That was the only time.
They never came to a single one of Wyatt’s birthday parties. Diane sends polite one-line texts. Her father, Graham Quinn, nods at me in the school pickup line and looks away.
He’s a structural engineer. He builds bridges. Tall. Quiet. Brown hair going gray. He made the bookshelves in their front hall himself. I saw them that one time. Beautiful dark walnut, with joints so tight you couldn’t fit a fingernail in them.
They’re private people. Distant people.
And on top of that, I could never say it for sure, but I’d always had the feeling they didn’t really like Wyatt.
Graham Quinn used to watch my son.
At school plays. At the bus stop. Across the parking lot at pickup.
And at baseball.
That was the strangest part. Harper never played baseball. She never came to Wyatt’s games. But for six years, at almost every single one of Wyatt’s Little League games, Graham Quinn sat alone at the very top of the bleachers. Arms folded. Ball cap low.
