by Ginger Scott
“Hey, Ray. You know, I’ve been thinking—I didn’t realize you had such a full house and all. I can just stay at the apartment. Mom’s still up on the rent…” I start, and I notice the fraction of a smile curl on Avery’s lips. She’s relieved, and it makes me feel like shit—but it’s short-lived, because Ray squashes my idea the second I suggest it.
“Shut it. You’re staying here. Now eat your breakfast,” Ray says, sliding a plate to me. I sit down and prop my elbows up on either side before grabbing a fork and digging in. I sneak a glimpse at Avery again, and the smile that started seconds ago has been replaced with a look of pain.
This entire trip back home is torture. My mind is spinning, trying to come up with an idea—a way out. But I’m broke. I mean I have a small amount in savings, but the label barely paid me a dime, and the guys are all sorting out their own shit, just as broke as I am. I’m stuck here. And as long as I’m not kidding myself, I’m probably stuck here for a while—at least until I can book myself some gigs and earn enough to try and make a go at this on my own.
Avery won’t even look at me. I try to open my mouth, start a conversation with her, at least a dozen times—but every time I’m left with my mouth agape, nothing to say. I could apologize, but I’ve done that. She doesn’t want to hear it. I could ask her what’s wrong with Max, but I’m not going near that conversation. That’s what earned me the asshole of the year honor in the first place.
“Max coming down?” Ray asks as he slides into his seat with a full plate of sausage and eggs. I’m so grateful he’s picked up the conversation.
“He should be. He was writing something upstairs. I couldn’t get him to stop,” Avery says, looking back to the stairs.
“I can go get him? Tell him breakfast is ready?” my words come out anxious and desperate, leaving my mouth so fast that I didn’t have time to think. Avery’s just staring at me with disgust, her brow pinched, as she slides out of her seat and heads upstairs. Fuck, I’m an idiot.
Ray chuckles to himself at my expense.
“Shut up, old man,” I say, shoveling a forkful of eggs in my mouth.
Avery is back seconds later, and Max is trailing behind her. He’s clutching a stack of notebook paper in his hand, and he won’t let go, even when Avery tries to take it from him so he can eat his breakfast. It’s kind of funny to watch the stand-off as she holds onto one end of the papers and Max the other, his opposite hand already working the fork to cut into a toasted pastry Ray put on a plate for him. I can’t help the small laugh that escapes me, which only fuels Avery even more as she shoots me a death glare.
I just shrug at her. I can’t win with this one, and I’m already in a hole so deep that I might as well just keep digging.
“Sorry, but my money’s on Max,” I laugh, causing her to huff and sit back in her chair, defeated.
Avery finally stands from the table to fix her own plate, and as soon as she does, Max puts the papers down flat next to him. I shake my head in amusement, kind of proud of him for winning this battle, when he slides the pages toward me across the table. I can feel everyone stop everything the second he does.
“Me?” I mouth to Ray.
Ray shrugs and raises his brow, no help at all. I turn to Avery next, and her hands are gripping the edge of the table, her eyes fixated on the papers, squinting at them like she’s trying to sort through a puzzle.
Max hasn’t moved the papers any closer, but they are now in the very center of the table. I don’t know what to do, and I’m so afraid of doing the wrong thing, that I’m almost stuck. I look at Ray again, wincing, just hoping that he’ll see how lost I am with this kid and help me out. Thankfully, he does, as he wipes his hands on his napkin and leans forward, moving his hand toward the papers.
“Max, mind if I see what you’ve got here?” he waits, and Max doesn’t respond. “I’ll give them right back.”
Ray slides the stack closer to him, and Max seems to be okay with that. He pulls a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket and puts them on, crinkling the papers and stacking them neatly together in front of him so he can read. He’s half smiling as he flips through them, nodding. Finally, he starts to hum, and when I begin to hum along, we both freeze and look at one another.
“That’s a pretty song, Max. Did you just write that this morning?” Ray asks, his eyes locked on mine and a faint smirk on his face.
