Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1)

by Lori Handeland

  “I may not be the usual mother, Olivia, but I am your mother.”

  “You tell her, Rosie!” The bra-and-boots lady punched her fist high in the air.

  The other ladies did the same. “Yeah!”

  Max almost felt sorry for his mom. She hadn’t had a good day. He could tell by the way her mouth kept pinching together and her forehead was all scrunched. Rosie could be a real pain when she tried. Though Max had to say she didn’t even seem to be trying today.

  “I’m sorry.” Mom rubbed between her eyes. “But this could get serious if you don’t give the thing back.”

  “I didn’t say I had it.”

  “Mama, we both know you have it.”

  “What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty?’ ’

  “Got me.” Mom sighed. “I’ll be back in the morning to go to the hearing with you. I’m hoping that if you sleep on this you’ll come to your senses.”

  “You can always hope.”

  “But I won’t hold my breath.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  Max relaxed. Rosie was smiling. Mom had stopped rubbing her forehead and chewing on the inside of her lip. Things were okay again—or as okay as they’d get while Rosie was in jail.

  But Mom would get her out. She always did.

  Chapter 11

  How am I going to get her out this time?

  The question beat in Livy’s brain the entire way home. All of Rosie’s other legal entanglements had been settled with a small fine and a bit of community service, something Rosie loved anyway.

  Folks in Savannah knew Rosie Frasier. She was eccentric in a city where eccentricity was relished. She meant no harm, and therefore serious charges had never been pressed. Of course, she’d never gone head to head with the sisters before.

  Livy unlocked the door and stepped into the darkened house, Max hugging her side. Livy didn’t like to come home to an empty place. It always made her feel lonely. From the way Max kept her skirt clenched in his fist, he wasn’t a huge fan of an empty dark house, either. What a surprise.

  “Hungry, baby?’’ she asked.

  He shook his head. She knew what he was up to with the absence of the usual chatter. As a toddler, Max had always thought that if he couldn’t see Livy, she couldn’t see him. During hide-and-seek he would toss a blanket over his head and believe he was hidden. In the same vein, he no doubt hoped that by keeping quiet he could make her forget he was there, or at the least, what he had done.

  Not tonight.

  Livy followed Max upstairs, then straightened his room while he changed into his pajamas and brushed his teeth. There were books tumbling out of his bookcase again. She needed to buy a bigger one or at least buy another. He had drawings taped all over his walls, and a few had fallen down. She replaced them with new tape, finishing just as Max returned.

  Once he climbed into bed, Livy sat on the edge and traced her fingers through his long bangs. “Haircut time again.”

  “I could grow it long like Mr. Stark.”

  Livy shook her head. Even if he had succeeded in getting her mind off his truancy, the first words out of his mouth would only have brought everything right back. Which showed Livy how enthralled by Garrett Max was already.

  She drew her fingertip down his nose. “We’re going to talk tonight; there’s no getting out of it.”

  He sighed and gave her sad eyes.

  Her heart twisted and turned. Max did have his father’s eyes. She’d always known they shared a color. But she’d never realized genetics could be found in a single shade of expression as Max waited for the ax to fall. His father had looked at her like that a lot since he’d come back to Savannah.

  Livy rubbed her forehead some more, uncertain what to do or say. Small gentle hands pulled hers away from her face. Max leaned so close she could see flecks of black in the dark brown of his eyes. Then he climbed into her lap and tucked his head beneath her chin. “Sorry, Mom.”

  His words, his tone, his dear sweet face tempted Livy to let the entire incident go, because she found her throat so choked with love she didn’t know if she could scold him. But she coughed and forced herself to do what had to be done.

  “What were you thinking to walk away from school?”

  “Everyone was being mean to me.”

  Anger surged at his words. Max didn’t have many friends. Since she didn’t have many herself, Livy wasn’t sure what to tell him. Kids picked on anyone smaller and younger. Survival of the fittest began in elementary school.

