent.

“Please don’t hate me,” I say.

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. I’m pretty sure that this is over now. He will decide I’m not worth the risk.

But then he says, “You are way too interesting, Rochelle Bastille.”

I don’t know if that’s good or bad. So I say nothing.

“We make our own future. If you’ve taught me anything, that’s it. I don’t have to be like my father. I don’t have to disappoint you. In fact I’ve tried very hard this past week to think of ways to be different. I’m not sure I’m so good at it yet. You might need to teach me the art of intrigue. I am way too boring for a girl like you, but I’m not gonna let you go out of fear. Fuck that. You’re not getting away that easy because I think I just fell in love with you all over again.”

“Are you serious? You’re not gonna throw me out? Take me to court and tell a judge I’m a horrible example of a mother?”

“No,” he says, tilting my head up with a finger on my chin. “No way. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m taking notes, Bastille. Pages and pages of notes. Ever since you walked into my life and agreed to be one-third mine, I’ve been thinking up ways to be worthy. And yeah, it took me a while, so I’m sorry for that. But I think I got the hang of it now.”

“What are you talking about?”

Quin stands up, taking me with him. He carries me across the room and stops in front of the door. “I’m talking about this.”