Page 78 of Into the Fire

“I didn’t know the reception was today. I was coming to…” Max paused. He’d sensed why he was coming but hadn’t considered it head-on. It sounded so foolish now.

Through the open gate, he could see clutches of people around the infinity pool. Tealights floated in the aqua water on origami rafts, and paper lanterns had been strung along the pergola. Elegantly dressed women sipped chardonnay from voluminous wineglasses probably suited to the varietal. A string quartet fronted a bank of roses by the greenhouse, trickling notes across the yard with muted reverence.

It was all so ridiculous. Not the reception, but Max’s being here beholding it.

And then he spotted Michelle. She was sitting on the back end of the diving board, her dress shoes off, rubbing her feet. They got sore when you were pregnant—he remembered that from Violet. It took a toll, making a human.

Seeing his niece sitting quietly amid all the movement, Max felt a stab of pride in knowing that he had kept her safe. He had kept them all safe, and there was a private kind of honor in that.

He looked back at his father, the answer suddenly clear. “I came to tell them.”

Terry’s eyebrows hoisted. They were fuller than Max remembered, a few rebellious strands twisting out. His father’s rugged, handsome face was just starting to transform into that of an old man. Max felt the awareness like a fresh cut. The years were pouring through his fingers, and he couldn’t do anything but watch.

“Tell who?” Terry said.

“I don’t know. Jill, the cousins, Nona.” You.

“Tell them what?”

“That what happened to Grant wasn’t my fault,” Max said. “That he pulled me into the mess, not vice versa, and I kept it away from the family to protect you. All of you. And I did. I protected them.”

“How?”

Max looked through the gate again, saw his grandmother sitting on a cushioned deck chair in a dour funeral dress, various grandkids playing at her elbow. The purse in her lap looked like a bowling bag. Life in ordinary motion.

Max shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Grant’s business?” Terry said. “The stuff he uncovered that got him killed? You cleaned it up?”

“With a lotta help. But yeah.”

Terry looked into the backyard. “And you were gonna tell the family. But?”

“I don’t want to now.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Max started to walk back to the taxi, his dirty shoes crunching on the designer wood chips.

“Son?”

Max turned.

Terry tugged at his mouth. “I’m proud of you.”

Max swallowed and then swallowed again, something simmering inside him, rising to the brink, threatening to spill. “I don’t need you to be proud of me now.”

Quickening his pace, he weaved through the juniper cones, stepping onto the front walk.

And coming face-to-face with Violet.

She wore a black dress with long sleeves—always long sleeves—and she looked a bit wobbly in wedge heels. Her mouth was ajar, her eyes flared with surprise, and Max thought if she came at him hard after his run-in with his dad that he might just come apart altogether.

“Max.” She stepped back, away. “I … I guess you have more of a right to be here than I do.”

“I suppose that’s one perspective.”

“Oh. You weren’t…” She couldn’t quite get out the word “invited.”