  “Kids are mean, baby.”

  “Don’t call me baby. It’s embarrassing.”

  “Sorry.”

  How long would it be before he told her not to kiss him good-night, not to walk him to school the first day, not to be seen anywhere near him? Sooner than she was ready for, no doubt.

  “Even Sammy was mean today.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  Livy tried to make her voice sympathetic but firm. Max couldn’t think that just because kids were being kids that meant he could walk off school grounds and wander at will. He was going to have to learn to deal with mean kids, or at least learn not to care what they said.

  But it was difficult to sound unconcerned when what she wanted to do was march down to school, grab every mean kid by his mean ear and twist until he was crying on the outside the way her son was crying on the inside.

  She’d end up in jail, but she’d be smiling. Maybe that was why Rosie so often laughed when behind bars. She’d stood up for what she believed in—no matter how silly what she believed in might be—but whatever happened, Rosie could face it laughing because she’d done the right thing.

  Livy cradled her son and slowly rocked him as she always had when he was a baby and upset. Once a mother, always a mother. Give any mommy a baby and every single one did the baby sway. Even with a baby who did not want to be called a baby anymore.

  Livy kissed Max’s hair. How was she supposed to know what was right for him or what was wrong? She didn’t even know that for herself. What if she made a mistake and ended up hurting him worse than any bump or bruise ever had?

  “You’re going to have to get used to mean kids. They’re all over the place. And when they grow up, they only get meaner.”

  “Mr. Stark isn’t.”

  A matter of opinion. Livy had been been hurt more by Mr. Stark than anyone.

  ‘‘He told me things, Mom.”

  Livy stilled. She was going to be in jail with Mama soon, because she just might kill Garrett if he’d told Max—

  “He told me how not to be afraid.”

  Her breath came out in a rush. One hurdle avoided, another right in her path. “What are you so afraid of? I don’t understand.”

  “But he did.”

  Silence filled the room. She could hear Max breathing, loud, through his mouth as he always did when he was nervous.

  He extricated himself from her lap, her arms, her protection, and Livy tried not to cling, but she did. How could a stranger walk into her son’s life and understand him when she could not? Even if the stranger wasn’t really a stranger, to Max he was.

  Her son sat on the bed, no longer touching her. He was as tired as she, his dark eyes huge in his pale little face. She should tuck him in and let the mystery go unsolved, but she couldn’t.

  “What did he understand?”

  “Every time I try to tell you what scares me, I can see by your face you have no clue what I mean. If I say there’s a closet monster, you say, ‘No, there isn’t,’ like that’s supposed to make it go away. When I told Mr. Stark about the dark and the night and the mist, he got it.”

  ‘‘He would,” she muttered.

  ‘‘I know.” His voice excited, Max’s face was filled with wonder, and Livy was glad he’d missed her sarcasm. “He knew exactly what I meant about things that aren’t really there. You can tell me all you want that if I can’t see something it isn’t real, but it’s real to me. Just because you say it can’t be, Mom, doesn’
t mean that it isn’t.”

  From the moment he could speak, Max had questioned everything. Annoying as that could be sometimes, maybe it wasn’t the worst thing. Livy had always hoped the first time anyone offered him a joint, or the latest equivalent, Max would sneer ‘ ‘No way!” with the same enthusiasm he’d always said it to her.

  “What exactly did Mr. Stark tell you about your fears?”

  “That I need to own them.”

  “How much does it cost?”

  Max laughed. “Not own like that. I take my shadows and I make them real in a story. Then I crush them, and they aren’t so scary anymore. Because I won.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  Max grabbed a piece of paper from his nightstand. “Here.” He shoved the paper into her hands. “At Mrs. Hammond’s while I was waiting for you, I tried it, and I do feel better.”

  Livy glanced at the story. Max had written “The Closet Monster” at the top of the page. At the bottom he’d drawn a gaping black hole of a closet, so large it loomed over the tiny bed and tinier blond boy who cowered beneath it. In between the title and the drawing was a story.

