Read Online Through the Fire by Donna Hill - Free Book Online

other. Being overly polite, while staying on simmer. It’s as if we both understand that if we make love it’s not about one night. Not for us. And it’s scary as all hell.”
     
    Mrs. Finch had watched him over the past week sink back to that place where no one could reach him. She’d heard him walk the floors at night, had seen the hollowness return to his eyes, the look he had when they met, the look he had when he lost his wife. And no amount of running to the supermarket was going to take it away.
    “Seems like something heavy on your mind, son,” Mrs. Finch said, finding Quinn sitting on the stoop staring at nothing. She began to sweep.
    “Naw. Not really,” he said absently.
    “Hmmm. It’s a sin to lie to an old woman,” she warned.
    Quinn couldn’t help but chuckle. She knew him too well. “So you’re callin’ me a sinner now,” he teased.
    She flashed him an accusatory look. “If the shoe fits.” She swept a perfectly clean spot and scanned the quiet tree-lined block. “Funny about life, huh? On the outside things seem so plain. But that ain’t never the case. Life is complicated, full of twists and turns, surprises…people.”
    “Yeah, I suppose,” he mumbled, wondering where this conversation was heading.
    “Take you, for example.”
    Uh-oh, here it comes. He glanced at her. “What about me?”
    “Look how you came into my life. Wasn’t under the best of circumstances—after losing your sister and all. But it was right here that your life took a turn. Mine, too. At the time, who knew how things was gonna work out? But they did. Always do if you give them a chance and some time. Let folks in.”
    She moved toward the gate. “For every loss something comes along to take its place. It’sjust the way the world works. But you have to be ready. Or you lose that chance.”
    “Sometimes you get tired of losing, Mrs. Finch. Get tired of starting over, picking up the pieces. Ya know?”
    “I know, son.” She turned toward him. “That’s why the Lord sees fit to put folks in our way to help us.” She smiled. “If ya let ’em. Life is real hard when you live it alone, Quinten.”
    She moved slowly toward him, patted his thigh. “You’ll work it out. Whatever it is.”
    He watched her enter the house and wondered if she was as right as she always had been.
    “Got some errands for you to run,” she called out from the doorway, figuring why not? “Seeing as that you apparently ain’t got nothing to do.”
    Quinn chuckled and slowly shook his head. “Be there in a minute, Mrs. Finch.”
    After cleaning up Mrs. Finch’s basement and going to the fish market, the vegetable stand, and the cleaners, Quinn was determined to get out of the house before she found something else for him to do.
    He took a long leisurely shower, decided on his black dress pants and matching shirt, andpicked up his cream-colored leather jacket as an afterthought on his way out. Although the early days of fall were still relatively warm, the evenings had grown chilly.
    He decided to visit his old haunts up in Harlem, check out Shugs Fish Fry, and maybe pay a surprise visit to his old mentor and surrogate father Remy. As usual, the streets of Harlem were jumping on Saturday night. Cars were double-and triple-parked in front of the clubs and knots of people stood outside the Lenox Lounge, where portions of the movie Shaft had been filmed.
    He drove on and pulled up in front of Shugs. The line ran from the front door to the corner. Quinn laughed. Some things never change. He rolled down his windows, and kept driving, letting the night breeze and the sounds of life and laughter join him for the ride. This had all been a part of who he was—still was, somewhere.
    Music from boom boxes blared from corners. Transactions exchanged hands from behind tinted car windows and down long, dim alleyways. Tight-knit groups of young wannabesdraped themselves over cars and around one another.
    Quinn turned on the Jeep’s stereo