'Til I Want No More

by Robin W. Pearson

“Why did you run away only to come back and give her up? Was that the plan so people wouldn’t know?”

  “No! At least not like that. I didn’t have a plan at all. Only to get away. But while I was gone, the Lord helped me see—”

  “The Lord. The Lord helped you see what exactly? I love when people use God to explain away their bad choices.” Teddy pivoted and took a step toward Kevin and Evelyn’s house.

  Maxine clutched his arm. “Wait, Teddy. Let me explain. Can we sit and talk?” She pointed to a bench in the neighborhood park. As they made their way over, she thought back to the day Vivienne first planted the seeds that later bloomed into their present circumstances.

  Maxine sat on the edge of her seat. “I’d been back in Alabama almost a month. I remember . . . I remember sitting at the table, feeding Celeste green peas, and she was twisting every which way. She’s always hated peas.” Maxine swallowed.

  “Max—”

  “Mother said something like ‘I know you think I’m crazy, but forgoin’ your education to work forty hours a week churnin’ milkshakes and fryin’ nuggets at McDonald’s makes even less sense. How are you supposed to make a life for you and that baby selling chicken nuggets?’” Maxine shook her head a little at her imitation of Vivienne. “And then she moved me out of the way and somehow got more peas into Celeste than Celeste smeared on her apron.

  “For a while, this powerful . . . inertia . . . just dragged me along. I’m serious, Teddy. I didn’t have the energy to change the status quo. I focused on being a good girl and getting us both used to our new life. Then one day, Mother drops these brochures on the coffee table, and they’re filled with pictures of people cavorting on the quad, a chapel spire stretching into the sky, libraries stocked with books and computers . . .” Maxine’s hands spread wide as she recalled those pictures.

  “And she tells me, ‘Evelyn’s really enjoying college, and you could, too, Maxine. It would be my honor to relive your baby days. Celeste and Zan play together so well already, just like brother and sister. You can hang with your friends, instead of sitting on my sofa in your sleepin’ cap on a Friday night. Let us help you.’” This time, Maxine was too busy being in the moment to impersonate it.

  “So they helped you.” Teddy seemed to join her in it, for he scooted forward.

  “So they helped me. I quit my job and enrolled in a couple of classes at the community college. First John bought me a car with his book advance and moved Celeste’s car seat to his SUV. They started asking me to babysit instead of the other way around. And yes, I filled out one of those applications. But then I forgot about it.”

  “I bet Miss Viv didn’t.”

  Maxine shook her head. “You know Mother. One night, I got home from my writing club, determined to spend one-on-one time with Celeste and read Guess How Much I Love You with her bunny puppet. But when I peeked through the crack in the door, I saw Zander building a tower with his DUPLOs and Celeste propped up by pillows beside him. First John and Mother laughed with them when the tower toppled over and—”

  When Teddy slipped his hand into hers and squeezed it, she leaned into him and let her tears soak into his shoulder. “They were this perfect picture of a happy family. I tried to sneak away, but Mother spied me at the door and crooked her finger. ‘We’ve been waitin’ for you. Guess what came today!’” Maxine waved her hand as if holding that long-ago letter.

  “So First John scoops up Celeste, and she’s bouncing on his arm to some music only she can hear and patting his cheeks. He’s swinging Zan like a pendulum from his other hand, and Mother’s thrusting this letter at me as she dances from one foot to the other and clapping her hands. I can feel my stepfather watching me, questioning me, with those intense blue eyes of his the whole time I’m reading it.”

  She looked at Teddy. “Kinda like the way you’re looking at me now.”

  “What did it say?” By now, Teddy’s voice was as quiet as Maxine’s.

  “‘Congratulations! We’re excited to offer you a full, four-year scholarship . . .’ Mother shouts, ‘Praise the Lord!’ and starts doing the cha-cha with Zan. First John keeps watching, watching, watching. And Celeste just throws her head back and crows, ‘Yay!’”

