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As I watched her step onto the solid ground of Renee’s treehouse, I saw something else. Noah, standing at the window, watching her with a broad grin.
“Renee,” I barked, startling all three of them.
My sister stuck her head out the window, a frown already pulling her lips down. She knew what I was going to say, and she knew she wasn’t going to like it.
“How many times have I told you that Noah isn’t allowed up there?”
“How many times have I toldyouthat not letting a kid play in a treehouse is a damn crime?” she countered.
Quinn stuck her head out, too. God, she looked exactly the same. Wild to the point of unkempt. Beautiful and prickly. It was only after staring at her for a moment that I noticed that her full lips weren’t as sullen as they had been, but then her eyes weren’t as bright as they had been either. They locked on mine, hers the exact same shade of grey-brown as quartz, magnified by the dark eyeliner around them. She blinked slowly as she gazed down at me, looking for all the world like an indolent cat contemplating a mark.
Renee’s voice broke into the moment, sharp and acerbic. “Geez, Callum. Just take a picture. She’ll probably sign it for you.”
I dragged my eyes away from Quinn to glare at my sister. “Stop bringing my son up there, Renee. I’m serious. It’s not safe.”
“Itissafe, Dad!” Noah stuck his head out the other window, and I circled the tree to look up at him. “I don’t go on the bridge, and Aunt Renee helps me up the ladder.”
“You’re ten feet up, Noah. Nothing that hangs ten feet in the air, built by a software engineer who couldn’t even change his own tire, issafe.”
“My dad helped,” Quinn pointed out, and it was a reasonable addition. Her dad owned his own construction company.
“Stay out of it,” I snapped up at her. I wasn’t a partner at my law firm because I argued points I knew I’d lose.
Quinn’s eyebrows rose. She and Renee looked at each other, and I had a flash of deja vu. We’d absolutely been in this exact same position before. Me giving reasonable, sound advice with my feet planted on solid earth. Them with their heads in the clouds, ignoring it. That had been one thing when they were teenagers, but now they were full grown adults. And more importantly, they were responsible for my son.
“Get down, Noah.” I went to stand at the base of the ladder, my arms outstretched.
With practiced ease, Noah crawled backward to the edge of the platform and held onto the railing while he situated his feet on the ladder. Then he descended the rungs like he’d done it a thousand times. He hopped off the last one and spun around, a wide, proud smile on his face.
It was Emma’s smile. The same one she wore in our engagement pictures, one of which now marked her gravestone in a small oval frame, just above the inscriptionBeloved Wife and Mother. I hadn’t wanted to add it, but Emma’s parents thought it would help Noah understand where Mommy was now.
“I told you to stay out of the tree house, Noah.”
His smile dimmed at the rough scrape of my voice in his ears. “Aunt Renee said–”
“Aunt Renee shouldn’t have.”
Renee came down the ladder as quickly and easily as Noah had. She stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder. Noah leaned into her, his small chin set stubbornly, his lips pinched shut. He knew better than to argue, but he was telling me with his silence how he felt.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “Be mad at me, not the kid.”
“Plenty to go around,” I said evenly.
Renee shot me a look I couldn’t read, then said, “Come on, Noah. Let’s get those hands washed, okay? Then you can have your chicken nuggets.”
I stood by the ladder, watching them go, frustration and fear braiding themselves around my vocal cords. I wanted to yell at Renee, I wanted to explain to Noah that I couldn’t lose him, but I couldn’t seem to do either.
Then I heard someone clear their throat delicately from somewhere above me, and I remembered that Quinn was still up there. I looked up and saw that she’d moved out onto the platform. She was sitting with her arms crossed on the railing, her feet swinging free.
“You’re a little tough on the kid, aren’t you?”
“He’s my kid.”
“I know, but–” she tilted her head. “It’s a treehouse, Callum. Not an opioid den. Not anymore at least.” She joked.
I took a few steps backward so I could look at her without craning my neck. She smiled, a gesture that looked reflexive. Almost immediately, she dropped it and looked annoyed. It was all so quick that I might not have noticed it if I hadn’t been watching her closely, but I was. And I wondered about it.
Take a picture, Renee had said. I didn’t need one though. Quinn Collins wasn’t a face you forgot. Those big steely eyes that had hints of amber in them, but only when she was happy. That wild ruby colored hair that put nature to shame. A body that had been skinny as a girl, lanky as a teenager, and was now lethal in her tight jeans and navel baring shirt.
