Southern fury, p.8
Southern Fury, page 8
Chapter 11
HEADING BACK WAS A SOLEMN AFFAIR. They watched the road and listened to the sounds of other cars rolling by. Max refrained from checking the rearview mirror. If J had a thousand-yard stare, Max did not want to see it.
As the minutes ticked by, the silence took on weight. It grew thick in the air and pressed down on Max’s shoulders. Without changing position, he spoke barely above a whisper. “I need to research this new guy — William Crutchfield.” He thought he caught Sandra nodding out of the corner of his eye.
He tried to think of something to say to J, some parental wisdom or simple explanation that might help the boy understand what they had all experienced. But until J accepted that witches and ghosts and magic existed, nothing Max said would suffice. Heck, even if J accepted all those things, it would still be difficult.
From the backseat, in a voice so soft that Max had a hard time believing it came from J, the boy asked, “What did that lady do? She going to be okay?”
With his eyes on the road, Max said, “Jessica? She’ll be fine. You have to think of those ladies as one big family. The old woman is like their parent. Sometimes a parent has to punish her kids in order to teach them a lesson. Right? So the kids learn about consequences. Jessica must’ve done something to upset Grandma Mobley. So she’s paying the consequences. But loving parents don’t go out of their way to hurt their children, and I don’t think Grandma Mobley would either.” Max hoped that was true.
“What did she do wrong?”
Sandra said, “We’re never going to know. It’s not our business, and it’s not our problem.”
“And why did she do that in front of us?” J asked.
Max said, “To make a point.”
J said nothing more. When they got to Mrs. Porter’s apartment, he rushed off to the back room and closed the door. Mrs. Porter had been sitting on the couch with PB watching television. She looked up at Max and Sandra.
“What’s wrong?”
Max said, “Nothing.”
Sandra placed her hand on Max’s chest. “He’ll be fine. I’ll talk to him later. Those witches scared him a little more than he could handle.”
“I should’ve known not to bring him.”
“It’s a lot to take in.”
“I thought he could handle it. I thought they wouldn’t do anything in front of him.” Max kissed Sandra and headed to the door. He stopped before opening it. The taste of her lips played against his — a hint of cherry. He inhaled and smelled her fragrance — wildflowers.
Turning back, he placed his hand on her shoulder. With a quizzical turn of her head, she looked up at him like a perfect shot in a romance movie. He winked. To his mother, he said, “Sandra and I need to go out. We’ll be back in a few hours. That okay?”
“Of course,” Mrs. Porter said. “It’s not like I have any plans. I don’t have a life of my own with my own things to do and my own friends to see. I love sitting here taking care of your kids.”
She delivered her speech in her usual cheery, passive-aggressive manner. For that, Max was thankful. Normally, such a tactic would fill him with dread and send him in a nervous attempt to placate his mother. But this time, he decided to simply take her words at face value because he needed to.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Before she could start any kind of follow up, he opened the door and escorted his wife out. As they walked to the car, Sandra said, “What’s this all about?”
“We are going on a date.” Before she could protest, he pressed his mouth against hers. When he pulled back, he said, “J is not the only one shaken up by what we saw. If Grandma Mobley and Mother Hope are going to escalate their feud, then we may never get a chance to date again. You and I need to spend time together — time that doesn’t involve being parents and that most certainly doesn’t involve witches. It’s that simple. Either we take advantage of the moment we have, or we get screwed — and not in a good way.”
Sandra gave a thoughtful nod. Then as his words settled in her head, she snorted a laugh. “Okay, let’s go.”
Less than an hour later, Max parked the car in the lot of a dentist’s office on Westgate Center Drive. He and Sandra squirmed into the backseat and popped the cork on a bottle of wine. She opened a Wendy’s take-out bag and they set up a nighttime picnic.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said with a playful warning in her voice. “But wine and Wendy’s only goes so far.”
Max handed her a plastic cup of wine. “I’m not trying to suggest that one night is going to fix everything. But I think we both can agree that things between us right now are pretty crappy. If we don’t start working at it, it’s only going to get worse. And with all that’s happening around us, we need to be on the road toward getting better.”
“I hate that we have to have these talks. You’d think after all these years together, we would’ve learned by now how to avoid getting into these grumpy, nitpicking, downtimes.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure marriage never stops having ups and downs. The point is that we go through it together.”
Pouting in a way that Max found adorable, Sandra said, “Why does it have to be so hard, though? I mean, we know witches and we know magic. You’d think we’d be able to put that to good use and avoid all the downs in our relationship.”
Max chuckled. “Like a never-ending happiness spell?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll get on that right away.”
She raised her plastic cup. “To abusing magic for the purpose of easing our marriage.” Max touched his cup to hers and they drank. Gazing around the empty parking lot, she asked, “So why are we here?”
“You don’t recognize this place?”
“Of course I recognize it. Across the street is where Doctor Connor practiced — both optometry and witchcraft.”
