Perfect Glass (A Young Adult Novel (sequel to Glass Girl)) (27 page)

I hadn’t exactly told him what he wanted to know, but I didn’t want to tell Quinn to take me home just so I could honestly tell Henry I’d made it. I wanted to stay in my warm chair next to the fire. I wanted to be next to someone who’d had the same kind of hard night I’d had. Not the kind of hard night that I didn’t understand, where children’s lives were changed forever and hearts were broken. Just the normal kind of high school hard night where feelings were hurt and friends were mortified. The kind where commiserating with someone who understood felt natural.

“What were you going to ask?” At the sound of my voice, Quinn opened his eyes again. He leaned closer to the fire, holding his hands out to warm them.

“I was just wondering…if you could ask God any question, what would it be?”

I stared at him for a second, gauging his demeanor. I wanted to make sure he was serious before I trotted out my one question. He gave nothing away. He looked tired but also open and sincerely interested in what I would say.

“I guess I’d want to know why Wyatt had to die.”

He dropped his head and stared at the floor. “Who’s Wyatt?”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, wondering why I had started this. It was late. I could have said I wanted to ask God why he created mosquitoes. Instead, I gave him the whole story, leaving nothing out, including how messed up I was when Henry took me to the hot springs that night. I told him I hadn’t felt right about life until that moment when I gave myself up. And I cried, even though I tried not to.

Quinn moved from his chair and sat on the stone hearth, facing me and nodding while I talked. He rested his cheek in his hand. He never interrupted. When I finished, he took a deep breath and smiled.

“Wanna know what I’d ask him?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” I said, letting him change the subject.

“Why, when I want to so badly, can’t I kiss you?” He leaned forward just the tiniest bit, just enough to close the distance between us, and did it anyway.

And for a second, I let him. It wasn’t anything more than soft lips on mine. He tasted like the Jolly Rancher’s green apple candy he’d had earlier. His kiss wasn’t aggressive or forceful. Just warm and affirming. Something to help us both. But only for a heartbeat, then I pulled away and held my hand over my mouth. I could still feel him there.

Quinn slowly turned, staring toward the lobby door. “I’m sorry. I had no right. I think I’m confused.”

I shook my head, unable to speak.

He stood, took my hand, and helped me up. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

henry

H
e kissed her. I’m an idiot.

Meg’s late night confession had tied me up in knots. She’d called me crying from her bed to tell me O’Neill had done what I knew had been on his mind since he met her. The conversation went like this.

“It just happened so fast,” she said. “It didn’t mean anything to me.”

Her words hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt. “Everything means something.”

“Except this. It was late. We were talking and Quinn leaned forward and—”

“Where were you?” I said. “Were you alone? Did you push him away or say ‘no’ or anything?”

Silence.

“I guess that’s my answer.” My chest was going to cave in.

“No, Henry. It’s just that I didn’t push him away. I pulled away. We were in the lobby of my dad’s hotel. We weren’t alone and I never expected him to do that.” She was crying. “But now you’ll never trust me again.”

“That’s not true, Meg.”

“Yes, it is, and your voice already sounds different.”

There wasn’t anything I could say to make this better.
Don’t worry about it? It’s not a big deal? Tell Quinn we’re cool? It’s fine that I’m going through the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced and you’re dressing up and kissing another guy?

“Nothing’s changed,” I said. “Things are crap down here. I can’t even explain how bad it is to someone who’s never been here. And I’m getting up at dawn every morning trying to make a difference, but nothing I do fixes anything. And now all I can think about is pounding Quinn O’Neill.” My fist hammered on my leg. “It’s distracting. And, yeah, I’m mad.”

“I know,” she said.

“I just thought I had one person on earth who was making an effort for me,” I said. “I thought all this was worth it because I’d get to go home eventually and you’ll have been working just as hard, sacrificing just as much, for me. But it seems like that’s not really what’s happening.” That was a low blow but there was no way to take it back.

“You’re wrong. I have been making an effort for you. I have made sacrifices. And I’m really sorry, Henry.”

“You know I love you, Meg. Just let me figure out a way to deal with this on my own terms.”

