By the time they each returned from their respective tasks, Maxine had nearly recovered from the painful shock of seeing not one, but two Lester men. She joined Evelyn on the double porch swing and watched the brothers set up dinner. She whispered, “Did you know he was coming?”
“You think I’d blindside you like that, after our conversation in the yard?” Evelyn moved Lauren to her right side.
“No, but you also know I wouldn’t have stayed if you’d warned me. And I know how much you want all this out in the open.”
“Well, it should be out in the open.”
“Hey, what are you two talking about over there?” Kevin lit one of the citronella lanterns.
JD locked eyes with Maxine as he leaned against the deck railing and murmured, “I can imagine.”
“You’re going to have to because it’s about time for dinner. Lauren’s not the only one who’s hungry. Excuse me.” Evelyn propped the baby on her shoulder and patted her back as she rose, leaving Maxine with JD.
Maxine’s eyes ranged from his mustache to the small gold loop in his earlobe, but finally settled for the curls on his hairline. “Hey.”
“Hey. Where’s Theodore F. Charles?”
She met his deep-brown eyes. “I think I liked it better when you called him Teddy Bear. At least you didn’t smirk when you said it.”
JD threw his head back and laughed.
After a beat, Maxine joined in. “You’re a mess, Jay.”
“We’re a mess.” When he sat beside her, he set the swing in motion.
“Jay, I . . .” She tried to find somewhere else to look, anywhere but in his direction. It was hard to ignore the long fingers tapping the cushion near her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t—”
“No. I do need to say this. I’m sorry I lied to you. I kept you from your daughter.”
“You were seventeen.” JD’s hand found a resting place on the skin of her neck.
She tried not to relax into its warmth. “I was, but I can’t keep blaming seventeen-year-old Maxine for thirty-year-old Maxine’s choices. Fear has shaped a lot of my decisions and hurt a lot of people. It took courage for you to come back to Mount Laurel.”
“I didn’t just come back for you. For Celeste, I mean. My mother needs me.” JD shifted in the swing.
Maxine’s neck felt cool when his hand fell away. “I know you’re right about telling Celeste the truth. We’d agreed to tell her when she was sixteen, but I think it’s time now.”
He covered her shaking hands with his. “How about the adult Maxine and JD work together to forgive our teenage selves?”
“As long as that’s all the adult Maxine and JD do together.”
“You two, bring that over here. My wife has worked up an appetite.” Kevin waved them over to the glass table.
“Want me to hold her?” Maxine nodded toward Lauren.
Evelyn laid the sleeping infant in the stroller. “Nope, we’re good for now, but don’t get comfortable with those chopsticks. She fell asleep almost immediately, so she’s likely to wake up the minute I start eating.”
“Her uncle is here to help, too. Here you go, Maxie.” JD pulled out a chair.
The next-to-last thing Maxine wanted was to get closer to him. The last thing was to call attention to that. She sat down and allowed him to scoot her closer to the table. “Thank you.”
“Want a spring roll, Evie?” Kevin scooped honey shrimp, fried rice, and egg foo young onto a plate and set it before his wife. “Max, tell me about the writing. Evie reads me your posts. You’re almost as good a writer as my Evelyn.”
Maxine snickered. “Thank you? Things are great. Slow. Wonderful. Terrible. You know I’ve always been a rebel.” She could feel JD’s eyes on her though she aimed her words at Kevin and Evelyn.
“I loved writing when I could do it according to my own schedule. I hate deadlines, commitments, dancing to the tunes other people play, having their opinions and thoughts override mine. Sometimes all I hear is my editor’s voice, not my own. It saps my creativity.” She spooned sweet-and-sour chicken and lo mein onto her plate.
“Pressure makes diamonds, right?” Kevin dipped crispy wontons in the duck sauce.
“Or mud,” JD and Maxine chorused.
Evelyn cleared her throat in the awkward silence that felt as heavy as the waterlogged evening air. “I do know what you mean, Max, but life takes you outside your comfort zone sometimes. It’s a good thing, even if it hurts. Getting organized and establishing a routine will start to feel good after a while. Maybe it’s not your editor’s—Jean’s?—voice you’re hearing after all.”
