eyes were hidden behind dark lenses, but from his profile, she could see the tensing at his temple.
“You’re—” How was she going to ask this question without sounding like some kind of shrill, soap opera victim? “You’re married?”
“Was. A long time ago.”
“A long time ago?” Was he ten? Or was he now somehow sixty years old? “Is she …” Dini braced herself. “Did she pass away?”
Quin laughed, taking her completely off guard, bringing her into a joke she couldn’t yet understand. “No. She didn’t die. We were kids when we got married—literally. I was nineteen, and she’d just turned eighteen.”
“So, high school sweethearts.”
He slowed for traffic. “More than that. Youth group sweethearts. Not only did we go to school together and see each other every day, but we went to church together and saw each other every weekend. And everyone assumed we would get married, so we assumed we would get married.” He dropped his hand again. “So, summer after high school graduation, we did.”
“But you loved each other?”
He shrugged his nondriving shoulder. “I suppose. As much as teenagers do. I was this chubby kid, she was a beautiful girl, we were super familiar with each other, so …”
Dini didn’t finish his thought.
“It’s a reason that works for a lot of people,” he continued. “But once we didn’t have mission trips and Ping-Pong tables and Wednesday game nights, we found out we had absolutely nothing. We’d always been together, but never alone. Not for any significant time. And we ended up not really even liking each other.”
“Doesn’t every couple go through that?” She thought about all the times she had to “rescue” Arya from another Saturday afternoon with Bill.
“Yeah, but Pam and I didn’t devolve. Our first fight was on the Small World ride. It only took a few months for us to figure out that we didn’t love each other the way we needed to make a marriage work.”
They’d come to the source of the slowed traffic: two cars crunched against the guardrail. Quin slowed and held up a hand, saying a prayer for those involved—the drivers, the passengers, and the responders. By some instinct, Dini closed her eyes and listened, not opening them until he’d spoken Jesus’ name. It didn’t seem the time to resume the conversation, especially not with any of the million questions zooming through her mind, so they drove in silence until he was once again in the right lane, zipping along in confidence.
“Anyway, so one night we were at dinner—Arby’s, go figure—and we hadn’t been speaking the whole time, and she just looks up and says, ‘I think we need to release ourselves from this marriage.’ And, I tell you, it was the first real breath I took probably since the day I proposed.”
“How long were you married?”
“Seven months. I moved out that week, and it was awful at first because I’d never gone more than a few days without seeing her. But then, I’d never seen myself without her, so it was exciting too. Like getting a second chance at growing up.”
“And since?”
“Nothing serious. I dated a lot in college.” He turned to her and waggled his eyebrows above his glasses. “A. Lot. But I lost my way a bit too. Drinking. Parties. Put on another fifty pounds. I came back to God a few years ago, stripped away everything in my life that worked against me. Focused on my body and my mind. Brought everything together.”
“And your—Pam?”
“Oh, she’s good. Married a doctor and just had her second kid. They live in Dallas. I’m friends with her mom on Facebook.”
“Is there a reason why you didn’t tell me any of this earlier?” After all, she had shared some important, intimate details of her past.
“I guess it just didn’t come up. I don’t introduce myself as a ‘divorced man.’ It’s part of my past, but it doesn’t define who I am. If I’m dating a girl, I don’t bring it up until the third or fourth date, and then only if I think there’s something…you know…there.”
Dini wondered if their time together constituted dates, and if he thought there was something…here. She was left to her wondering, however, because Quin’s phone began to speak directions of upcoming exits and turns.
“What’s this town?”
“New Braunfels,” she said, pronouncing the name correctly, unlike his disembodied navigator. She filled the space with trivia about the German-founded Texas town.
They exited the highway and made their way up a long, twisting, eclectic road. Their “destination, on the left,” was the historic