Max remains silent, his gaze fixed on his plate, but he nods yes. Avery comes back to the table, and she reaches slowly for the papers, not wanting to start another round with Max over them. Her dad slides them in front of her and tilts them so she can see, and I lean forward to look along with her. I would say it was unbelievable if I weren’t looking right at it. Max charted every note that I played for him this morning—every mistake and every improvisation that I strummed less than 30 minutes ago. Everything—exactly.
“Max, did you learn this from Grandpa?” Avery asks, her eyes finally coming to meet mine. She’s looking at me with surprise, but I’m looking at her. I’m looking at her because it’s the first time since we’ve come back together that she’s letting me, and I’m embarrassed that I never really saw her before. Her eyes—they’re fucking unbelievable.
Max finally puts his fork down and looks up from his plate, though not at any of us directly. “I heard Mason play it this morning. I wanted to see what it looked like, so I copied Grandpa’s music books,” he says, standing abruptly and heading for the stairs.
“Uhm, Max? You forgetting something?” Ray calls after him. Max stops at the bottom step, and looks up and to the side.
“Thank you for breakfast. I am excused,” he says before climbing the rest of the way up the stairs and back into his room.
The room is silent for the next few minutes while we all sort of put together our own versions of what just happened. Ray interrupts us first, standing, and sliding out his chair to begin clearing the table. I stand up to help.
I’m sliding scraps of food off a plate into the trash when I turn back and see Avery standing next to her father, whispering again. Her eyes are wider this time, and she’s smiling. Add her smile to my ever-growing list of shit I find drop-dead gorgeous about grown-up Avery Abbot. She catches my stare, and flushes—and the fact that she does makes me nuts.
“You heading to therapy this morning?” Ray asks over his shoulder, stopping Avery just before she starts up the stairs. She just nods yes and gives her dad a wink.
I wait until she’s out of earshot before I ask Ray. “What’s Avery in therapy for?” I’m so damned curious, and suddenly all I want to do is spend my day gathering facts and putting together Avery’s puzzle.
“It’s not for her. It’s for Max,” he says, running a washcloth under the water and turning to wipe down the table. I grab a dry towel and follow after him.
“Oh. I get it,” I swallow. I’m dying to know what’s wrong with Max, but I feel like nobody wants to come right out and tell me. Unable to stand it any longer, I finally break.
“What’s wrong with him? Max? I mean…what does he go to therapy for?” My words are jumbled, and on instinct I brace myself for Ray to knock my teeth out. Last time I talked about Max I got slapped—hard!
Ray pauses at my question, refolding the washcloth a few times on the table before knocking his fist on the wood lightly. When he looks up at me, his lips are tight—serious. “Max is an amazing kid,” Ray starts, his smile full of conflict—pride and sorrow. “Avery…she lives her life for that boy. He’s her center, her sun and moon all rolled into one.”
“Yeah, I get that. It’s plain to see,” I say, trying to show my respect. I’ve only witnessed a little, but Avery has my vote for mother of the year the way she defends Max. My jaw hurts just from memory.
Ray finishes wiping down the table, chewing at his top lip and nodding, like he’s working out what to say in his head before he fills me in. He pulls out a chair finally and leans back, folding his arms across his body, not really looking at me, but more loo
king beyond me, before finally coming back to meet my eyes.
“Mason, Max has autism,” he says. I nod like I understand, and I try my best to match the face he’s making, but I have no idea what the fuck autism really means. I know the word, sure. And I’ve heard about it. But I don’t know if it’s something in your brain or if it’s something that happens over time. Isn’t it, like, mental retardation?
“Oh, okay. I…I didn’t know. I’m sorry. How…how do you fix that?” I ask, raising a brow, wishing like hell I understood more than I do.
“You don’t, Mason. You don’t,” Ray says, and I can tell by the crack in his voice that this—Avery’s life with Max, Max himself—is what real-life problems look like. Ray stands to turn away, and I let him. He walks back to the sink to rinse out his cloth and to regain his strength. I sit down now myself, and try to understand what Ray is saying.
