“Okay,” Mindy whispered.
“I want to hear you promise,” he ordered and I watched her fingers clutch his shirt.
She hesitated a heart-stopping second before she said, “I promise, Max.”
He paused too before he replied, “All right, honey.”
He pulled away but caught her face in both of his hands, touched his lips to her forehead, turned then took over for Brody holding me up.
Both my arms slid around his waist and both his arms slid around my back as Brody lifted his shoeless sister into his arms and carried her down the steps and across the gravel to the Subaru. Max and I held onto each other as we watched first Barb and Darren execute a three-point turn and drive down the lane then Brody and Mindy.
I waved just in case Mindy looked back or Brody looked in his rearview mirror. I couldn’t know if they did but I kept waving even after they turned into the road.
Max’s arms gave me a squeeze and I sighed.
“Gettin’ cold, darlin’, gonna snow,” he said and I pressed my cheek to his chest and looked at the view, both my arms again around him. He was right, the clouds were covering the sun and there was a definite chill in the air.
“You okay?” I asked his chest even though I knew the answer.
“No,” he answered honestly.
“I’m so sorry, Max,” I whispered.
“Me too,” he whispered back.
We stood there awhile silently holding onto each other. I was staring at Max’s view and I knew he was too but he was doing it with his cheek against my hair.
It was then I wondered if things would have felt differently if Max had been around when Charlie died, if I’d have had this, maybe not the view, but his strong arms around me, his cheek to my hair, if I’d had him to hold onto.
I figured it wouldn’t have hurt less, losing Charlie, but it would have hurt less, knowing after I did that I wasn’t alone.
And I realized then that losing Charlie was when the loneliness crept in and I had been in such grief, I hadn’t been able to beat it back. So when I met Niles not long after and he’d been kind and in his way attentive, I’d fixed myself to him because with him I was no longer alone.
The problem was, I never stopped being lonely.
Max broke the silence when he asked softly, “This how you feel all the time?”
I tipped my head back to look at him. “I’m sorry?”
“Charlie.”
I closed my eyes then opened them and nodded the truth.
“Honey,” he whispered, his face getting soft, his eyes getting warm but there was something else there, an understanding that rent my heart.
“But you have a different ending, darling. She’s going to be okay,” I promised him.
“Yeah,” he replied, giving me a squeeze.
“Nina’ll freeze to death, you keep her on the porch much longer,” Cotton called and we both turned to see him leaning out the front door. “Anyways, we got pictures to hang, son, get your hind end in here.” Then he pulled back but left the door open.
The moment was broken so I decided it was high time to lighten the mood.
Therefore as we walked, our arms around each other, to the open door, I said, “I think Cotton is trying to singlehandedly increase your gas bill by two hundred percent.”
“Did I say he was a pain in my ass?” Max asked loudly as we moved into the house and Max closed the door.
“I give him my pictures, he calls me a pain in the ass,” Cotton complained to my mother who looked alarmingly like she was cooking and I hoped the mood to concoct was assuaged at breakfast because she’d also been to the grocery store which meant her ingredients could easily have taken a creative therefore alarming turn.