The Golden Child

by Quin

She asked for a puppy when she was six, instead, they brought a baby boy home and said, "Look! A little brother for you to love!" Over the years, she played with him, and looked over him, and was always there for him, crooning when he had his accidents. The fall from the tree that broke his collarbone, the time the car hit him when he was playing with his trucks in the middle of their suburban street, everyone so thankful it was a small car, who had heeded the sign saying "CHILDREN PLAYING," although the driver hadn't actually expected to see a CHILD PLAYING. The time he was found blocks away, in a strange neighborhood, sitting in someone's garden, she was the one who scooped him up to carry him home when they'd searched for him all night long. She was the one who pointed out exactly where he went under when he decided to swim the lake to win his Boy Scout badge, and huddled over everyone while CPR was administered, the one who sat next to him in the hospital after the tragic accident that took the life of his new wife, holding his hand, telling him he would survive, there had been a bleed in the brakes, not to worry, she was there, she was there. When he died, she mourned and howled at the funeral, not in grief, but in anger, because cancer had taken his life before she finally managed to accomplish the job.

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Quin, author of If Only She Knew, is the nom de plume of a woman born and raised in New Orleans, who spent time in Colorado and later in Utah (where theater was discovered and taken to heart). Her children are loved forever, a terrier sleeps at her feet, and words ache to escape onto paper. Her version of life in New York is here.