Maxine fumbled with her chopsticks. “Maybe that applies to my life, but my writing? That’s a different story. Evelyn, you worked for the man before you quit teaching, but I’ve always done my own thing on my own time. I’ve freelanced and blogged since grad school up to now, writing and editing what I wanted, when I wanted. Inspiration doesn’t strike just because something is due at 5 p.m.”
At that moment, Maxine felt a gentle touch slide the chopsticks from between her fingers.
JD extended a plastic fork. “Why don’t you stop pretending you know what you’re doing?”
For a minute, the only sound at the table was crunch, crunch as Kevin ate his wontons before Maxine shot a fortune cookie at JD and protested, “Hey!”
“Hay is for horses,” JD began.
“And cows eat it, too.” Evelyn finished their old line from high school.
“Just not with chopsticks,” JD snorted, nearly choking on his rice.
“That’s what you get.” Maxine feigned a jab at his hand with the tines of her fork.
Evelyn sipped her sweet tea. “How’s Annie, Kev? Is this a good day for her?”
Kevin glanced at JD before answering. “I don’t know if I’d say ‘good,’ but Mom has had worse.”
Maxine’s touch on JD’s hand was that of a butterfly landing on the porch rail, delicate, fleeting, attention grabbing. “I’m sorry about your mother. She’s still so young.”
“That’s the very definition of early onset Alzheimer’s. Her symptoms just appeared out of the blue, and she wasn’t even sixty. It nearly killed her to take early retirement, but she worried about compromising her research when she started forgetting the simplest details. Today, she thought I was Dad.”
“Ouch,” Evelyn murmured. She turned to her husband. “I can’t imagine that, since your parents’ divorce was so acrimonious.”
Maxine opened, then closed her mouth.
JD must have noticed. He smiled a little, though his eyes didn’t. “Don’t worry. I didn’t know what to say either. I just went with it—until she aimed a pencil at my head!”
Kevin chuckled and pointed at a scar on his left arm. “That’s nothing, bruh. I feel you. Your return takes a huge load off of us. It’s been hard, especially with Lauren’s arrival and a new company to keep off the ground.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long to get it together.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes.
Evelyn scooped up the last of her rice. “Welp—I think we all deserve to lose ourselves in a game of spades after dinner, if the little one cooperates. What do you think? We never get to play because we don’t know another couple who knows how. And I think we all could use some fun.”
Kevin smiled. “Wow, Evie, spades. That brings back memories. I’m game, no pun intended. How about you, man?”
“I haven’t played in like . . . forever. Since the tournaments held by the BSU, I think. My roommate nearly choked me when I reneged.”
Maxine had marked some habits, activities, people, and styles as “BCC”—and playing spades was one of them. But the wistfulness of his tone pummeled the wall she’d erected between the past and the present. “Maybe, if Evelyn and I are partners. It sounds like you can’t keep your books straight, and I don’t plan on getting set tonight.”
“Oh, I can keep my books straight, so we’ll be okay as
a team. You shouldn’t come between a married couple anyway.”
What about an engaged couple? Do Teddy and I count? When did you get marked “ACC”? As she closed the containers and stacked their empty plates, Maxine hoped her face didn’t betray her thoughts about all the changes in her “after Christ and Celeste” life.
“Let’s make sure we all play the same way. Big joker, little joker, deuce of spades, the ace . . .” He counted off the rules on his fingers.
“And no kitty,” Kevin interjected.
Maxine dropped her handful. “Did you say ‘no kitty’? Uh-uh! Those two cards can change a whole hand.”
Evelyn laughed. “Look what you did, Kevin. Your crazy talk woke Lauren. Y’all put this stuff away and find the cards while I take care of her. Let’s move this party to the den because this humidity is wreaking havoc on my do. We’re not all natural like Maxine. Hon, give me a hand.” She and Kevin left the table and walked over to the stroller.
Maxine watched Evelyn snuggle Lauren’s cheek, gulping down a sigh as the baby sucked on her mama’s chin. She gasped when long brown fingers clasped hers.