“For me, this is where it all began. I know that technically it began in our old office with Mr. Modesto hiring us for the Hulls and all of that, but initially, that was just a weird job to make money. But here, at Doctor Connor’s office, here’s where I really started to get a taste of what we were in for.”
“I would’ve thought seeing Drummond the first time did that for you.”
“It did, but he’s a friend. Here is where the danger began. Doctor Connor was my first witch.”
Sandra grinned. “You never forget your first.”
“Through it all — all the spells and summoned souls, all the witchcraft and ghosts — it’s been the two of us. Together. You and me. That’s how we’ve survived. But lately, this awful distance between us is making me feel like I’m standing on my own. And with what we saw today, we can’t be separated, can’t be on our own.”
Taking a bite of her burger, Sandra spoke while chewing. “What did you expect? Our problem — our non-witch problem, that is — is we’re stuck living with your mother.”
“We’ve faced the Hull family. We’ve faced powerful covens. We’ve faced magic and death. Why should my mother be this big of a problem?”
Sandra startled at Max’s words as if she had received an electric jolt. “Are you telling me that you think this is all about living with your mother?”
“Isn’t that what you just said?”
“No. I mean, yes, but that’s not what I mean.”
As Max attempted to decipher Sandra’s words, he slung back his cup of wine and refilled it. “So, it’s not my mother?”
“It’s us. Like you said — we’ve always faced these things together. And we’ve always had a specific way of handling our problems. Right?”
Max nodded, knowing the exact words she expected to hear. “Straight on through.”
“Exactly. We don’t dance around things, and we don’t slough them off. We barrel straight through. Sometimes it’s messy, but it has always served us well. But our last case — I don’t know what it was that got to you, but you’ve changed. Maybe it was our house burning down or maybe your jealousy over Peter — who, remember, is gay and not a threat to you. I don’t know what it is, but suddenly you’re not there by my side pushing through our problems.”
“I haven’t gone anywhere.”
“You haven’t moved forward, either. I know you’re not happy with all of us crammed together in your mother’s apartment — I’m certainly not, either — but you don’t act motivated to get out. And every time I try to bring you along in the process, you find one excuse after another not to participate.” He tried to speak, but she wagged her finger. “Don’t even start with the witch war. I know how serious it is. But that’s only come up in the last couple days. This has been going on for months.”
Max stuck a fry in his mouth. Normally at this point in their relationship cycle, Max would come to the conclusion that Sandra was right. He would see the flaw in his own thinking that led him to this point, and he would laugh at himself. They would talk a little further, he would kiss her, she would kiss him, and all the kissing would lead to some amorous fire that would relax them both and recalibrate their marriage — put them back on the right track. But this time, Sandra was not right. Max thought over his behavior, his emotions, his reasoning — it did not add up the way she suggested.
He wanted to get out of that apartment. He wanted to get a house and start a life with the Sandwich Boys in their care. He meant every word he had said to her previously — that he wanted all of those things and that he wanted to do them right. If it meant another few months going crazy in his mother’s apartment, then in the long run, he believed it was worthwhile. If anything, Sandra was the one not willing to push through together. She wanted to sidestep the process, speed things up, even if it meant getting things wrong.
He said as much to her. She listened, stoic except for taking the time to eat. As he went on, she looked out the window and tapped that ruby ring against the glass.
That’s when it hit him.
“You know,” he said, choosing his words like a soldier stepping through a minefield. “I have always respected that you don’t like to talk about your family. I’ve never pushed to meet them, never insisted you invite them to events in our life, nothing. But the way you’ve been going on about my mother, about the house, even about the Sandwich Boys — and especially with the way you’ve acted with that ring — it’s obvious that something deeper is going on. Normally, I’d let that part of your life remain private. I’m not foolish enough to think that just because we’re married means I have to know every last detail of you. But since this is touching my life, and it’s going to start touching PB and J’s lives as well, I think I have right to know.”
As his words hung in the air, the sweet odor of the wine mixed with the greasy aroma of the burgers and fries, and the bizarre blend threatened to turn Max’s stomach. But, of course, he knew better. The smell sickened him only because Sandra’s continued silence shifted the earth beneath him. The car felt like it spun slowly, perceptible only out of the corner of his eye, yet if he closed his eyes, everything would spin faster. Perhaps he had drunk more wine than he realized.
As his thoughts threatened to spiral, Sandra finally said, “Your detective instincts are getting better and better.” She reached over and took his hand. It was warm and smooth. He forgot how wonderful it felt to entwine his fingers with hers.
She opened her free hand in front of her face and stared at the ruby ring. In the dark of the car, it looked like a legless beetle — all dark shell. When she let her hand drop into her lap, Max swore he heard a hard click like something striking that shell. Sandra sniffled.
With a shaking breath, she said, “I grew up with an unreliable family. I’ve told you about my father — that he wasn’t really there. But it was more like he was there, then he was gone, then he was there, then he was gone. I never knew when to expect him to be around because there was never any regularity to any of it.”
“And your mother drank, right?”