It was a harsh way to leave a hard conversation. Once we broke the connection, I was still thousands of miles away from home, and we were both, essentially, all alone.

A semitruck, driven by a guy who didn’t know airbrakes weren’t welcome at dawn, backed into our courtyard. I groaned and rolled over to face the wall. He didn’t need my help. No way would I climb out of bed.

But a quiet knock on my door ended any chance I had to try to sleep the morning away.

“Hey, Hen, there’s a semi offloading a rusty ship container in our courtyard. Know anything about that?” John sounded as rough as I felt.

“I’m on it, John.” I eased out of twisted sheets, reaching for yesterday’s clothes and a flashlight from my desk drawer. “It’s our present from the Holton Company. I wanted to surprise you.”

John handed me a tall cup of strong Nica coffee at the door and we headed out into the muggy air. Back home, Dad would be using a tractor as a snowplow to clear a way to feed livestock. Here we were sweating through our shirts. I poured the hot coffee out onto the dirt of the courtyard and pitched the cup into a nearby garbage can.

The truck, a side lifter with hydraulic cranes mounted at both ends, bumped up neatly next to the flex building. The driver knew what he was doing and had already started getting the cranes attached to our container. The truck sprouted thick red arms that telescoped down to the ground to keep it from toppling as the center of gravity shifted. John and I watched like a couple of six-year-old Transformer nerds as this real-life Optimus Prime whirred through its paces.

Too soon, the show was over and the driver, an Okie literally from Muskogee, had us sign for the delivery. He handed over the key for the container’s lock.

“Come on.” I tossed the key to John. “You do the honors.”

John wore a grin I knew well; the same one was fixed on my face. He cracked open the lock and I helped him swing the rusted door open. The container, dark inside because the morning sun was still riding low on the horizon, smelled like the sea and week-old fish. I turned on the flashlight so we could see the brand names on the appliances.

While I watched the emotions play on John’s face, I ran my hands over the forklift Patrick had been nice enough to loan us.

“Hark, the herald angels sing,” John said. What this shipment meant to me paled in comparison to what it meant to John. He’d been associated with Quiet Waters for so many years now and never, not once, had he dreamed something like this would happen.

“Can we keep it?” I said.

“Um…yeah?” John said.

I absentmindedly rubbed the shadow of a beard that had started on my cheeks while I picked out my next great statement of faith. “Explain to me, then, what we’re doing here, John. Because, don’t get me wrong, I want to use this stuff. I want to make something great with it. But I can’t work it out in my head why we’re still talking about this building.”

As long as Raf had been here, I’d still had hope that we were here for a reason. It was why when Patrick showed me this container, I’d agreed to accept it. But echoes off empty buildings didn’t impress organizations struggling to support us financially.

Oh, I still had dreams, big ones. Dreams of turning this place into something even bigger than an orphanage, something that would help all the people in San Isidro who needed more than food and clothes. They needed training. They needed counseling. They needed skills. They needed someone who would be a friend and not a judge.

John was quiet as he used his pocketknife to split the tops of a couple of boxes. He dug around in packing materials for a while, ignoring me.

Finally, he talked while he explored. I followed, my heart soaring and crashing at the same time.

“I know where you are, Henry. I know what you’re thinking. Just stay calm. Don’t let your personal timeline or your own feelings of inadequacy get in the way here.”

“But—” I started.

“No buts,” he said, pointing at me. “Sam still owns this place; he can do what he wants with his property. He and I agreed yesterday that, even though we might not even recognize this place as the Quiet Waters Orphanage, we’re still here and we’re still kicking. We have a facility, land, and now…now, we have this unbelievable donation. As long as we’re breathing, we can keep going. Understood?”

“Yeah, I guess. Holton gave us this gift in good faith that we’d use it for our kids, though. If someone gives you a wedding gift and you make a bride substitution at the last minute, you ought to give the gift back, right?”

“Just chill, man, no one’s trying to pull a fast one on Holton.” The intensity of John’s stare burned holes into me. We were interrupted as Sam and Janice stepped into the container.

“This is a sight for sore eyes,” Sam said.

