“I shouldn’t,” Max finally managed.
“Look, Max... It is Max, isn’t it?”
Max nodded.
“Is that short for Maxine?”
“I don’t think so.”
The woman’s smile lessened but did not disappear, and she still held that door open. “Look... Max. Lucy’s told me you have nowhere else to go, and that the people you were staying with before will hurt you if they find you. Is that right?”
Another nod.
“Then you need a new place to live, don’t you?”
Max looked down the street as if the answer might be there somewhere; but why would these almost identical houses hold any better answer than this one?
Finally, Max nodded a third time.
“Then... would you like to stay with us?”
She shrugged. She didn’t know how to respond to that.
“Well, come in, dear... have some food, and we’ll talk. Work it out.”
Max looked the other way, up the street, and found no potentially better answers in that direction, either. Haltingly, she took a step toward the house. With the screen door open, she could smell the aroma of roast beef as it wafted through the home, curling its finger invitingly...
The desire for a real meal overcame her misgivings and Max strode into the house.
The living room was small. Though bigger than Hannah’s, this one was less immediately inviting. The smell of old cigarettes hung in the air; the source seemed to be a worn-looking overstuffed chair to her left, which had a couple of empty beer cans sitting on a table next to it, no doubt adding to the stale odor of the room.
Still, the aroma of the beef beckoned, overcoming the tobacco odor, and Max followed Lucy’s mom into a small dining room to a wooden table with four matching chairs. Though the food looked the same as what she’d received at Manticore, it smelled much better: roast beef, carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy, and fresh-baked biscuits.
Lucy, looking guilty and perhaps apprehensive, sat on the far side of the table, and her mom moved toward the far end, pulling out the near-side chair for Max as she went by.
“Lucy’s dad won’t be here for dinner tonight,” the mom said. “He’s working — he’s a truck driver.”
Max nodded. She wondered if that meant he was like the man whose truck she’d hidden in.
“He’ll be home tomorrow. Do you like roast beef, Max?”
Swallowing saliva, Max said, “Yes, very much.”
“Well, dig in. Lucy, give her a hand... Plenty to go ’round.”
Piling her plate high, Max dived in and thought that she’d never eaten anything that tasted this good.
“So, dear — were you born in Casper?”
Max turned toward the mom. “Casper?”
“You know — the town where you met Lucy?”
“No, I wasn’t born there.” She said this with assurance, though inside herself, Max had doubts: since she’d known nothing of mothers and births before yesterday, who could say?
“Judging by what Lucy says,” the mom said, “and from that smock you’re wearing, you escaped from an institution... an orphanage?”
“What’s an... orphanage?”
“A place, dear, where children without parents live.”
“Yes. Yes, it was an orphanage.”
“And they were cruel there, dear?”
“Oh yes.”
Lucy’s mom moved her food around on her plate with a fork, but didn’t eat anything; her eyes were damp, and moving side to side, in thought.
Then the mom said, “We tried to get a nice girl like you, through... official sources. But they wouldn’t let us. My husband... has a drinking problem. I guess you have a right to know that.”
Why would anyone have trouble drinking?
Then the mom blurted, “Would you like to stay with us?”
Still chewing, Max just looked at her.
“You and Lucy could be like sisters.”
Max glanced over at Lucy who was nodding emphatically, a wide smile on her face.
“We can’t have any more children, Lucy’s dad and I, and God knows, we could use another hand around here.”
Max held the woman’s gaze. “Would anyone have to know?”
The mom’s eyes flared. “No! They couldn’t know, dear... or you’d be taken back to where you ran from.”
Max shook her head, violently. “I wouldn’t want that.”
“You’re my late cousin’s Beth’s girl.”
“I am?”
The mom smiled. “You are now... We’re your foster family. Will you stay with us, Max?”
Knowing what the woman wanted, Max slowly nodded. Then and there, just that easily, she had a new home.
Lucy spoke for the first time since they’d sat down. “Will it be all right with Dad?”
“I’ll convince him. Don’t you girls worry. He can be... difficult... but he’ll know what this means to me. And as long as Max is willing to work around here... you are, aren’t you Max?”
Max nodded.
“Well, then, we won’t have any trouble. In the meantime, I’m going to see to it you get plenty to eat, and then we’ll get you some new clothes.”
Glancing down at her soiled nightshirt, Max knew that wasn’t a bad idea.
The mom beamed at her. “Now, you make sure you leave room for pie — it’s lemon meringue.”
Max had never had this exotic dish before, and it was incredibly, deliriously delicious.
The next night, Max found out what a dad was, and it wasn’t near as good as a mom: a dad (this one anyway) was a burly bully with stringy graying hair, putrid breath, a foul mouth, and a vicious temper. Oh, the dad could be nice, but only when he hadn’t been drinking.
Which wasn’t often (and it didn’t take Max long to learn what a “drinking problem” really was).
After just ten minutes with Jack Barrett, Max knew she’d been wrong thinking Lydecker was mean. Lydecker was only businesslike, cold but not brutal; Lydecker was monstrous — this “dad” was a monster.
That first night, Mr. Barrett had come in the door, brushed past his wife with the greeting, “Get me a beer,” and then he dropped into his recliner, lit up a smoke, and turned his eyes toward Max (in a pink T-shirt and jeans), who stood next to Lucy at the side of his chair. “Who the hell is this?”
Popping the top on his beer, Mrs. Barrett said, “This is Max. Say hello to Mr. Barrett, Max.”
“Hi, Mr. Barrett.”
The dad ignored Max. “What the fuck is that war orphan doing here?”
How could he know she was an orphan? And a soldier?
Rubbing her hands on the front of her apron, Mrs. Barrett said, “Be nice, Jack... She needs a place to stay for a while.”
He turned to glare at Mrs. Barrett. “Another goddamn mouth to feed?”
“Jack, I want this.”
“Joann, I—”
“I put up with a lot, Jack. If you don’t like it, you’ll come home to an empty house — no meals, Jack. No laundry. Even get up and get your own beer.”
He was gazing at her like his wife was on fire. “Don’t get mouthy...”
“You can hit me, Jack... but I’ll go. I’ll leave. I really will this time. You know what this means to me.”
He turned away. Clicked on the TV with his remote and gulped his beer.
Mrs. Barrett turned and walked off in a huff. “Come on, girls.”
“Not so fast!” Mr. Barrett bellowed. He turned to Max again. “You!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well... you’re polite, anyway. Kinda scrawny... maybe you’ll fill out like Lucy, in a year or two... You gonna help around here, earn your keep?”
Max nodded.
“This one,” he jerked a thumb toward his daughter, “don’t do squat, half the time.”