  Maxine sat up as elementary-age boys ran onto the playground. The tallest beat the other two to the swings and hopped on. “All I could think about when I saw her tiny teeth was that Mother and First John saw them come in while I was at work and at school, and they’d be the ones to put the money under her pillow. Shoot, as far as everyone was concerned, the Lord seemed to answer Mother’s prayers with a loud and clear ‘Go,’ and why not? It felt like I was already gone.

  “So I packed up and went, to college first and then to grad school for another eighteen months. After that, I worked in Atlanta before I shimmied back home, this time with two degrees and a few paychecks in my suitcase instead of a pack of disposable diapers and hand-me-down baby clothes. By the time I returned, they were all settled into their life in Mount Laurel again, and I’d made my parents’ temporary guardianship of Celeste permanent. But that was understandable, right, Teddy?”

  For a moment, they both seemed to listen to the squeak-squeak of the swings. Maxine watched their legs pumping, sending the boys higher and higher toward the sky.

  “Why haven’t you ever told me any of this before? Did you think I wouldn’t support you or love you? That I wouldn’t understand?”

  Instead of meeting his eyes, Maxine scanned the facades of the houses built around the park. She wondered where the playful boys lived. If they had sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers. Squeak-squeak, squeak-squeak, squeak-squeak.

  Teddy released her hand and leaned forward, blocking her view of the children. “Is that why you live over your parents’ garage, to keep an eye on your sis . . . daugh . . . Celeste?”

  “Celeste doesn’t need me to keep an eye on her. She’s got two perfectly good parents to do that. I just can’t bring myself to leave her. For my own sake.” Maxine squinted at Teddy, the sun bright behind him. “Are you willing to move in there with me when we get married?”

  When—the ginormous elephant squeezing between them, sucking up most of the available air through its four-letter trunk, and leaving little for Maxine. She held her breath as she awaited his answer.

  “I don’t think there’s room for the three of us.”

  Teddy shifted, and suddenly Maxine could see his face. “Celeste wouldn’t live with us.”

  “But Mr. James D. Lester would.” He aimed a finger behind him, in the direction from which they’d come. “You still haven’t told me how he fits into all this. How can you forgive him and welcome him back into your life?”

  “Forgive him?” Maxine swiped at her face.

  “I mean, it was great that you had your parents’ support, but you could’ve used Celeste’s father. Your husband.” Teddy squared his jaw and averted his gaze toward the boys, who leaped from the swings and ran to the slide.

  “I didn’t need to forgive JD anything.” Maxine’s voice was as low as her spirits.

  “What?” Teddy raised his voice over the youngsters, who were now pushing each other at the bottom of the ladder.

  “I didn’t—”

  “I heard that. I just don’t understand.” He scooted toward her on the bench.

  But Maxine inched away until her back was pressed against the wood. She watched the smallest boy reach the middle rung and kick out at one of his tormentors. “As I said, before I ran away, I told JD I’d miscarried. So you can’t blame him. He didn’t know about Celeste until we’d moved back to Mount Laurel, after we ran into his mother at the library. The minute she saw Celeste and me together, she knew. So I had to tell him.”

  “How did she feel about meeting her granddaughter?”

  Maxine snorted. “Annie Lester? She didn’t feel anything but horror. She was worried about JD giving up his life in New York and coming home to a ready-made family—oh, the shame. Mrs. Lester never liked me. Something to do
with her and Mother. Anyway, she helped convince JD to sign away his rights since so much time had passed. She even paid for the divorce, assistance I needed since my folks didn’t know I was married. With all that taken care of, my folks made the adoption final.”

  “And Celeste didn’t mind all this?”

  The neighborhood children seemed to have worked out their differences. One after the other they climbed the ladder and slid down, climbed and slid. Maxine’s eyes never left them. “What’s there to mind? She already knew she was adopted, and as part of our agreement, First John and Mother said we could wait until Celeste was sixteen to tell her about me. I said I wanted to make sure she was ready, but really, I wanted to make sure I was ready.”

  “And her father? What about him?”

  “Well, I couldn’t have her searching for her father, finding out how I’d kept the news from JD. So basically . . . I killed him. I told her he died. Just like my own biological father had years ago. That way she wouldn’t search for him. She had First John.”

