A Year Gone By

Disclaimer: Don't own.

For an entire year Puck watches them.

There's a park, not too far from McKinley. The first time he sees them it's honestly an accident. It's a Sunday, and his mother yells at him for not spending any time with his sister—he's heard her complain about this a thousand times, but he never pays her any mind and usually she forgets about it. But this time is different. This time he looks at his bug-eyed little sister with her frazzled curls and frilly outfits and something knots in his gut and he takes her hand and says, "Do you want to go to the park with me?"

She's ecstatic. As they walk over to the park she babbles incessantly about school and puppies and friendship bracelets from camp and for some reason her nonsense somewhat quells this feeling he's had ever since Quinn had the baby—this feeling that the ground beneath him isn't as steady as it used to be. He walks easily beside her, surprised at how happy she is just to be with him.

"I'm going on the swings," she announces once they've reached the park.

He nods, and when she doesn't leave his side he looks down at sees the expectation in her face. "Okay," he says, prompting her to go, and she juts out her chin and says, "You're supposed to push me."

"You can't get it started yourself?"

She pouts at him. "Dad always starts it for me."

It feels like an accusation. There's no way she could know how those words sucker-punch him and send him reeling right back to that nursery window. He takes a deep breath, nods, and walks over to the swing to give her a push.

Once she's up in the air he walks over to a bench where he can get some peace keep an eye on her. He settles in and tries not to think about Beth. It's been a few weeks now and he's tried to keep busy—his pool business is in full swing, he's still got the job with Finn, and he's even started writing his own songs on the guitar. But no matter what he does, his last sight of Beth laying in that crib in the nursery takes a hold of his brain and locks itself there.

So when he looks up and sees a woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to Mrs. Corcoran pushing a baby stroller on a path not too far away, he thinks that surely he is imagining it. He squeezes his eyes shut and looks away, toward his sister on the swings, but he can't help but catch the unmistakable movement of the woman lifting a baby out of a stroller from the corner of his eye.

It's Beth. Without making a conscious decision to do so, he cranes his neck from where he's sitting and stares straight at his baby daughter in someone else's arms.

Entranced, he watches Mrs. Corcoran rock the baby, her lips just barely moving. He wonders what she's singing. It looks so strange, almost otherworldly, to watch a strange woman cradle the same baby he imagined in Quinn's arms—the same baby he imagined singing to himself.

Mrs. Corcoran's head turns in his direction and he looks away, because his heart is thudding in his ears and the idea of her catching him staring makes it race even faster.

"Noah?"

He flinches. It's his sister. She doesn't notice the trickle of nervous sweat on his forehead and tugs on his sleeve impatiently. "I'm ready to go home."

"Yeah," he says, collecting himself. "Yeah, let's go."

He clambers to his feet. Before they leave he sneaks one last peek toward the stroller, but they've already gone.

The rest of the week the thought of Beth in the park consumes him. Any chance he has of putting his whirring thoughts to rest is gone. Everywhere he goes, no matter what he's doing or who he is with, he thinks about that afternoon and replays it like freeze frames from a scene in a movie.

"Do you ever think about her?" he asks Quinn a few days after the incident in the park.

She's laying beside him on her bed. They do that now. Just lay there with their clothes on in her room and stare up at the ceiling, pressing into each other as if they are trying to find reality somewhere between their bodies.

She nods into his chest. It takes a moment before she says, "We made the right choice."

Puck holds her tighter and doesn't say anything more.

He doesn't know what possesses him to do it, but when the next Sunday rolls around he waits until three o'clock and asks his sister if she wants to go to the park.

"Can we go tomorrow instead?" she asks.

"Sure."

It takes a moment for the disappointment to set in, and even then it takes him off guard. What is he expecting—that she'll just happen to be at the park the exact time a week later? That he'll be able to watch them like some kind of a prowler from his bench?

"I'm going for a walk," he calls to his mom, and even then he knows exactly where he's headed. He finds his bench in its unoccupied corner of the park and sits, nervous and rigid, his eyes darting and searching for them even when he tries to play it cool.

And there they are. Right on time, just like last week. He steals a glance and then turns his head away—he doesn't look at them for another hour, but it's enough just to know that Beth is there, that she is healthy and happy and that someone sings to her when she cries.

It becomes a habit. Leaving the house on Sunday at three and heading for the park. He sees them every week in the summer and the fall, watching as Beth grows a little wider and taller every time he sees her. Her hair grows out soft and wispy like Quinn's and dark like his, and when she cries loud enough for him to hear he can't help but think she got her impressive set of lungs from her parents.

