Max shrugged, eyes darting from one customer to another. “Can’t believe I used to do my homework here. Even back when I was in high school.”
The mention of it brought Rawlins back to the first moment he saw his son in person.
They were only a few feet away from the table where the boy had been sitting. His face, even at fifteen years old, had been serious and withdrawn—but there had been a light in his eyes then, a gleam of excitement and curiosity.
The memory made Rawlins realize he’d been hoping that youthful light would return to Max’s eyes once he was out of prison. Perhapseventually it would; the boy had only been out for a couple weeks, and no doubt it took time for the mind to readjust. But at present, the eyes across the table were like smoldering embers, dark and simmering with rage.
“How are you adapting so far?” Rawlins asked.
Max gave a heavy sigh. “Fine, I suppose. Nice to wake up when I feel like it. Eat some real food for a change.”
“Have you been back to Paratha yet?” Rawlins asked, referencing a nearby Indian restaurant they had both loved. When Max would linger after office hours, Rawlins often ordered it in for the two of them. They ate at his desk, dissecting Max’s essays together line by line.
Max brightened slightly, and the ghost of a smile danced at the edge of his lip. “First meal home, I got takeout. But my tolerance for spice is gone completely.”
“You’ll have to work your way back up,” Rawlins told him. “That vindaloo doesn’t mess around.” It was too jovial; he felt it as soon as the words left his mouth.
Max fixed him with an incisive gaze, suspicion clouding his expression. “Why did you want to see me?”
“Well…I’ve missed you,” Rawlins answered, afraid to jump directly to the heart of the conversation. “I’m glad you’re out, and now that you’ve been granted parole, I just thought you might…”
“What—resume my education?”
Rawlins looked away; he knew that Max’s parole terms included a prohibition on practicing arcane mechanicals in any form. “What am I supposed to do now anyway?” Max continued. “You think anyone wants to hire me? You think anyone wants to be my friend, or have anything to do with me at all?”
“I do,” Rawlins said softly. “I care about you. Really.”
Max shook his head, clearly unwilling to believe this. “I hear you had a word with Greywall.”
Rawlins tilted his head evasively. “I’m not sure I made much of a difference. Just tried to remind him of the context around the case. The fact that you never had a fair shot to begin with.” Max rolled his eyes at that, and Rawlins added, “Hopefully there’s a shift under way in terms of how people view arcane mechanicals. You might’ve been sentenced at peak witch hunt, and now attitudes are softening a bit.”
Max leaned in, elbows resting on the table, causing it to wobble. “But why doyoucare so much about my case? Is that some validation for you? A benefit to your reputation, if I’m not seen as such a monster anymore?” He gestured toward Rawlins in his well-fitted jacket, and the cozy campus surrounding them. “You seem to be doing fine.”
Rawlins swallowed hard. If he was ever going to tell the truth, this was the moment. He had an impulse to reach across the table and take the boy’s hand when he delivered the news, but knew that Max would recoil. So he merely matched the boy’s posture, leaning forward as he searched for the words. “Listen, there’s something that I want to tell you. That will be strange to hear, but…I hope that you’ll understand.” Max’s gaze tightened, as if bracing for impact. “Max, I’m actually…I’m your father.”
The boy’s expression betrayed nothing. He leaned back, creating some distance, and shook his head slowly in disbelief.
Rawlins barreled on, attempting to convey the whole story as succinctly as possible. The affair. The pregnancy. The secret. Years and years of keeping the secret.
When he was finished, Max’s mouth formed an O as he let out a long exhale, his expression still betraying no clear emotion. “So…let me make sure I’ve got it. You slept with my mother twenty-six years ago.”
“Yes.”
“And you two let me believe, for my entire life, that my dad…thatBenwas my real father,” Max said matter-of-factly.
“I had no choice,” Rawlins insisted. “Your mother was explicit.”
“And you kept this secret. Fordecades.” Max’s volume remained even, but anger crept into the low register of his voice. “Even when you met me. Even when we spent hours together, day after day. When you became my fuckingmentor,you didn’t think to tell me then?”
“I wanted to,” Rawlins said, emotion starting to crack in his throat. “Every one of those lessons we had, those conversations that went on for hours…it was on the tip of my tongue. But I convinced myself that the only relationship I could have with you was as your teacher. That that was the closest I’d ever get to being a father. I tried to give you what I could. Encouragement. Education. Maybe even a little…wisdom?”
Max let out a bark of laughter at that, and Rawlins chuckled at himself, trying to lighten the mood as he conceded, “Okay, maybe I didn’t have much of that to offer, but…I tried.”
“Youtried…” Max said, holding the word on his tongue like a bitter berry.
“I wanted to tell you,” Rawlins said. “But Maggie—your mother—she was adamant that it would only make things worse. For you. For everyone.”
“Oh, of course,” Max said. “Interesting, isn’t it? How the thing that was best for me…was the one that meant no consequences for you.”