“So…how?” I start to ask, but I realize immediately that I don’t even know what to ask. I bury my face in my hands and rub my eyes, just trying not to sound like an insensitive ass more than I already do. “Was Max…born with it? What…I mean…I’m sorry Ray, I don’t think I really know what autism is.”
Ray’s slow to respond. He finishes cleaning up the kitchen, and then paces over to the stairway to make sure Avery and Max are still in their room. He leans against the banister before beginning, just to keep an eye out for them—probably to stop our conversation before Avery overhears.
“Max was one when we found out. Autism…well, it’s sort of like a really big linebacker in Max’s brain. It works against him, not letting certain things in and not letting certain things out. He didn’t talk for the longest time, and even now, his speech is…strange. It’s like he knows the words and when to use them, but the meaning isn’t quite right. He sort of doesn’t understand emotion,” Ray sighs, looking down and kicking at the bottom step.
“But what about the music? Those notes he just charted? How can he do that?” I ask, knowing that it would have taken me hours to figure out how to put all of that on paper.
Ray smirks, curling one side of his mouth up a little and tilting his head to me with a squint in his eyes. “Pretty cool, huh?” he starts. “He does stuff like that sometimes. Max memorizes things. You should see him put together a Rubik’s Cube.”
I don’t understand. I don’t get how Max can’t make eye contact or have a conversation, but can hear me play something for five minutes and then memorize every single nuance. “How?” is all I can ask Ray, and he chuckles at my response, probably because he’s thought the same thing himself.
“Damned if I know,” he says. “Avery says his autism makes it hard to do some things but easy to do others. She’s that kid’s champion, you know? She’s all he’s got. Me? I’m just the old man who lives here with him, who he lets talk to him…sometimes. Ha! But Avery—she’s the one that goes to battle. And Lord help anyone or anything that gets in her way.”
I let Ray’s words soak in. I have so many more questions, but I can hear Max and Avery making their way down the stairs, and I get the feeling by the way Ray was acting that having this conversation with me wasn’t something Avery wants to happen.
“Okay, Dad. We’re heading out. I’m off tonight—Claire’s got my shift. Too much homework,” Avery says, leaning over to kiss her dad on the cheek. I don’t move from my seat, careful not to startle her or draw her attention. I feel like I shouldn’t know the things I know, and I feel like knowing about Max has made me look at things differently. And for some reason, it’s all making me want to be around Avery even more.
Avery Abbot. Shit, I’m in trouble.
Chapter 4: Familiar
Avery
Some days start on a high note. Today was one of them. I was so sure I was going to get a full-on meltdown from Max over those papers. Normally, I would have bribed him to give them to me with a candy. But with Mason watching the whole thing, I just felt foolish. I don’t want him to think I bribe my son to do everything…though, some days, it feels like I do.
When I saw the music, what he wrote—uh! I was blown away; that kid has this power to move me, I swear he does. He’s always flipping through my dad’s old music books, but I know no one’s ever explained it to him—how notes work, what the lines and dots mean. He just figures some things out.
I bet Mason thought that was weird, too. I bet he can’t wait to get together with his band, sit around and talk about the weird girl he went to high school with and how she has this weird kid. Whatever. Fuck Mason Street! His weird is my amazing!
Max has been asleep for hours. It was a long day for him. We met with two doctors, and it was a double-therapy day. Jenny, our head therapist, has been working with me for weeks, maybe months, to get Max ready for kindergarten. He’ll be joining the class a little late—he’s been learning one-on-one, and he’s actually doing really well with the academic side of things. That’s never been Max’s problem. In fact, he learns some things really fast. Memorization—that’s his gift. It’s the social part that scares the hell out of me. I don’t make friends easily, how can I expect him to? Add on top of that his lack of patience for anyone slower to catch on than he is, and a schoolyard disaster won’t be far behind.
This is what we’ve been working on the most. Patience—keeping his frustration in check. Eye contact and socializing will be skills Max works on every day at school, but he’ll never get there if he makes enemies out of his classmates first.