She nodded. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I was never abused or messed with. Not physically anyway. Mostly, I felt like a piece of furniture.”
“This is all the stuff you told me since we first started getting serious.”
“Give me a chance to warm up to this. It’s not easy for me.”
Not wanting to make things more uncomfortable, Max stayed silent. He took a bite of his burger for something to do.
Sandra closed her eyes and sighed. When she opened them, her gaze drifted into the years past. “I know I’ve told you a little about my parents before, but it’s only been in broad strokes. And the big thing that happened in my life back then, also something I’ve told you about, was my brother’s accident. He was a teenager in a car with a bunch of other teenagers and they had been drinking. Before that, my mother drank for two reasons — she was miserable with the way my father treated us and she wanted to quiet the things she saw. The ghosts. At least, that’s what I think — I had to get my ability to see ghosts from somewhere.”
“You’ve told me she —”
“I know. And all of that was true. But there was another truth. That’s what it’s like living in my kind of family. There’s a surface layer of the family, and then there are all these other shadowy layers underneath. It’s part of why I don’t like talking about them. It’s very confusing and hard to explain. And after Cameron came back from the hospital, it only got worse. He needed constant care. Even after he could take care of himself, he needed therapy and medicine and the cost was crazy. The family fell apart. My father would disappear for longer periods of time, and my mother would be sober for less. I started having to take care of myself. It was more of those layers. I’d go to school. I’d join sports and activities and acted like a normal kid. But then I’d go home, and I would have to be my own parent. A family of one living with these other people who may have been their own family. I don’t know.”
She kept a tight grip on Max’s hand, and he took that as a good sign. She grew still for a moment. The shushing of cars drifting by met with a soft patter of rain drops against the roof of the car. Max hadn’t noticed when the rain began, but puddles had already formed in the parking lot.
“My mother lost her job.” Sandra gazed down at the ruby ring. “I don’t know how she found the money to drink more and more, but she did. I don’t like to think about that too often. Eventually, my father stopped showing up at all. I was old enough to know that things were looking bad but not old enough to know what to do about it. I didn’t tell anybody. The teachers and the administration — they were the enemy. All they were going to do was call social services. Looking back, that might not have been a bad thing, but at the time, no way. Not for me.
“So, I started pawning things. Little by little, everything in the house started getting sold. I’d hide the money so that my mom wouldn’t use it for more booze. A few times, we got a letter from my dad with a check inside. I’d forge my mom’s signature and that would keep us going for a while. My brother wasted away right next to her. They were both miserable, but at least they had each other. I had nobody. By the time I graduated high school and managed to snag a few scholarships and loans for college, there was nothing left to pawn. Except this ring.
“Last time I saw my mom, she was passed out on the couch as I left for freshman orientation. I kept the ring, obviously. It’s been in my mess of a jewelry box for years. I never wanted to look at it, never wanted to get rid of it, never wanted to wear it.”
“Until now.”
“Part of the reason I didn’t want kids was that I didn’t want to do any of this kind of crap to them. It’s not right to give a kid a strong family and then cut it out from underneath.”
“But you’re the one who pushed to become the Sandwich Boys’ guardians.”
“With the boys, I see it different. I figure anything we offer them is a huge step up from living on the streets. But now —”
Max saw the shimmering in her eyes, and his chest tightened. “Honey, we are not your parents. We’re not my parents, either. You thinking about these things means that you won’t make the same mistakes. You’re aware of them, and you’re actively working against being like that.”
“I know. I do. At least, I know it in my head.” She patted her chest. “But here — it’s a lot harder to believe.”
Taking both her hands in his, Max said, “That is why you have me. That’s why being married means we do these things together.”
Wiping her fingers under her eyes, she sniffed. “Now you know. I should have told you a long time ago. I’m sorry.” She shuddered. “I don’t want to start thinking about it all over again. You talk now. You have a side to this, too. Why don’t you tell me about how it’s been for you? I’m sure your mom’s driving you crazy with all of her Little Max stuff.”
Max grunted. “It’s not too bad.”
Sandra shoved his shoulder and laughed. “I see the way you cringe every time she starts in. Oh, when Max was little, oh little Max, oh, oh, oh.”
Max joined in the laughter. “I’ll tell you this — I won’t miss any of that at all once we move out.”
“What else?”
“Other than not hearing my mother embarrassing me? Well, I guess I just need to get laid.”
They both stared at each other and broke into raucous laughter. It continued to the point of starting to hurt Max’s chest as he gasped for air.
“Well,” Sandra said, at length, “come on over here, big boy. Momma wants some action to.”
“No, no. Don’t ever do that Momma stuff.”
“What? Would you prefer Little Max?”
“Are you trying to kill the mood?”
Before Sandra could come up with another ridiculous name, Max pressed his mouth against hers. She giggled as she kissed him back. It had been ages since they made out in the backseat of a car, and while Max would have preferred the luxury of a bed or a couch or any comfortable surface, they were not in a position to be choosy.
