dad shouted from the kitchen.
Sometimes, when Max walked into this kitchen, he was struck with a wave of nostalgia so strong that it made him want to sink to his knees with grief. The space looked exactly as it had when Mom had been alive. There were the pair of roosters that hung next to the fridge—her own handiwork, he thought—needle art, cross-stitch, needlepoint, something like that. She would sit at the kitchen table working on it while she waited for the evening meal to cook.
A plastic green plant that she’d picked up at some flea market was on the windowsill where it had always been. It was covered with dust—no one touched it. A porcelain tea set she’d purchased at a museum in Virginia on a family vacation sat in the middle of the kitchen table. Max could never recall his mother using that tea set. It was as if she was perpetually ready for fancy company that never dropped by.
“Hey, Maxey,” his dad said cheerfully. He was behind the kitchen bar using the vacuum seal to seal muffins in a bag. He loved that thing.
“Dude,” Max said. “Something smells awesome. What is it?”
“Chili,” his dad said proudly. “I have perfected the recipe. It’s taken some years, but you won’t find better in Austin.”
Max walked over to the pot and lifted the lid. Hazel, having already hoovered the floor, trotted past him and headed down the hall toward Jamie’s room. “That’s enough to feed an army, Dad. Are you expecting company?”
“Nope. Sandy is here for a couple of days,” he said, referring to his sister. “She’s lying down in the back.”
Max slid onto a barstool and watched his dad puttering around. His father’s skills in the kitchen had vastly improved since his mother’s death. In the weeks after she died, her friends dropped by frequently, bearing casseroles and cakes, pies and sandwich trays. Good food, stick-to-your-ribs kind of food. This continued for a few weeks without fail until one night a pair of ladies had dropped by. Max couldn’t remember their names now, but they’d stood where Max was sitting now and had howled at some joke his dad had told.
One of the ladies kept stroking Dad’s arm in a manner that could be construed to be comforting, or perhaps something more. Max could remember sitting at the table, curious as to what exactly that caress of the arm meant. He’d been so surprised by it that he hadn’t even thought of Jamie noticing. But Jamie did notice. He’d become so agitated that he had one of his more volcanic episodes. That’s what Dad and Max called them—episodes. It was an inadequate word to describe those rare times that Jamie’s frustration at being unable to communicate his feelings boiled over into a ferocious caw. When that happened, the sounds he made didn’t sound human, and he could get physical, banging his fist on breakable things or throwing them.
Needless to say, his outburst had scared the ladies.
The casseroles and cakes died off after that. Max’s dad had retreated into his new reality, still grieving his wife, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he was the primary caregiver to a grown autistic son.
Max had been living at home at the time, a newly minted professor. The Sheffington family was small, and Max understood that one day, the responsibility for Jamie’s care would fall to him. For that reason, he’d wanted to stay close, to help out his father where he could. But Max’s dad wouldn’t hear of it. “Either you’re going to move out on your own, or I’m going to kick you out,” he’d announced after one of their arguments. “I can handle this,” he’d said. “That’s my son, and I’ll deal with him.” And to Jamie, who didn’t want Max to go, he’d said, “Jamie, Max is entitled to his own life just as you are to yours. I won’t hear any more about it from either of you.”
“How, Dad?” Max had demanded. “How are you going to manage?”
“I’m going to retire, that’s how.”
Max had been alarmed, but his father had refused to listen. “Look here, Max, I don’t need your approval or your acceptance. I’m still your dad, and you will do as I say in my house. You’re a young man and you have your whole life in front of you. I won’t have you wasting it worrying about me and Jamie, got that? Just . . . just get out of here