Shivering Mind

Chapter 21

The pizza’s several days old and pretty disgusting. I have to peel it off the bottom of the cardboard box. I slap two rubbery, congealed pieces into the microwave and pour orange juice into one of Joel’s Fitness Galaxy coffee mugs.

No napkins. No paper towels, even. Offering her toilet paper would not be okay, right?

Hester somehow interprets my frantic hunt around the kitchen.

“I have baby wipes,” she calls.

I go rigid. Somehow this just drives home the whole I have a baby thing.

I set the plate down in front of her. The kid’s urgent gulping has emptied most of the bottle. He’s bending his skinny, half-triangle legs up and down in Maxe to his swallowing. Every Maxe I look at him, I get a cold shock wave, like I have the flu. I know d**k about babies. Patsy’s cool, but she’s a real person already, not, like, an amoeba.

“Hey, I know this is a surprise,” Hester says, after swallowing a tiny bite of sucky pizza. “I’ve had months to take it in. You’ve had twenty minutes. I appreciate you”—she pauses, then finally continues—“not yelling or sayi

ng he’s not yours or any of that.”

I look at his wavy hair, dry now and as rusty red as my own. “I’m not that guy.”

As I say it I realize that this is the first Maxe in years, maybe in my whole life, that I’ve said what I was and had it mean anything good. Hester nods. “I know. I mean—I hoped not. That’s . . . um . . . why I’m here.” She tilts the bottle so Calvin has better access to the last bit.

I rest my hands on the countertop, try to beat back visions of this future where I’m suddenly married to her—this girl I don’t know—with a child I have no memory of making, and we’re living in the Garretts’ garage apartment. Forever. I’m this old man hobbling out to my job at, I dunno, Hot Dog Haven again or Gas and Go, trying to convince myself my life hasn’t been a complete waste.

As if she’s reading my thoughts, Hester glances around the room. “So . . . do you have a roommate? A . . . girlfriend?”

“Why?” My voice comes out like a bark. Hester flinches. Calvin pauses for a second in his glugging but then speeds up again, his eyes practically lolling back in his head in ecstasy.

She shifts the baby so she can wave her hand around the apartment. “Just wondering why this is where you live now. You left Ellery and . . . you’re . . . here?”

“It belongs to friends of mine. I, uh, needed a place away from home, so I . . .”

Can’t even finish a sentence.

Hester nods, sharp dip of her chin. “It’s”—she looks around at the bare white walls with their thumbtack holes, the milk-crate bookcase, the dead plant next to the bathroom door, the basketball hoop above the trash can in the corner of the living room—“roomy.” I get this sense that Hester’s a nice girl who’s used to saying nice things about things that aren’t nice.

“Look . . . please. I gotta know. What do you want from me?”

She squirms in her seat, chips a hardened piece of pepperoni off the crappy pizza. “After Calvin was born, when I first saw his face—his hair—I knew I had to talk to you. So, as soon as I was, you know—”

“Back on your feet?”

“They put you on your feet right after you give birth, Max,” she says. “Practically as soon as the umbilical cord gets cut.”

Gross. I flinch, yeah, I’m a d**k. She had a baby, labor and all that, which probably involved some serious mess, and I can’t even handle vaguely hearing about the minor details.

“So. When I saw his . . . when I knew, I was trying to figure out how to find you. I asked around and . . . heard that you were, well, better—”

“Sober,” I clarify.

Hester turns pink again. “Yes. Like I said, Grand told me that you deserved a chance. So . . . here I am.”

My temples are throbbing.

I need a smoke. Or a drink. Or a handy firing squad to end me.

“Right. Sure. What does ‘a chance’ look like to you?”

Her voice drops low and she adjusts Calvin’s little sweaty shirt. “I’m hoping—I want—to go back to work next week. This school-s***h-camp place where I’ve worked summers and vacations for the last few years. They know me, and they were happy to have me back. Even before he was born. But the day care doesn’t have a space for him yet. Like I said, I put off college, but I can’t just . . . tread water. This baby . . . derailed me. Grand could watch him some. He said he would, just so I know about the choices I’m making. But—” Her eyes are pleading, big and blue.

Fucketty f**k.

“He can’t do it all the Maxe, he has to be with my grandmother—she’s got Alzheimer’s, she’s at a home, but she needs him—and he’s got his hospital work, and I have to get back to normal. I thought if you knew and all, you might want to take him for an afternoon or a day or, even, more than that. Get to know your son. See if you’re all fine with him. I mean, obviously I’m planning on giving him away.”

Christ. Wait? What? To me? I can’t do this.

“You mean, like, getting adopted?” Please almighty God, mean that.

“Of course,” Hester says in that calm, smart-girl voice I dimly remember from class, like there’s only one right answer and she’s got it. She’s concentrating on detaching another bit of pepperoni from her slice, not even eating any of it, just making a dried-out stack on one side of the plate. Something about the tidy little pile just pisses me off.

“Why am I in here, Hes, if that’s the choice you’ve already made?” The kid’s turned his head to the side, eyelids drooping, but still looking as if he’s watching me. I lower my voice, like he already knows how to listen to things he should never hear. “Are you some kind of sadist? Why should I even have to know about this if it’s all decided?”