JD’s shoulder pressed against her own for a second, although his eyes held on and didn’t let go. “Are you all right?”
She brushed away a strand before squeezing his hand in return, silently acknowledging the bitter and the sweet tastes of this meal with baby Lauren. But that was the only answer she was prepared to give, that brief touch.
Fireflies had come out to entertain them while they ate. One landed on the table and crawled around, its tail blinking like a tiny hazard light. As JD trailed its movement with his index finger, Maxine noted that he still chewed his nails. They both ignored Kevin as he cleared away the remains of their meal and only looked up after he’d swiped away their six-legged visitor with the crumbs and water rings.
Maxine looked for a way to redirect the conversation. “Why the complete job shift from profit to nonprofit?”
JD shrugged. “Since my hair isn’t long enough to fiddle with, let’s say I wanted a fresh start.”
Maxine saw she hadn’t fooled him. She also recognized the truth buried six feet under his simple statement. A fresh start. Getting baptized and changing her wardrobe had served that purpose for her. But she was starting to realize she couldn’t shed her true self like dead skin, as her mother had hinted at months ago—even saved, sanctified, and dressed in wool from head to toe. She could run as fast as she could, but like a turtle, she wouldn’t get far. Maxine and Maxie were inextricably connected. She wouldn’t survive as herself if the two were separated.
“But I’m the same JD you know and love. You know that, right, Maxie?”
This time, Maxine did poke him. Gently, and with the tip of her finger, so as to leave an impression but not a mark. She purposely bumped his chair with her hip as she left the table. “Butts are for winning spades, Jay, so don’t let me down.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
HER BLOODY HANDS YANKED UP another reed and another and another. Her arms full, she sloshed through the marsh to higher ground and dumped her burden on the mat. Maxine sneezed when a feathery tip tickled her nose. She glanced over her left shoulder toward the distant rumble of voices, but they continued without pause. She dragged the pile of sticks closer to where the reeds were tallest and thickest. Sunrays pelted her. Sweat dripped off her nose and mixed with the blood on her hands, turning the yellow reeds pink. No matter. The water would wash it clean.
Her fingers deftly wove the stems together, adding layer after layer. She slathered on pitch before beginning another row. She pushed the reeds together and slapped on more of the thick mud that soothed the cuts on her hands as it waterproofed the small basket. Maxine carefully used a blade to thin the globs, for the vessel had to be light enough to float and move along with the current, even with its load. Especially because of its load. Dear Lord, please don’t let it sink. Show me what to do to keep her safe.
Leaves crackled and branches snapped behind her. Maxine craned to listen. The faraway voices had faded to a barely discernible hum, but she was certain she’d heard her name and now footsteps. Panting, she tucked the jar of pitch under her chin and snatched up two armloads of reeds. When she realized she couldn’t tote the basket, too, she dropped the sticks. She pinched two corners of the mat and tried to lift everything at once, but she couldn’t maneuver her load around the squirming bundle tied at her middle. Maxine whimpered and glanced in the direction of the approaching footfalls. They were nearly upon her.
She hugged the baby to her and threaded her way through the thick water reeds. “Shh, shh.” She crouched, praying for deliverance from whoever or whatever was coming.
“Maxine! Maxine!” a voice hissed.
When she peeked through her cover, she nearly wept with relief. She ignored the sharp stems scratching her face and arms as she burst into the clearing. “Mama!”
“Yes, it’s me, your mama.” Vivienne covered her forehead and cheeks with kisses. She clasped her daughter’s face with both hands. “It’s okay. Listen to me. You have my word nothing will happen to her, so don’t fret. But we have to get going.”
Maxine nodded, her eyes welling. As she cradled the crying infant, she reached behind her neck and untied the wrap. Vivienne shook the debris from the mat and fitted the cushion into the bottom of the basket. Still singing words of comfort, Maxine settled the wailing baby inside and tucked the wrap around her. She stepped back as her mama fastened the lid.
The two women’s eyes held for a second before Vivienne nodded. She clasped her daughter’s shoulder, squeezed it, and whispered, “Remember, the Lord is on your side, so don’t be afraid. What can somebody else do to you?”
