by Claire Adams
MAXIMUM
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 Claire Adams
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Chapter One
Lucy
“You know, Luce, I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. And your broccoli casserole doesn’t help matters, either. My god, that dish is astounding. I love your body, and I love your casserole. When this is all over, when this nightmare is finally done, I want both of those things every day for two solid weeks. And who knows? Maybe I’ll eat the casserole off your body. Doc keeps telling me to try new things. I love you, Luce. I’ll be home soon.”
The message ended, leaving only the sound of the cool September breeze howling through the trees and of branches smacking against the house. The wind whistled past the windows, singing my name in a way I hadn’t heard since everything had happened. The leaves fluttered to the ground, covering it in a colorful decoration that could’ve only been laid by the hand of God himself, and yet the smell of fresh apples brought me no joy.
No happiness.
No smile.
Instead, the wind howling echoed the screaming of my heart, and the scratching branches mimicked the clawing of his words against my mind. I hadn’t made my broccoli casserole in over three years. The mere sight of the vegetable itself drove me out of restaurants with full plates of food sitting on the table, the waitstaff wondering why they’d been abandoned untouched by a woman who had ordered them only minutes before.
Abandoned, just like me.
I had no future any longer. Winter didn’t seem as precious, and autumn didn’t seem as cozy. The summers weren’t as bright, and spring wasn’t a renewal. Colors had faded, and the foundation that housed my future was cracked and bruised. My heartstrings plucked out a bassline but no longer had a melody.
David was gone, and there was nothing else for me.
Rubbing my hand over my face, I pulled myself from my trance. The homemade apple cider I brewed every year was boiling over on top of my stove, and just as I ran to pull it off, my cell phone rang in the other room. Groaning, I ran back in, my hair flowing around my chin and sticking to my salty lips. My sister’s name scrolled across the screen, and my entire being was too tired to have a conversation.
“Hey, Bri,” I said with a sigh.
“So, remember that hairdressing job I got a few weeks back?”
“Yeah.”
“It. Is. Incredible. The owner of the shop is so nice, and he and his partner run it together. They are starting to play around with all these funky colors and styles that are all the rage in LA right now, and his goal is to be the first hairdressing salon to cater to millennials.”
“Way to put Sacajawea Pass on the map, sis,” I said.
“Washington State’s never gonna know what hit them,” she said. I could hear the smile on her face, and part of me wanted to rejoice with her. It really did. But David’s voice was still ricocheting off the far corners of my mind, and I was trying desperately to conjure even the faintest image of him.
What he looked like before the brain tumor.
“But I haven’t told you the best part yet,” Bri said.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“They’re training a couple of stylists in some things they learned when they went to this whole conference out in New York, and guess who one of the stylists is?”
“You?” I asked.
“Me! Can you believe it? They’re gonna train me with the techniques of the professionals.”
“I thought you were a professional?” I asked.
“Well, the millennial professionals.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means money, Luce. That’s what it means. It means—”
“Don’t call me that,” I said.
“What?”
“You know I don’t go by Luce anymore,” I said.
She sighed on the other end of the line, and I knew I’d given myself away. I could go longer and longer amounts of time before I caved and listened to his voice message, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to delete it. My sister had been convincing me for years to delete it, but every time I went to do it, really do it, I got physically ill.
Like, somehow, my body knew I was attempting to purge the last of him. The last root I had of him that still entwined with mine and held me to the soil. David wasn’t my rock or my foundation. He wasn’t my endless love or my one and only. We’d hated the term soulmates and cringed whenever someone used it for us. What he was, however, was my stake. I was my own plant that flowered my own fruits and vegetables, but as I grew taller and became more confident, my vines got too big.
David had come by and just stood beside me. When I needed to rest a branch, he gave me his body to wrap it around. When I needed to hand him a heavy vine, he was there to hold it for me. I grew taller because of his steady way of loving me, and never once did I feel I was standing in the shadow he cast. As my plants grew and flourished, he planted his own roots, and soon our systems became entwined as we supported one another.
And deleting that voice message meant digging up that very last root we’d worked so hard to plant.
I just couldn’t.
“Luce.”
“Lucy,” I said.
“Lucy. You’ve been listening to that voicemail I told you to delete.”
“Caught red-handed,” I said with a sigh.
“You need to get rid of it.”
“I can’t, and I don’t expect you to understand.” I didn’t think she’d lost anyone very close to her.
“The root analogy again?” she asked.
“What the hell’s wrong with the root analogy?”
“It’s a decent excuse to not delete the voicemail,” she said.
“Bri, that man was my husband. You don’t just get over that. You don’t get over the fact that a brain tumor pops up out of nowhere and, within months, takes away the one person you ever really loved wholly.”