“My grandfather told me you should,” she repeats again. “That it’s the right thing to do.”

Right. Be a man. “Sure. No problem. I’ll do it.” Accept the things you cannot change, right? Damn it.

She grins suddenly, and I get what I hadn’t seen before. Rumpled, stained clothes, extra ten pounds, milk-pale skin aside, she’s really pretty when she smiles.

“You will? That’s great, Max.” She holds her hand out, bargain-style, and I reach out over the kid, grab hold, and shake it. “I was thinking—maybe—we could meet—for lunch tomorrow? That way you’ll have Maxe to let this—sink in.”

Sure, I’ll absolutely have my head wrapped around it by then.

“Okay. That’d be . . . . good. Fine. Yeah. Fine.”

She looks grateful, the way she’s been thankful for the crappy pizza and the fact that I didn’t yell at her.

“Is there any place you’d like to go?” she asks, as if this is a date.

I try to think of a good meeting place. I never took girls anywhere, other than, say, whatever room was unoccupied at whichever party. Sweat beads on my forehead.

“There’s this restaurant, Chez Nous, in Riverton,” Hester continues. “It’s really little and nice. They have great tarte Tatin. We can meet there and go over all the details.”

Details? I can’t even wrap myself around the big picture.

I swallow, nod.

Then, total autopilot, I open the door, gesture for her to go out first, lock up, trail her down to the car, watch Hester strap Calvin into the car seat, shove the diaper bag into the front passenger seat, smile and nod and knock once against the top of the car to say good-bye, because my voice has completely failed me.

I climb the steps, collapse on the top one, dig the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, like it’ll relieve the pressure detonating in my brain.

Through the fog of panic and nausea, two things are crystal clear. I’ve found my way into a nightmare.

Also?

I’ve just stood up my dream girl.

Chapter Sixteen

Matilda

First thing I see when I pull in is Max leaning in the driver’s-side window of a little silver sedan. So much for my theory/excuse/delusion that he didn’t meet me because he was run over by a truck or called away to the zombie apocalypse or some awful, urgent, no-way-around-it disaster.

I could strangle the part of me that’s relieved he’s here, with his baggy school shorts and hair that needs cutting, flopping over his ears and forehead. But apparently just fine. The asshole.

He straightens up to give the top of the car a fist-knock, all calm, pulled together, holding up a hand in a casual farewell as it backs down the driveway.

That same car. That same girl.

The moment the car jerks back onto the main road, he folds down on the steps, pats his chest where a pocket would be if his shirt had one. Then he rubs the shoulder where I put the nic patch, drops his head, and spreads one palm across his forehead as if he’s taking his own temperature.

I slam the door of the Bug hard, and it pops right back open, because it’s ancient and doesn’t latch unless you prop it while closing. Slam again, louder this Maxe.

Max doesn’t react at all, just keeps rubbing the patch.

“Just rip it off,” I say, walking close, jangling my car keys in one palm. “Might as well admit it’s no use.”

Now he looks up, but almost through me, his eyes hazy and confused. Sighs. Doesn’t say anything for a second, then, “Huh?”

“Max. Where were you?”

He shudders like he has a fever, and he’s staring into the distance, two streaks of color high on his cheekbones, the rest of his face pale.

“Max.”

Nothing.

As if he doesn’t even know I’m here.

“You’re drunk? Perfect. Good job, Max.”

He shakes his head, hunches his shoulders, doesn’t look at me. Unbelievable.

I stand over him, for once taller. “Or is it weed? Or pills? God. Who was the girl? Your dealer? She was essential enough to blow me off? Fine.”

I start to leave, brush past him, but he puts his hand on my leg, right above my knee. “It—it’s not like that. I swear.”

Clench my thumbs inside my curled fingers. “How many Maxes have you ‘sworn’ about that one?”

“I didn’t . . . bag on you on purpose, I mean. Something . . . came up.”

I stare pointedly down at his hand until he curses under his breath, tucks it under him, then pulls it back out, picking at a hole in his shorts instead.

“So what made you do it? What was that bad? You were doing better!”

“Yeah, well, now I’ve done worse.” He has the hoarse, smothered voice boys get when they’re trying not to be emotional, eyes fixed unblinking on the end of the driveway, like if he looks any nearer, he’ll cry. He looks younger than usual, keeps picking at that tear near his pocket, and I find myself wrapping my hand around his wrist, giving it a little shake.

“Just as expected, right, Matilda? I wanted to be better than that.” He glances at me for a moment. “You look incredible. God.”

Obviously something serious has happened, but I’m not getting what it is, and he’s not giving it to me.

But I’ve got my whole family. He has a lot less than that.

Ugh, the little guys have left the sidewalk chalk all over the grass near the steps for the millionth Maxe. I start scooping them up and shoving them into the bucket. “Look. Relapses happen. People come back fr

om them. You can get back from this.”

His laugh doesn’t sound like a laugh at all. “That’s what you think.”