Then she picked up the wiggling basket with one arm, and using the other to push aside the resisting plants, she squished through the mud and waded into the dark-brown water.
Maxine felt like she was still splooshing through her dream as her eyelids fluttered open. Limbs heavy and her mind muddy, she squinted at her palms in the dim light. After her search revealed no scratches or blood, she relaxed on the pillow. Where am I?
Then a baby wailed and a dog barked.
Evelyn’s! I slept over. The four had stayed up late playing spades and eating chocolate chip cookies. To give her fiancé—and herself—a bit of wiggle room to recover from their discussion, Maxine had texted Teddy, telling him not to worry about rushing through his graduation planning. Kevin had promised to drive her home if she stayed the night in their guest room. Maxine blinked, stretched, and sat up as her eyes adjusted and the fog cleared from her brain.
When Maxine fiddled around on the night table for her frames, a blurry something thunked to the floor. She slid on her glasses, and the dresser, chest, and television came into focus. She retrieved her phone from under the bed and set it beside the Bible, which was still open to Psalm 118 from the night before. Maxine checked the time: 8:30. Time to go home, by the looks of the text messages on her home screen.
Her bare feet crossed the cool hardwood floor to the attached bath. There, she slipped out of Evelyn’s borrowed pajamas and cleaned up, grateful for the extra toothbrush and new underwear her friend had left for her. Maxine stared at herself in the mirror as she twisted her curls into a bun at the base of her neck. “Oh, well, girl, I think that’s the best you can do. You’re starting to look unhinged,” she chuckled to herself as she collected her shoes and left the bedroom.
The scent of bacon and the sound of voices wafted up the stairs. She recognized Kevin’s mellow tones and the baritone of . . . JD? Maxine ignored another ding of her phone as she paused to gather herself on the turn of the back stairs leading to the kitchen.
Clink, clink. “. . . cup on the counter.”
“Thanks, Jay.” Kevin snickered. “You don’t mind if I call you that, do you?”
“Not funny, Bro. You convinced me to unload on you. Don’t use it against me.”
Maxine crossed her arms and leaned against the railing a
s she listened to the men moving about the kitchen.
“I’m sorry; you’re right. I’m just trying to get you to smile. Are you going to tell her what—?”
“Maxine, why are you hiding here?” Evelyn hissed in her ear.
She nearly tumbled down the remaining steps before she caught herself, but not her phone or her sneakers. They clattered down the wood planks and landed at the base of the stairs.
Two sets of heavy footsteps clopped toward them, accompanied by the tickety-tap of Cocoa’s nails on the hardwood.
JD reached them first. “Morning. Is this a private club, or may we join?”
Maxine raised her chin. “I could ask you the same.”
“How about you take the baby and hold that thought, JD? I’m beat, and I need a shower.” Evelyn gently handed over her armful.
He settled the baby on his shoulder and turned back toward the kitchen. Kevin shrugged at the women. He retrieved Maxine’s phone and stuck it in one of her shoes, then followed his brother.
Evelyn shook her head as she stalked upstairs. “Shame on you, Maxine.” She patted her leg, and the dog trotted upstairs after her.
Head hanging low, Maxine scooped up her shoes and walked into the kitchen. She accepted the steaming cup of coffee JD thrust at her before he sat down at the island. “Thank you,” she murmured to his back.
Kevin flipped bacon at the gas range. “So, Maxine, how’d you sleep?”
“With my eyes closed.” She smoothed back her hair and pretended she was totally comfortable standing in a kitchen drinking coffee with her ex-husband while he held someone else’s baby. Maxine glanced down at yesterday’s well-worn shirt and shorts and compared her outfit with JD’s wrinkle-free striped polo and khaki shorts. “How about you?”
“With my eyes wide-open, and I’m not joking. Lauren wasn’t very cooperative last night. Evelyn’s going to shower and get a nap, and then we’ll do church at home. Of course, I’m wiped, too, since my brother and I talked until the wee hours. Didn’t we, Jay?” Kevin turned off the flame and perched on a stool beside JD. He tore off the plastic around a glossy magazine.
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