  “Go ahead. You can read it.” Max patted her knee as if she were a sad, pathetic dweeb. “Maybe then you’ll understand.”

  There was a boy named Max and he had a closet monster. Every time his mom closed the door the monster grew bigger. Max tried to keep the door open, because what you can see is better than what you can’t, but his mom always shoved all the doors shut whenever his back was turned.

  So the monster grew and grew.

  Which explained the constant open state of the closet door, if nothing else.

  Max spent a lot of nights sleeping under his bed.

  “Max, you don’t sleep under the bed, do you?”

  He ducked his head. “Only sometimes. Keep readin’.”

  But one night he got tired of the floor, and he decided that it was his room and he was going to take it back, and the closet, too. So instead of hiding under the covers or under the bed, he marched across the floor and punched that monster right in his nose. And poof, the closet monster became a big black raincoat. Max slammed the door and slept on the bed forever and ever more.

  “Well?” Max’s eyes were bright with newfound knowledge, as well as a confidence Livy had never seen there before.

  “It’s a wonderful story. But I still don’t see how it helps. There’s no such thing as a closet monster, and there never was.”

  Max groaned. “Mom. You have to admit it’s there before you can make it go away. Like ghosts. Rosie says the people who make peace with the ghosts in their house, the ones who talk to them and invite them to stay as long as they behave, are the people who can live with them without any trouble.”

  Livy didn’t know what to say to logic like that, which was no logic at all. What she’d been telling Max since he was old enough to understand hadn’t done a bit of good. He still believed in vampires and zombies and all sorts of dark, creepy imaginings as much as her mother believed in the ghosts of Savannah.

  Why not face the monster and own it? Why not invite a ghost to stay? Livy would never have thought to suggest anything of the kind, yet Garrett had known immediately what his son had needed to feel safe.

  Jealousy reared its ugly head. She’d raised this child, been everything to him and he to her, yet one week in town and his undead dad had become his new best friend.

  Livy lifted the covers. Max dove beneath and snuggled against the pillow with a tired, contented sigh. “It’ll be nice not to see that silver-toothed closet monster anymore.”

  Livy kissed him on the forehead. “I bet it will.” Her jealousy dissolved at the sight of his peaceful, sleepy smile. She couldn’t stay angry over something that made Max so happy and kept him from sleeping beneath the bed.

  “Tomorrow I’m going to write about the goblins in the bathroom mirror.”

  “Excellent choice.” Livy snapped off the light. “’Night, Max. Love you always.”

  “’Night, Mom. Love you, too.”

  “Max?”

  “Mmm?”

  He was almost out, but she had to make one final point. Even if she was a clueless moron, she was still his mother. “Stay in school.”

  He mumbled something that sounded like “Do my best,” and turned over.

  Livy frowned into the darkness. He must have said, “Yes, yes, yes,” though she doubted it.

  For a moment she watched him sleep, a small lumpy figure in a big old bed. Once asleep, a hurricane couldn’t wake him, but many nights it took some time for Max to find dreamland. Now that the closet monster was gone, sleep seemed to come more easily.

  If only she could conquer her fears as well.

  The old house creaked and moaned. Ghosts, if you were of a mind to believe that. For Livy, the creaks were made by old wood and the moans came from the wind through the attic. Still, the sounds were lonely, and she didn’t like them. Tonight she could use some comfort, but for her there was no comfort to be had.

  She backed out of Max’s room and headed for her own, just as the phone began to shrill.

  *

  Garrett had waited as long as he could. He’d wandered his house, peering into each room as if through Livy’s eyes. He had to say, this kind of behavior didn’t look good. He must appear a terminal bachelor who couldn’t stay in one place for more than a minute. Which was exactly what he was.

  After eating corn chips and salsa for dinner, Garrett had walked into his office, then walked right back out when his computer laughed at him.