Today has wiped me, completely. Just imagining my afternoons when Max starts school in a few days is daunting. In many ways, it will ease some of the burden. But I carry Max with me, even when we’re physically apart. It’s the worry—constant, painful, without remedy. But I’ve survived today, and I’ve earned tonight.
I take my basket of bath products and set myself up for a little relaxing reward after the long day. It’s my first evening off—truly off—in…I don’t know how long. The bath water hugs me, and the bubbles crackle softly, almost lulling me into a light sleep. I can feel the pull within my chest, my eyes falling shut, but my mind reminds me that my fingers are pruning and that I have a warm bed and—gasp!—a book waiting for me down the hall.
My toes are toying with the drain, trying to convince the rest of me to leave the water, when I hear Mason’s guitar softly filtering through the wall. It’s faint, and…beautiful. His playing was always perfection. I used to listen to him with my dad, just in awe. I have no musical talent—zero. I wish I did; I’ve learned music can be a great calming therapy for kids like Max. It’s not calming when I sing, however. Things just feel out of order, so I stick to reading him stories instead. Good thing I’m majoring in English.
I wait through four or five iterations of the same melody. It’s the one Max wrote down this morning—I recognize it. Mason was never happy with his music, always trying to find the better way to play something. That’s what he’s doing now—he’s obsessing, and catching him makes me smile.
Stepping from the water, I leave the drain in place, careful not to make any noise as I dress so I don’t interrupt his playing. I pull on my soft cotton shorts and one of my dad’s old T-shirts for bed and flip off the light before I step quietly down the hall to Mason’s door.
His back is to me, so he doesn’t notice when I slide down to sit in the doorway. I can still see his fingers from here, as they work their way up and down, pausing right when they should and gently grazing the strings when it’s called for. I think that’s what made me fall in love with Mason Street in the first place—long before I really knew him, before I fell right back out of love with him. Watching him play, the way he loves that instrument, the way his brown eyes shut and his lips whisper small phrases, ideas for lyrics. That’s the reason women love musicians—it’s all right there in Mason’s hands, his eyes, his lips. Mason is the perfect package…on the outside. I could almost forget everything watching him now.
He stops playing for a few seconds, and I catch my breath. The small noise caus
es him to turn around, and I can feel my cheeks heat up with embarrassment. Maybe it’s dread. This moment—the one that was so nice before he began talking—is about to be ruined. I just know it.
“Oh, hey Birdie. Sorry, didn’t see you there,” he says. Birdie. Still with the fucking Birdie.
“Avery, Mason. My name’s Avery,” I say with a heavy sigh. I’m about to get up and leave when he swallows and nods, not putting up a fight. Thank God, I don’t have it in me tonight.
“Sorry. Old habit, like I said,” he turns away again, focusing back on the guitar propped up on his leg. “Sorry, am I too loud? Max is probably sleeping, huh? Shit…I didn’t think.”
“No, it’s fine. He doesn’t wake easily. It was nice,” I can feel my eyes flair open when I realize I’m complimenting him, and my pulse speeds up. I decide to let it go, smiling and playing friendly.
Everything feels suddenly awkward, so I look down at my fidgeting fingers and bare feet. I’m smirking to myself when Mason notices.
“What are you smiling at?” he asks, tucking a pencil behind his ear and flipping a page on a small notebook on his mattress.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I’m embarrassed he caught me, but I can feel him urging me on, so I continue. “It’s just…I was just thinking…here I am, twenty-five years old, and I’m in the same exact place, you know? Like, literally! I’m probably even wearing the same thing I did when I was fourteen or fifteen and I used to listen to you play.”
I look down again immediately, because I feel foolish, like some groupie. I used to get so jealous over the girls that would come see Mason play at Dusty’s, like they didn’t have a right to him. They would go on and on about how talented he was, how much they loved his music. But they didn’t really. They liked the idea of Mason—the sexy guy playing a guitar.