“Thanks,” Bri said.
“Oh, don’t make this about you.”
“Hard not to when I wanna celebrate with my sister,” she said.
“I don’t even know what we’re celebrating. Half the words you use, I don’t know. Don’t throw that on me just because I don’t get it,” I said.
“Well, if you’d let me come over and attack your hair, you would,” she said.
“You’re not touching my hair with your greens and pinks and bleach platinum blonds,” I said.
“You’d look hot as a bleach platinum blonde.”
No matter what the circumstance, my sister could always make me crack a smile. I dropped my gaze toward the floor as the wind continued to howl outside. A branch cracked loose and flew against the window, and in that very moment, I jolted upright and cleared my hazy mind.
“I can’t erase the last physical thing I have of him, Bri.”
“And I can’t possibly understand what you’re going through, Luc—”
“—y,” I said.
“Lucy,” she corrected. “But, I’m worried about you. You’re s
till a young, beautiful woman who could put herself out there to find love again. I’m worried you won’t move on and find the success you know you deserve. You’re still waitressing at the same diner David found you at, and every single promotion they’ve given you, you’ve turned down. And for what? Because you’re still grieving?”
“Yes,” I said. “Because I’m still grieving.”
“Luce.”
“Lucy,” I said.
“Cut the shit. Luce, it’s been three years.”
“Since you’re the expert, what’s the proper amount of time a wife can grieve over the sudden loss of her husband before she starts spreading her legs for people again?”
I knew I was being unfair. She was simply trying to help. The holidays had been dimmer with me around ever since I had lost David, and she partially suffered along with me because of it. I loved my sister with everything I had, and she wanted what was best for me, which, in her mind, was to put myself back out there and try again.
But I wasn’t ready.
The universe didn’t get to rip my husband away from me only to dictate when I was supposed to be over it.
“I think it would do you some good to get out again. Maybe date a little or make new friends. Nothing committal, just getting out there and interacting with the world,” Bri said.
“I do that every time I work,” I said.
“I meant in a scenario where you wear clothes that aren’t grimy with ketchup and Lysol.”
“Well, shame on you for not being more specific,” I said.
I heard my sister chuckle over the phone, and I settled down onto the couch. The wind had settled, and the smell of apple cider was permeating every inch of my home. All I wanted to do now was close my eyes and sleep. Listening to that voice message always made me so tired, and my heart physically felt as if it were being ripped from my chest.
Tears rose to my eyes as I lost myself in the image of David’s eyes, but my sister’s voice tore me from my trance and threw me into the belly of the beast.
“It wouldn’t hurt for you to get laid, either,” she said.
“Alright, Bri. Listen up. I’m not dating, I’m not having sex, and I’m not over the death of my husband. Deal with it or don’t, but it’s not your situation to fix.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But still, it wouldn't hurt for you to get out a bit. Even if you just picked up a coffee and went to sit in that park you love so much. It would be better than what you’re doing now,” she said.
“And what am I doing right now?” I asked.
“Right now, you’re probably still in your work clothes from last night and sitting on the couch after staring at the wind wondering when that tree in your yard is gonna come crashing through your front door,” she said.
Damn.
“Did I get that right?” she asked.
“Whatever,” I said.
“Look. I’ll check up on you tomorrow. I’ll bring over some of that cheap wine that we can’t stand, and we’ll eat whatever snacks in your pantry that are about to expire, and we’ll talk about something that isn’t my job or David.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
“I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m headed over.”
“Alright, see you then.”
I hung up the phone and let the sounds and smells of autumn take over. The sun was setting over the trees behind my home, and the rays of the sunset, broken by the leaves, scattered its shattered remnants along my hardwood floor. That was what sold David on this house. He loved how the broken parts of the sun decorated the floor during the autumn months, and it is that exact reason why he never let me put down a rug. He kept telling me to get fuzzy socks if my feet were cold, so I ended up with a dozen pairs of fuzzy socks and a very sore behind during the cooler months of Washington’s seasons.
David and I had created wonderful memories. We had these husband-and-wife fishing trips we would take. We’d go camping by the lake and live off the fish we caught and the berries we could find, and then, we’d lay underneath the stars and count how many were in the sky. He’d take me to the small-town fair every year, and we’d try all the ‘delicacies’ it had to offer. One year, we gorged ourselves on deep-fried Oreos. Then, there was the year we simply had to try the deep-fried butter. After getting sick and realizing exactly the type of texture curdled butter had, we stuck to the fair lemonade and trying out all the rides.