“Do you think this’ll do?” I asked, smiling.

“Is Patrick here?” Janice said. “I’ll start another pot of coffee and we can talk in the dining room.”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “He sent a driver over.”

She patted my shoulder. “You look a little shell-shocked. Rosa and I are going to fix breakfast. You three come on up to the dining room and eat in a minute. We can sort this out over food.”

We watched Janice disappear into the dining hall. I scratched my head and thought about all the questions I needed answered.

“I guess we’ve got a lot to talk about.” Sam leaned against a box and crossed his arms over his chest. He stared at me for a response.

“Hmmm,” I grunted. “It’s not like Patrick couldn’t use this stuff in their building. It wouldn’t be a loss for Holton if we sent it back to him.”

John stepped carefully out of the container and leaned back against it, watching the sky wake up.

I followed him out. “What if you and Kate are supposed to start an orphanage in Uganda or Haiti or somewhere? What if I’m supposed to go home?”

John didn’t look at me when he answered. “What do you want me to say, Henry? Do you want me to say you’re right? That we ought to give up and head on home? You think I don’t want to be with Kate and Whit right now? You think I’m not ready to get Aidia so far from the poverty of this place that she’ll never remember it?”

I kept quiet because, even this early in the morning, my brain understood these were rhetorical questions.

Sam started walking toward the dining hall with his hands in his pockets. “I’ll let you two have a minute,” he called over his shoulder.

John took a long sip of his coffee, watching me. “I don’t think we’d be standing here talking about a shipping container full of material worth thousands of dollars if we were finished in this country.”

“John,” I interrupted. “I’m trying not to doubt this.”

“Good.”

“You told me once you were afraid I just came here looking for an adventure,” I said. “That really ticked me off. But maybe it was true.”

“Maybe at first,” he said. “Not anymore.”

I shook my head. “I let a whole lot of time get away from me when I could’ve done more. I must’ve looked like a bull in a china shop to you and Kate.”

He smiled up at me, his eyes shiny. “You know they studied that whole bull in a china shop theory on
Mythbusters
and it’s not true. They let an eighteen-hundred-pounder loose in a fancy store and he didn’t break a single thing. Bull ballet, that’s what they called it.”

I dropped my arms. John stepped up and grabbed my shoulders. “Something bigger than Quiet Waters is happening here, Henry. Stay sharp, okay?”

I laughed. “I’m trying. I really am.”

“My dad used to say, ‘This is what your right arm’s for, son,’” John said. “This is the time and these are the people and I’d give my right arm to be a light, a comfort, to them. I know you would, too. In whatever form it takes. Use these materials and make something great. Do it on faith, knowing you probably won’t be around to see how the story ends.”

I swallowed several times, trying to dislodge the lump that had formed in my throat.

“You wanna know what I learned from losing Hannah?” John said.

“Are you kidding?” I said. “Of course I want to know.”

“The real moments in this life—the ones that let you know where you stand—are those that are hard and rough. You can find joy in those real moments, too. Not pleasure, but joy.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, John. I don’t know how you and Kate found joy in that. Or in this. You lost Hannah and then you lost all your children here.”

He nodded. “You wouldn’t believe the strange moments of joy we had. Sometimes the worst things in life are the biggest blessings and that’s the way I’m choosing to look at this situation right here.”

I could do nothing but kick at the dirt with my boot, so blown away by John’s faith. I’d seen it in action since he started coming home with Kate from college, but this….

“Let’s go eat breakfast,” John said, grabbing me around the neck.

As we neared the door, Janice called out to Sam, “Did you tell them yet?”

He shook his head. “Not yet, honey.”

John kissed Aidia’s cheek when she jumped into his arms. “
Hola, bebé
,” he whispered.

Rosa brought out bowls of tortillas, eggs, and peppers and we filled our plates.

“Sam, spill it,” John said between bites. “What’s going to happen with this place?”

Sam smiled and pushed his plate away from him. “First, I want you to remember that just because this particular home for children—the one Janice and I have devoted a large part of our lives to—is unsustainable doesn’t mean God’s not in control of this situation.”