  “Maxine.” Teddy groaned. He braced himself on the arm of the bench and stood.

  Maxine looked up at him from her seat. “I just couldn’t let her think she wasn’t wanted. That nearly destroyed me when Mother left me with my grandparents, feeling like I wasn’t enough to keep her home. That she didn’t love me enough to stay. I couldn’t have Celeste trying to earn someone’s attention and love for the rest of her life. It was enough her own mother had given her up. At the time, I thought, ‘She’ll never want for love, not if I can help it.’ But now, I realize, that wasn’t up to me.”

  Teddy stared at her as if she was a rare specimen at the zoo. Behind him, the boys gave up on the slide and raced for the jungle gym in the middle of the park. After a minute, Teddy stalked through the grass back to the sidewalk.

  At first, Maxine followed him, but then she stopped after a few steps. She took a deep breath and planted her feet among the dead petals in her square of concrete and watched him tuck his head into his chest and stuff his hands in his pockets as he left her.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “OOF!” Maxine twisted her ankle as she trudged up the gravel drive. She squatted to massage it and eyed the remaining one hundred feet of gravel leading to the house. She straightened when she heard a garage door open. She rotated her foot and sighed, “I guess I’ll limp the last half.”

  First John stepped around the side of the house, pulling the recycling bin. He met her as she tramped haltingly toward him.

  “Hey! You’re back early,” she observed. She glanced over her shoulder. The leaves of the oak, sweet gum, and maple trees nearly obscured the road. The receding purr of a car floated on the breeze.

  First John stood the bin upright and walked over to her as he pointed toward the garage. “Where are you coming from? I didn’t see your Volvo.”

  Maxine returned his kiss and hug of greeting. “I spent the night at Evelyn’s. Did you have a good trip?”

  He shrugged. “We didn’t go for fun.” First John looked down at her sandaled feet. “Did you walk there?”

  “No, Teddy dropped me there yesterday and borrowed my car.”

  “So you decided to come back, huh?” Zander called from the front porch. The glass-paneled storm door slowly whispered closed behind him. He bounded down the four steps to the walkway and sauntered over.

  Maxine punched him in the shoulder. “Yes, Zan, I finally decided to come back. Don’t tell me you missed me. And with all those muscles you’re showing off in that sleeveless tee, you’re too buff to need my protection.”

  He laughed and pounded his chest with a fist. “Nope. I know how to handle things just fine without you. I’m nearly seventeen. ’Bout time you started acting your age anyway. When I’m thirty, you won’t catch me living at home.”

  Maxine tried not to think about what she was handling at Zan’s age. “I don’t live at—”

  “Then what do you call—?”

  “Kids.” First John ran his hands through his closely cropped hair. “Knock it off. Maxine, I know my oldest son is more than capable of handling his brothers and younger sister for twenty-four hours, but we would’ve appreciated a heads-up. When we left Friday night, we thought you’d be around, at least during the overnight hours.”

  Zander smirked at Maxine.

  She rolled her eyes at her younger brother before giving him the cold shoulder. “Zander didn’t tell you, First John? I was here Friday, but I asked Mama Ruby and Granddaddy to stay in my apartment last night. I thought they’d take them to church this morning.”

  “You know we don’t like to go to Old-Fashioned Baptist. All they do is sing hymns. It’s boring. The kids and I worshiped at home.” Zander crossed his arms.

  Maxine readjusted the strap of her canvas bag. “I bet you did. Anyway, Mother warned you about using that name for Mama Ruby’s church. You very well know worship isn’t about strobe lights and rock music. You should be able to sit still without a PowerPoint presentation.”

  “Who told you that? The person driving that yellow Porsche? I guess it was a come-as-you-are Sunday where you attended today.” Zander gave Maxine a once-over.

  First John held up two hands and effectively put the brakes on the argument. “Yellow Porsche? Since when did Theodore start driving a Porsche?”

  “Since never. I caught a ride home.” Maxine brushed back a flyaway wisp of hair and cast a sideways glance at her stepfather. “You know, just like the good ol’ days with your wild orchid.”