I still couldn’t get on a Ferris wheel without stopping at the top and crying. That was where David had proposed, on top of the Ferris wheel of the small-town fair that had set up camp at the beginning of every autumn season. The sunset of the city had backdropped his proposal, and he’d always told me the speckled colors of the sunset shining through the window in the evenings were reminiscent of the halo of light that sat around my hair that day.
This entire house was covered in him.
Fuck that brain tumor.
Chapter Two
Jason
That howlin’ wind sounded awful nice outside while I was sweatin’ my ass off underneath this damn car. I didn’t understand why it was so hard for women to just get their brakes changed when they needed to. So, not only was I changin’ this woman’s brakes, but I was also havin’ to fix some grindin’ issues that happened because she’d waited too long.
“Why don’t people take care of their cars?” I asked Mike.
“Because they’re too busy plugging their own holes to worry about their car’s,” he said.
“I just don’t get it. Such bullshit. If we tell ya to get your brakes changed, stay the extra forty-five and get them changed. The fuck’s wrong with that?”
I’d moved into town not too long ago and was staying at the extended stay hotel a couple blocks up. I was lucky to score this job my first day in town, and it was completely by accident. I’d actually come into the shop to see about a noise my car was makin’, and when I described to the man up front what was goin’ on, I’d apparently attracted the attention of the owner. He asked me if I was in town for long. I told him I just moved, and he asked if I was lookin’ for a job.
Of course, I was lyin’ a little bit. I hadn’t just moved into town. I was just sort of passing through on my way to...well, somewhere. My daughter and I were driving through, and she kept squealing at all the colors on the trees. I bunked us in a hotel just so she could jump around in them. It warmed my heart, watchin’ her cute little curly pigtails bounce around while she stomped on the crunchy leaves. The town didn’t smell half-bad either. Must be apple-pickin’ country because it smelled like a crock pot of cider every time I stepped outside.
Now, I was fixin’ women’s minivans they didn’t wanna take care of while chattin’ it up with my buddy, Mike. He seemed cool enough and was easygoing around my daughter, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to have a friend in this small, little town. He was the kind of guy who had no issues makin’ sure you knew how big his dick was at any given moment, and he was the guy who preferred the minivans because he wanted to talk to all the soccer moms that belonged with those minivans.
“Remember that red Dodge Grand Caravan last week?” Mike asked.
“What about it? Owner do something to the engine again?” I asked.
“Nope. Took that bitch out on a date last night.”
“No shit! How’d it go?” I asked.
“Traced all those stretch marks with my tongue. Woman hadn’t been properly laid by that husband of hers in years. That pussy was so tight, I almost didn’t think I was gonna get in.”
“Did she have those saggy after-baby tits?” I asked.
“Nah. She had them done. And they were nice, too. Molded around my dick just fine.”
“I bet you kept pokin’ her in the nose with that ‘conda ya flash over there,’” I said.
“More like the back of her throat,” Mike said, grinning.
“Well, you guys just did all the damn things, didn’t ya?” I asked.
“She stumbled in around eleven, and I
didn’t let those thighs go until at least three.”
“God, it’s been way too long for me, honestly,” I said.
“Well, you got a good excuse. You gotta do the dad thing. That shit’s important.”
“My daughter’s gotta be taken care of. Gettin’ my rocks off is fine, but not at the expense of her. She’s my world, and she deserves better than that from me,” I said.
“Not gonna lie, though. Couldn’t imagine gettin’ a babysitter just so I could go get some,” Mike said.
“You know what I can’t imagine? How married couples do it. I like it when a woman screams ‘til she’s hoarse. Can’t do that with kids in the house.”
“You could put a pillow over her face,” he said.
“Or take it to the basement.”
“What if you ain’t got a basement?” Mike asked.
“There’s always the car. Kids can’t hear you screamin’ in a car, right?”
“Your neighbors will. Mine are nosy as hell.”
We had a good laugh at the expense of the images flashing through our minds. Mike was a playboy; that was no doubt. Mike was originally from the south, but he moved up here to get away from all the gossipin’ and shit they do down there. Which is funny, since they apparently do that up here, too. He used fixin’ women’s cars to get laid on the weekends, and every time he came into work, he had a different story with a different escapade to go with it. And it was almost always some woman he met while he was fixin’ the issues with her car.
It wasn’t always the moms, but around here, they seemed like easy targets. That was the thing about Jenna’s mom. There was nothing about her that had been easy. She played hard to get, and it ground my gears into the mud. That woman waited out every advance I had until I was practically on my knees on her porch beggin’ for a taste. But oh, how sweet she had been. She was the forbidden fruit, and I was willing and ready to bite into her whenever the situation allowed me to. She had this zest for travel, always wantin’ to go somewhere and do somethin’.