“Listen, darling,” Joanie says, leaning in closer to cover the distance. “What I personally think is that my son needs to come out of hiding and talk things through with you. But he’s apparently too old to listen to his mother these days. He says that I’m angry, so he’s allowed to be angry, too. But things between his dad and I are… very complicated. I’m not angry that you exist. It was just one more secret. One too many.”
I’m not sure how to respond to that—such a raw, personal statement—but I don’t have to, because he appears then.
Max. Behind his mom, staring at me from over her shoulder.
Joanie startles. “Max, honey. I didn’t hear you come down.”
“Obviously. And I wasn’t hiding upstairs. I was in the sunroom.” He doesn’t smile as he says it, but I can still hear the sarcasm in his tone. Sunroom. We’ve laughed about that. The idea of actually referring to it as a room, as Joanie does. It feels like a small nod to our summer together.
Joanie steps to the side, and I can see him fully. His eyes are rimmed with dark smudges. He’s wearing a plain black T-shirt and boxers covered in UFOs and stars and planets.
He looks like the boy I used to love. He looks like a stranger.
“Hey,” I say weakly. Even I can barely hear myself.
“Hey.”
“I’ll leave you kids to it then,” Joanie says, turning and walking toward the kitchen.
“Can we talk?” I ask, my voice louder this time. I straighten my shoulders and look him squarely in the eye.
Max is silent for a beat, and then: “Yeah. Okay.”
He tilts his chin toward the yard, and I follow him, jumping down the stairs as he does. He sits on the thickest patch of grass in their meadow, the only part that isn’t just spare blades in awkward overgrown clumps. I sit next to him.
“Before you ask how I’m doing, can we just skip that?” He’s looking down, away from me, plucking at the grass under his knees. I want to make a joke, tell him that there’s not enough extra grass in this dead yard for him to be so destructive. But I don’t. I’m too sad to joke. Too frustrated. Too exhausted. Too everything.
“No small talk. Promise. I have a feeling your answer would be pretty much the same as mine anyway.”
“Okay. So. What did you want to talk about then? You must have come for a reason.”
“Mostly I wanted to check in. Say hello. Unlike you, I don’t want to be strangers.”
“I told you,” he says, shaking his head at the ground. “I can’t do this, Calliope. Not today. Maybe not ever. I know this isn’t your fault, I do. And I hate that I’m hurting you. My mom isn’t wrong—I know I’m not handling this well. But I’m still so mad at everything. I’m mad at the whole damn universe.”
“I’m mad, too, you know. Or at least I was. I’m still sorting it out. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being bitter and broken.”
“Me neither. But I don’t know how to let go and move on with you still in my life. And I need to—I need to move on.”
“I’m your neighbor. This is Green Woods, not Philly. We’re about to start school together. You can’t avoid me forever.”
“That might not be true. Because… well, because we might not stay.”
My chest tightens. “What do you mean, not stay?”
He shrugs. “Nothing definite. My mom hates living out in the woods. She thinks it’s time to finally sell this old house, get an actual fresh start somewhere, maybe a new city. My dad isn’t fighting her that hard on it because it’s his fault we’re all going through this shit. He’s desperate to get back on her good side.”
It’s like his words have actual heat to them, they burn so hot in my ears. “This shit?” I say, and I’m so outraged, so stunned, that I laugh. “You mean—my existence? Is that shit to you, Max? Because can I remind you that I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him? I would literally not be on this earth. My moms would have had a different baby. You just said this wasn’t my fault, right? Well, it’s not your dad’s fault either. It’s no one’s fault. I’m alive because of what your dad did, and I’m actually pretty damn glad that I’m sitting here right now.”
He sinks his head even lower, his body folding in on itself. “I know. You’re right. I don’t mean I wish you weren’t born. Never. I just wish… we’d never moved here. I’d never met you. Life would have been much simpler that way.”
Even with all the anger I’m feeling right in this moment—all the sadness and confusion of this summer—I don’t wish that. Not at all. Maybe life was simpler before the Jackson family came along. But simpler doesn’t mean better.
Max doesn’t feel that way, though. And I have to accept that.
I’m about to stand when he says: “My dad told me you two got breakfast this weekend.”
The change in conversation—the fact that he’s starting a conversation at all—catches me off guard. “We did. I needed to have a real talk with him. Try to wrap my head around the fact that he’s half of my chromosomes. It was good to hear more about his life growing up. His childhood was pretty shitty, not that it gives him an excuse to be a bad dad. But the things he saw, your grandmother dying how she did, your grandfather…” I shiver, glancing up at the house. We are sitting directly in its shadow, darkness that seems to seep like a black fog from the porch, fanning out along the ground.
“Wait. He told you about that?” He turns his