  “Huh?” Her brother’s teasing grin died on his face.

  “Zander, take this to the curb.” First John pointed toward the recycling bin.

  “But—”

  His father’s mouth tightened and he inhaled loudly through his nose.

  Zan shut up and tilted the large blue bin on its wheeled side and started down the drive. He called over his shoulder. “Mama was looking for you, Max.”

  I bet she is. Maxine stared up at the second story.

  “That’s not true, you know.”

  She turned to First John. “What? She isn’t looking for me?”

  “No. What you said a minute ago, about ‘the good ol’ days.’ Nobody’s reliving those. And what’s this about a ‘wild orchid’?”

  Maxine pictured JD speeding off not fifteen minutes before. By some folks’ estimation, not much had changed since she was sixteen years old. Just the getaway car.

  “Maxine? Did you hear me? And what’s up with that smile?”

  Hearing the crunch of Zander’s sneakers as he ascended the hill toward them, she crooked a thumb in the direction of the main house. “Mother’s in there unpacking? I’m going to shower, change, and throw my Manna uniform into the washing machine before I come over.”

  “Doing laundry herself. Preparing for the week. But whoa there, Maxine.”

  She’d taken a step toward the house, but she stopped to look at First John and then Zander, who stood beside the older man.

  The teen’s eyes skipped between his father and his sister before he marched to the porch, muttering under his breath.

  Once the glass storm door swung open and shut, First John cleared his throat. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his khaki shorts and kicked at the rocks with his Dockers.

  Maxine fixed her eyes on the green alligator stitched over his heart.

  “Your mom and I did a lot of talking about this situation while we were gone.” Rattle, rattle. His feet continued their steady movement over the driveway, sending gravel cascading down the hill. “Too much has gone said and unsaid by too many people for too long. It’s time we had a family meeting, at least that’s what I told Vivienne.”

  Maxine squinted at him and shifted her weight from her injured ankle. “What does that mean exactly, a ‘family meeting’?”

  His feet stilled. “Don’t you think we have a lot to discuss, Maxine? As a whole family? I thought we were close-knit, but based on all that’s been happening, these ties seem to be made of sp
ider silk.”

  She grimaced. “Because they’re virtually invisible and they capture the unsuspecting?” Her eyes widened at First John’s laughter. “What’s so funny?”

  “You’ve always had a way with words. Guess you get that from your dad.” He draped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her into his side. “And I mean me.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Maxine wrapped her arm around his waist and fell into step with him as they tramped toward the garage.

  “As far as my poor web analogy goes . . . not only does it catch those unsuspecting bugs, spiders use it to wrap up their young. To protect them. It’s strong as steel, Maxine. So is the bond between us. But yes, things have gotten sticky.”

  They’d reached the corner of the house, the point where Maxine could continue up the stairs leading to her apartment and he could open the side door that connected to the mudroom. He squeezed her and pulled away.

  “But as strong as that web is, a spider still has to repair it and rebuild it when it gets tangled. And we need to fix this, Maxine. We have to if we’re going to go on.”

  “I know you’re right.” Maxine looked off into the woods that flanked the sides and back of the house and took a deep breath. “But if I recall correctly, you led with ‘at least that’s what I told Vivienne.’ I gather she doesn’t agree.”

  First John’s head leaned toward first one shoulder, then the other.

  “So neither a yes nor a no. What does that mean?” Maxine could only imagine.

  First John pounded his right fist into the palm of his left hand like a gavel. “It means I’m calling our family meeting to order. Let’s coordinate everybody’s schedules and get through graduation.”

  Maxine winced, thinking of Teddy’s excitement over his speaker. Some hometown hero JD turned out to be.

  “I’ll reach out to Ruby and Lerenzo, and you . . .”

  “I’ll be there.”

  First John clasped her fingers. “You call JD. I’m sure his yellow Porsche has Bluetooth.”

  ________

  Maxine tapped lightly on the back door before stepping inside. The large glass pane rattled when she shut it. When she turned into the mudroom, she ran smack into Uncle Roy.