Page 19

M ax sat parked at the beach, his Jeep facing the ocean, the setting sun casting a mirror of orange and pink ripples across the water. He ran his finger over the screen of his phone, the name under his lightweight touch, a name he hadn't called in over a year. A name familiar to him, but one he never felt right calling out for, not even as a child, not as a teen, and certainly not now as an adult. But he needed answers, and she was the only one who might have them.

He hit call and waited nervously for the unfamiliar voice of his estranged mother to answer. If she didn't pick up, he wouldn't be surprised. If she did pick up, he wouldn't know how to address her, how to act, or how to ask what he needed to know.

“Hello? Max?” she said with hesitation after picking up on what he could only imagine was one of the last rings offered before the inevitable fake voicemail greeting she had recorded would play. In the background of it was the sound of her new family happily laughing and living a life that he didn’t exist in.

“Hi,” he said, because words often failed him, but with his mother, they felt like poison in his mouth, a bitter taste, a souring acid in the depths of his gut.

“We were just on our way to Justine's gymnastics competition. Can I call you back tomorrow?” she asked with ease, as if it hadn’t been a year, a fucking year since they last spoke. A year since she last promised to call him back.

He felt his body shrink into himself like he often did as a young boy. Making himself small. Making himself unseeable, unknowable… non-existent in a world where he wasn't wanted.

“Mom,” he said, the name on his lips felt foreign and forced.

“Max, what is it? Can we rush this along, I have to get to—”

He cut her off. “Justine's gymnastics competition, yeah I heard you the first time.”

“Don’t be rude, Max. Her competition might not be an NHL game, but that doesn't make her accomplishments any less worthy of my time and praise,” she spat, her every word lined with disdain for her redheaded stranger of a son.

Max's heart raced in his chest. His need and want to fight back, to finally have the courage to call her out on her familiar bullshit, rose in his chest. He wanted to tell her his accomplishments had never been praised by her, her new husband, or his new siblings. His accomplishments had only served as a way to keep him far from her happy existence.

But he wasn’t good with words, and with his mom, they were like a million daggers to the heart—but from behind.

“I just have one question and then you can go.”

“Well?” she asked.

“My dad—”

She immediately cut him off. “Nope. Not going there, Max. And out of respect for the man who actually did raise you”— sent you off to billet home after billet home — “I suggest you drop it.”

“I need to know if he had any…” He didn't know how to ask, didn't know how to speak. He felt like a helpless child at her mercy.

“If he had any what?” she asked, and he knew it had nothing to do with her wanting to help him. It had everything to do with her wanting the conversation to be over so she could go back to pretending he didn't exist.

“Did he have any medical issues,” he finally got out.

“I don’t know. He left, Max. He left me and you .”

Taking a deep breath, he mustered all the courage a man terrified of his own mother needed to ask a question he knew would be met with resistance and hate.

“Mom, I need you to tell me who he is.”

He heard her sigh on the other end, one he was not unfamiliar with. It was her signature sigh that said, I don’t have time for this, Max.

“Mom. I need to know who he is,” he pleaded.

“Your father is Nick,” she said cruelly, offering up the name of his stepfather.

“Mom.” He paused, his breathing erratic. “I need to fu-cking know who my fu-cking father is,” he said, breaking up his words to add emphasis to his demands.

“Max Miller,” she snapped.

“Mom,” he pleaded, like he had his whole life, begging for her to give him anything without a fight since he was a young boy.

Mom, can I have a piece of candy?

Mom, can I go on the field trip?

Mom, can I come home for the summer?

Mom, can I have a hug?

“Max?” she held out.

“Please. I need to know if he’s… sick,” he said, not sure how else to try and get her to cave, to care, to let him have something he needed. It was a cry for her to just this once, show him she cared about him more than her pride, more than her ego.

“I can’t do this right now, Max.”

He felt anger rise up from the calm composure he often kept, and before he could settle the rage growing in his chest, he punched the steering wheel of his jeep, his knuckles busting on impact. “Tell me who my father is, or I’ll drive to your house right now and rip every picture from the walls until you answer me. Just answer me. Just once in this lifetime, give me what I want, and not what you think I need. You have never protected me, you have only ever protected your new life without me, and if you think keeping him from me is helping me, it’s the most delusional, selfish shit you have ever pulled as my mother, and you’ve been pretty fucking awful. So, I’ll ask one more time, Mom,” he calmed his voice, “tell me who my father is, please.”

“Are you threatening—” she started.

Max screamed as loud as physically possible, his own eardrums rattling at the roar of his voice, “ Tell me his name, I swear to fucking god woman .”

“Jim,” she said, cutting him off. “Jim Alan Miller. Last I heard he was in Arcadia,” she said in her fake, calm voice. “I hope you're happy with yourself, Max, you just acted exactly like him. A perfect example of why I want nothing to do with you or him ever again.”

“No, Mom. You pushed me to act like this. And honestly, I’m starting to think that his leaving had nothing to do with his character and everything to do with your lack of any.”

“I have to go, Max, Justine has—”

“Yeah, I know, you have family shit to do.”

“Max, one last thing,” she said, her voice low, calm, and unwavering from the emotionless tone she had always managed to use with him.

“What, Mom?” he asked, his voice cracking, raw emotion taking over.

“I never want to speak to you again.”

A solitary drop of blood rolled from his battered knuckle onto the fabric of his jeans at the same time that a single tear rolled down his cheek.

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” he managed.

“I have to go,” she said firmly.

“Yeah, you said that already.”

The line went dead, and his vision blurred.

This time it had nothing to do with his eyes and everything to do with his heart.