  Although he might have an astounding imagination, he knew his computer hadn’t literally laughed. Still, Garrett had heard it just the same. So he’d taken his beer and his cell phone onto the porch, where the laughter only echoed in his mind.

  Max had made the panic recede for most of the day. Now it was back, pulsing in Garrett’s belly. He might not be able to write the book he so desperately needed to; he could very well blow the chance he’d been working toward all of his life.

  Then he’d be a failure and a loser. No big surprise there. All authors waited for the day when the world at large would suddenly figure out they were a fraud, that they couldn’t really write. That day might come for Garrett sooner than he’d ever believed.

  He took a swig of his beer and stared into the night. Here and there he heard the rattle of an idea, like old bones shaking about in the giant empty of his brain. But when he tried to focus, to get something exact, that idea would be gone quicker than time.

  Maybe a cemetery walk would help. Garrett had yet to stroll through Bonaventure Cemetery, located outside Savannah proper. From what he’d heard and read, if he couldn’t find a spooky idea while wandering out there, he’d never find one.

  A grand old forest graveyard, Bonaventure had once been a great plantation during the colonial era. It was most famous more recently for its statue of the bird girl that became an icon of Savannah after gracing the cover of the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The statue had been removed and placed in a nearby museum to protect her from vandals and thieves. The new world once again ruining the ancient and fair.

  Despite the encroachment, Bonaventure still possessed more character than most cemeteries. At night the azalea bushes did not shine with bright spots of color, but rather shivered beneath the stately oak trees draped with silver-gray moss.

  It was said that on certain evenings a ghostly dinner party ensued atop the ruins of the former mansion. If you listened hard enough and you believed, you would hear music, laughter and the whip of the flames that had burned the mansion to the ground while the revelers continued their party on the lawn. When the roof crashed in, the guests had thrown their empty wineglasses against one of those oak tees. The shatter of crystal still echoed through time.

  Garrett had to see the place. He finished his beer, set the bottle on the porch next to his chair, then cradled his cell phone in one hand, as he tried to talk himself out of calling Livy. />
  For the sake of the book that wasn’t, he needed to get in his car, drive out to Bonaventure and wander the ruins for as long as it took to get a really good idea. That might be days, but too bad. The situation was becoming desperate. Bonaventure meant “good fortune” in Spanish, and Garrett could really use some right now.

  But until he knew what had happened with his son and his son’s mother, he couldn’t concentrate, so Garrett punched in the phone number he hadn’t called in nine years but had never forgotten.

  Even though he’d lived next door back then, he’d still ended every night by calling Livy. She’d said she wanted his voice to be the last thing she heard so it would follow her into the dark of the night. Livy hadn’t known that her voice would follow him through the empty darkness of many years to follow.

  Her phone rang, a shrill happy sound in contrast to the muted pulse of loneliness in his heart. But when she picked up, her voice a breathless “Hello?” Garrett’s heart thudded faster. Suddenly he had no idea what to say.

  “Hello?” she said again, impatient now.

  “Hello.” Silence filled the line. He could see her standing next to her bed, holding the phone to her ear, frowning so hard her pretty face wrinkled. There was no question she knew his voice. That was what the silence was all about as she tried to decide if she should slam the phone down now or later.

  “Don’t hang up. Please. I only wanted to make sure everything was all right.’’

  “We’re fine.” Though her voice was wary, not friendly, it wasn’t unfriendly, either.

  “Your mother?”

  “In jail. She stole a goose and she won’t give it back.”

  Garrett couldn’t help it. He laughed. Amazingly, Livy laughed, too. He was so startled he stopped laughing so he could listen to her.

  She laughed exactly as she always had, with abandon and joy. The sound was a bit rusty, and she stopped too soon, when she realized she was alone in her laughter, but the joy was still in her. Suddenly Garrett was determined to dig through the present all the way back to that past.

  “I always loved to hear you laugh.”