In the winter he doesn't see them as often. It snows a record amount in Ohio that year, but every Sunday he treks out there just the same, rain, snow, or sleet. On an uncharacteristic week of heat wave that melts all the ice in early spring he watches as Mrs. Corcoran sets Beth down and the little girl toddles on her own two feet and shrieks happily, batting her little fists in excitement.

He feels like he knows her. It's enough, just to steal these glances of her, just to check on her every week. He aches and wishes for more than this, but it wouldn't be fair to Quinn, and he respects her choice even though he doesn't agree with it.

Junior year ends. Since fall he became starting quarterback on the football team, stayed in a committed relationship with Quinn, and took regionals with glee club. He's happy, he really is, but when he's here at his bench watching Beth, it feels like all of his happiness and triumph and growth means absolutely nothing in comparison to his love for the little girl who would never recognize his face.

One day in summer Mrs. Corcoran doesn't show up at three thirty. He lets a half an hour pass before he decides to wait until next week, knowing full well that he'll be thinking about their absence in every free second he has in the meantime. Resigned, he's about to stand up when a voice stops him.

"I thought I'd find you here."

He doesn't recognize the voice right away because they've only exchanged words a few times. But the instant Puck looks up and sees Mrs. Corcoran standing over him with the stroller, his chest seizes in a momentary panic, like a guilty child caught with his hands in the cookie jar. He doesn't say anything at first, astonished as the woman sits down beside him and starts unstrapping Beth from the stroller.

She's so close. He hasn't seen her up close since she was born, and even now, she's beautiful. Just like her mother.

"Do you want to hold her?" Mrs. Corcoran asks softly.

He doesn't know what to do. It would almost be like betraying Quinn, to do this without telling her. But Beth's brown eyes lock with his and he finds himself nodding without thinking about it, and reaching his arms out for her like she belongs there.

Beth smiles at up at him and clings her chubby fists to his shirt. He feels his throat tighten. She fits into his embrace so easily that for a moment he can close his eyes and imagine that she really belongs to him, that she lives in a nursery in Quinn's house and that someday he'll teach her to play guitar and chase boys like him away from her in high school.

"I think she must know." He looks up and sees Mrs. Corcoran smiling at him. "She doesn't take kindly to strangers. She remembers you."

His face feels hot, like he might cry. He looks down at Beth so he doesn't have to face the woman beside him. "How long have you . . ."

She touches a hand to his shoulder. "It's been almost a year, hasn't it? I always see you out here. Waiting for her."

It should surprise him more than it does, that Mrs. Corcoran knew all along. But it doesn't matter. Because he's holding his little girl, after he thought he never would again, and it scares him to think that he'll have to give her back.

"I just wanted to know she was okay."

Beth gurgles at him and smiles toothlessly. He's never felt his heart break before but he imagines it's close to this.

"You'll make a great dad someday, Noah."

He just nods. He wishes Beth could have come ten years from now so that when he and Quinn are married she could still be theirs—Beth Puckerman instead of Beth Corcoran. It's a sentimental notion, so different from how he used to feel. It's changed his outlook on everything, and he can't even express to her how much she means to him because she's only a baby and she'll never remember this when she's older.

He wonders if she'll be angry with them someday, for giving her up. He wonders what Mrs. Corcoran will say about them when she asks.

"Listen," Mrs. Corcoran says, interrupting his trail of thoughts. "We're moving. Not too far from here. Maybe twenty minutes away."

"Moving?" he repeats dumbly.

She nods at him and he feels his stomach clench in dread. "So you won't be coming to the park anymore," he realizes.

"No, we won't."

He turns his head again because this time he's afraid he won't be able to stop his eyes from tearing up. His whole life has revolved around these Sundays. He doesn't want to imagine what it will be like without seeing her grow every week, without knowing she's safe and alright.

"I was hoping you might come visit."

Puck forgets the shame of his watery eyes and gapes at her. "You mean it?"

"Of course." She reaches up a hand to stroke Beth's hair and says, "I know what it's like. Not to get to see your baby. Always wondering . . ." She takes a deep breath. "I don't want you to live like that. You're welcome any time."

He doesn't know what to say. He just stares at her. There's no way to show her what this means to him, to make her understand the indescribable relief of hearing those words. "Thank you," he says, his voice catching, and by the way she looks at him she can tell she understands completely.

She takes Beth back into her arms and hands him a piece of paper with an address on it. "How about next Sunday at three?" she says.

He smiles. "Works for me."

Mrs. Corcoran packs up her things and straps Beth into her seat. "Wave good-bye, Beth."

"Buh-bye," his daughter says, waving a clumsy hand at him.

He waves back at her, watching them until they're clear out of sight, and he knows that of all the mistakes he's made in his lifetime, this is one he will never regret.