together, so I have to proceed carefully. Flipping through the photographs, is see image after image of a kid, thin and very pale, but they are still undoubtedly Quinn’s features. I go a bit further and come to the same boy, older, but even thinner, and in a hospital gown. At his side is a thin woman with dark hair and eyes that remind me of dimes—a little dull and very narrow. She has the look of a bird, underfed and unwanted, but she holds onto Quinn as though he were a lifeline. There is no smile on her thin face, but the expression of the man on Quinn’s other side is friendly, a little flirty. The elder O’Malley had been handsome, his eyes bright, his expression open and I pull the album closer, scanning the man’s features closely, seeing a thicker, broader version of Declan in those features. But where Declan’s eyes, and Quinn’s if I’m being honest, are bright and open, their father’s seem guarded, and even a little weary as though his smile is forced and the welcome he projects is one that isn’t sincere.
No doubt the elder O’Malley had been charming, that I could tell by that cheeky grin and the soft, gentle cast of his features. But it struck me as odd, not that Quinn’s parents who seemed so different had been together, but that they had produced a son that was equally as unfriendly and as charming as the both of them had been. The oddest thing, though, was how different their expressions were—hers, haunted, his, wearily coy.
Quinn had clearly been very ill for quite a while, a few more flips of the pages tell me as much, with Quinn in one hospital room after another and his parents posing with him, their expressions unchanging from page to page.
And then, just like that, Mr. O’Malley no longer appears in the pictures. A few more flips and Quinn grows older in the photographs, healthier, and then the scenery changes. There are no more hospital beds, no more hospitals and only Quinn and his mother on the beach, then in the mountains, at the theater or in front of some monument or another, until I reach the end of album.
Is that all there is to it? Quinn had been a sick kid and likely had hated every second of it. From the pictures, I gathered that holidays, birthdays, at least until he was ten had been spent in a hospital bed. No wonder he seems partial to Rhea. He can relate. Oddly enough, his behavior and these photographs prove that there is, in fact, something other than venom beating beneath his chest.
But Quinn’s motivations leap from my mind when I place the photo album into the box and my fingers brush across a thick sketch book. It is here where I discover who Quinn really is. It was all there in charcoal pencil. The paper is thick and the charcoal dust falls from the sketches when I move the book, when the pages turn from one image to another, each with his sloppy O’Malley signature at the bottom.
The sketches themselves are remarkable lines that arch and move into forms. Mountainsides, horizons that go on and on and then figures that become forms, forms that become women, lots and lots of women of all shapes and sizes. Women who are young, beautiful, stunning. Breasts that are imperfect, bodies full and voluptuous, some thin and waiflike. They all come to life on these pages, are so vivid and real that I find myself stopping on each one, looking into drawn eyes that should have been flat and crafted but were vibrant and almost alive. They are all drawn from life, all drawn with at least some small affection. Who knew? I didn’t believe Quinn had it in him.
But what he was or who he’d been before he came to Cavanagh would be left for another day, another time when snooping could be more thorough. Joe’s tires stop just outside of the sidewalk in front of his house and Mollie darts back in the doorway.
“Come on, Joe’s back.”
Joe jiggles his keys in the lock and I move as quickly and quietly as possible, stuffing the envelopes and album back into that box,
No doubt the elder O’Malley had been charming, that I could tell by that cheeky grin and the soft, gentle cast of his features. But it struck me as odd, not that Quinn’s parents who seemed so different had been together, but that they had produced a son that was equally as unfriendly and as charming as the both of them had been. The oddest thing, though, was how different their expressions were—hers, haunted, his, wearily coy.
Quinn had clearly been very ill for quite a while, a few more flips of the pages tell me as much, with Quinn in one hospital room after another and his parents posing with him, their expressions unchanging from page to page.
And then, just like that, Mr. O’Malley no longer appears in the pictures. A few more flips and Quinn grows older in the photographs, healthier, and then the scenery changes. There are no more hospital beds, no more hospitals and only Quinn and his mother on the beach, then in the mountains, at the theater or in front of some monument or another, until I reach the end of album.
Is that all there is to it? Quinn had been a sick kid and likely had hated every second of it. From the pictures, I gathered that holidays, birthdays, at least until he was ten had been spent in a hospital bed. No wonder he seems partial to Rhea. He can relate. Oddly enough, his behavior and these photographs prove that there is, in fact, something other than venom beating beneath his chest.
But Quinn’s motivations leap from my mind when I place the photo album into the box and my fingers brush across a thick sketch book. It is here where I discover who Quinn really is. It was all there in charcoal pencil. The paper is thick and the charcoal dust falls from the sketches when I move the book, when the pages turn from one image to another, each with his sloppy O’Malley signature at the bottom.
The sketches themselves are remarkable lines that arch and move into forms. Mountainsides, horizons that go on and on and then figures that become forms, forms that become women, lots and lots of women of all shapes and sizes. Women who are young, beautiful, stunning. Breasts that are imperfect, bodies full and voluptuous, some thin and waiflike. They all come to life on these pages, are so vivid and real that I find myself stopping on each one, looking into drawn eyes that should have been flat and crafted but were vibrant and almost alive. They are all drawn from life, all drawn with at least some small affection. Who knew? I didn’t believe Quinn had it in him.
But what he was or who he’d been before he came to Cavanagh would be left for another day, another time when snooping could be more thorough. Joe’s tires stop just outside of the sidewalk in front of his house and Mollie darts back in the doorway.
“Come on, Joe’s back.”
Joe jiggles his keys in the lock and I move as quickly and quietly as possible, stuffing the envelopes and album back into that box,
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