“Max Cooper, how the hell are you?” George said it with a convivial smile, like here he had just come home from work and stumbled upon an old friend having a jovial and innocent cup of coffee in his kitchen.
She and Max had run to the kitchen when they’d heard the garage. She’d thrown her coffee cup in front of Max, and pulled an empty one from the cabinet to hold on to herself before sitting down across from him breathless, seconds before George walked in. What else was George to think?
“Hi, George.” Max stood and shook George’s hand. Mare watched the two of them lock eyes, hold on to each other a beat too long, neither one of them wanting to stop gripping first, and then she swallowed hard.
“George, Max is in the city for work, and he stopped by to say hello to us. He just got here.”
Max finally let go of George’s hand. He looked at her and then nodded slowly.
“And where’s Bess?” George looked around the kitchen, as if maybe he thought she was hiding and was about to pop out and surprise him.
“Bess—” Max started.
“Bess is in California,” Mare cut him off. “Her mother isn’t doing well. I told you that.” She had, in fact, told George that several weeks ago.
He nodded now. “Right, you did say that.” George turned back to Max. “So work brought you out here, huh, Max? Estate law must be getting more exciting these days if they’re sending you off to travel.”
Max nodded to acknowledge George, yet, he was still staring at her. His blue eyes spilled over with something she couldn’t quite read. Regret. Remorse. Anger. Love?
He finally looked away and focused his eyes on George. “There’s a conference.” He repeated her lie from last year. “I’m in Chicago for a few days for a conference. Anyway, I figured I’d better swing by and say hi while I was in town. Mare invited me for dinner.”
She nodded and smiled, though neither of them had mentioned dinner until right now. Max couldn’t stay for dinner. She wasn’t sure she could make it through five more minutes in the same room with both him and George, much less an entire meal. “But then you mentioned that dinner at the conference tonight,” she lied easily. “So we were having a cup of coffee now instead.”
“But I really could skip the conference dinner and eat with my friends,” Max said.
She laughed nervously and George shook his head and smiled. But color rose from under the starched collar of his white dress shirt, up his neck, through to his cheeks. And suddenly Mare could hardly breathe. “Well, then,” George finally said. “Whatever brought you here it’s good to see you again, Max.” He paused and loosened his tie. “I just stopped home to change quickly. I have a client meeting in the city tonight.”
A client meeting in the city? George hadn’t mentioned that this morning had he? It was why she’d put a pot roast in the oven, which she had promptly forgotten about as soon as Max had shown up. But George wasn’t always considerate enough to mention these things to her in advance. And she wasn’t always considerate enough to listen when he spoke at breakfast, so maybe he had said something and she’d missed it.
George suddenly reached for her, pulled her to him tightly and kissed the top of her head. It had been a while since he had touched her, held her that close to him, but now it felt possessive, not loving. She squirmed a little, but he held on tighter for another moment.
“I shouldn’t be too late,” he said, finally dropping his arms. “Max, if you’re still around on the weekend maybe we could play a round of golf. Catch up.”
Max nodded, and Mare wondered if he even played golf. It was one of George’s after-college hobbies. Something he did with the entitled jerks from his office—she’d noticed how as much as he complained about working with them, he always said yes when they invited him for a round of golf. But what was she thinking? Whether Max played or not, Max and George could not ever play together. Max could not be left to talk to George alone.
Even after they heard the garage door close again, heard George’s car back down the driveway and into the street, she and Max sat across her kitchen table from each other in silence.
“You shouldn’t have come here like this,” she finally said.
“I think something’s burning,” Max replied.
Shit. The roast. She stood quickly and opened the oven door, waving away the smoke that billowed out into her face, causing her to cough. She grabbed pot holders, pulled the pan out of the oven and rested it on top of the stove. When the smoke cleared a bit, she could see that the roast was totally black. “Dammit,” she cursed softly as tears stung her eyes from the smoke.
Max strode across the room and wrapped his arms around her waist. “It’s not that bad,” he said.
Maybe he meant the roast, or maybe he meant George walking in here, finding him in the kitchen. Or maybe he meant the current state of things, where she was married to George but in love with him. Where she wanted nothing more than to walk out of this house and forget about everything else in the world but Max, but she wasn’t sure how to do that and still be a mother to Will. Truth be told, it was that bad.
“George might let me go,” she finally said softly. “But he won’t ever let Will.” She thought about feverish, crying Will that night George had taken him from Marge’s and they hadn’t been able to find her. George understood fatherhood more as a title that gave him some sort of status he’d always longed for than as a practical job that required love and care. Will needed her. “And I want to be with you,” she said to Max. “I really want to be with you. But I can’t leave Will,” she added.
Max kissed the top of her head softly. “Of course, you won’t leave Will. He’s your son.” He paused for a moment to think. “There’s a good divorce attorney in my office. I can talk to her next week and see what she thinks about the best way to ensure you get custody. We’re going to figure it out, okay? I’m patient. I can wait.”
She nodded, though she didn’t quite believe what he was saying was possible. But she appreciated the kindness in his tone, his commitment to trying. “Max,” she said his name softly. “I—” But she couldn’t finish. I don’t think it’s possible. I don’t want you to waste your whole life waiting for me. Or maybe, she was about to say, I love you.
“Why don’t we go out and get a pizza for dinner?” Max said before she could figure out how to finish her thought. “My treat.”
It started to rain as they sat inside the pizza parlor a few blocks away from her house. A howling, drenching fall rain shook gold and orange leaves from brittle branches, soaking them across the road, and making them as slippery as ice.
She watched the drops pound the glass of the door behind them, not trusting the stillness. It wasn’t even five o’clock and they were the only ones at the sleepy Italian restaurant. But for some reason, she didn’t quite believe that George wasn’t about to burst in through those doors at any second and cause a scene. Still, theoretically, she was doing nothing wrong. Nothing she couldn’t even tell George about later, if he asked. She was eating a slice of pepperoni pizza with her son, his new teddy bear and her friend from college.
She looked away from the door, back to Max, and now he was making silly faces across the table. Will started laughing. That pure innocent sweet child bubble-laughter that felt like confection, and for the smallest moment made her heart swell with joy. She laughed too, and Max reached for her hand under the table and squeezed it gently.
Imagine, the squeeze of his hand seemed to be saying. When you move to Seattle, we’ll have this all the time, together. We’ll be so happy. She imagined. She wanted it so much that it made her stomach hurt.
She put her slice of pizza down on her plate and turned to look at Max. I love you, she mouthed to him now. And that might have been the truest words she’d ever said to anyone in her whole entire life. It was so simple. And yet. It just was. She loved him. She’d loved him since the moment she first met him. She would love him for the rest of her life.
The waitress walked by and dropped their check on the table, and Max let go of Mare’s hand, pulled his camera from the pocket of his coat and handed it to the waitress before she walked away. “Can you take our picture?” he asked. He turned to Mare. “We don’t have any pictures of us.”
“What a cute little family,” the waitress gushed, as she fiddled with the camera, looking for the flash.
Mare realized her hair was a mess, and she tried to brush it away from her eyes, comb it with her fingers. But Max reached up and caught her hand. “You’re beautiful exactly the way you are,” he said softly.
“Should I get your son in too?” the waitress asked, pointing to Will, who was now trying to feed the teddy bear a slice of pepperoni.
Max put his arm around Mare, and pulled her closer to him. “No,” he said. “Just get one of the two of us.”
Then they leaned their heads together close and smiled, and she snapped the picture.