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I nod, not wanting to get into that conversation right now.
“Oh! Dylan drove a tank. I know I was dreaming about that.”
“Nope, Lee had a tank, and he let Dylan pressall the fun buttonsin it. Trust me, you’re going to wish you were unconscious again, because it’s all Dylan talks about.”
“Hada tank? What does that mean?” he asks, before letting me hold a glass of water up to his lips.
“It fell in the river when Tyton blew up the bridge.” I tell him. “Trust me, you’re going to be firing on all cylinders before you hear that whole story.”
“Okay, well, I definitely dreamed the next thing,” Russ says, letting out a little laugh. “Elsbeth and Lee were kissing.”
“Wow, that one was a doozy,” I evasively answer him, biting down on my smile. I’ll just let him experience that bit of weirdness all on his own. “Now, what do you say to a sponge bath, and maybe if you think you’re up to it, you can sit in the living room for a little while?”
Thankfully, Aiden, Dylan, and Javier had made a trip to Elsbeth’s house to bring back one of her sofas and more of the bins of clothes and bedding she had never discarded. I let out a sigh, while I had always considered both sets of my grandparents’ packrats—at best—with so many people here, we definitely needed everything we could get our hands on.
Russ stays awake long enough to eat dinner in the living room, but quickly afterwards he signals to Max, asking him for help getting back to my grandpa’s room where I tuck him in for the night.
Max and I are on watch this evening, and like the rest of my family, I’m always thrilled to get some time alone with him.
“Russ says you threatened his life?” I ask as we start down to the gate to relieve Eddie and Javier.
“He must have misunderstood,” Max replies, his shit-eating grin and wink saying otherwise. “I think I mentioned working with him on his aim, since he’s not that experienced with weapons.”
“Uh-huh.” I swing my shoulder into his arm to let him know that I’m not buying what he’s selling.
Once we’re alone again and tucked into our spots near the gate, he reaches his arm out to pull me closer to his side.
“I missed a lot of time with you and Dylan, which means I don’t have the right to come back and tell you that—on the surface—your boyfriend scares the fuck out of me. Lee and Dad have great things to say about him, so yes, I won’t stand for you to be hurt, not like your mom was all those years ago.”
“That wasn’t your fault, Uncle Max,” I tell him quietly.
“You can say that. She has said it many times, but I’ll always carry the weight of it with me, Jelly Bean.” And I can truly hear his guilt laced into his words. “You cried at his funeral.”
“I was crying for Grandma. Dylan was standing there, his anger just rolling off of him in waves and I looked over at her to see if she had noticed,” I tell him things from my perspective, pausing when my breath catches. “And she had the same look on her face she does when she’s trying to figure out how to make our daily food rations stretch out. She’s the kindest person I’ve ever known, and I was just so upset that he pushed her to the point of not caring that we were about to cremate her only child.”
“And?” he asks, securing his other arm around me.
With that simple word, my floodgates open and I cry like I haven’t since I was a little girl alone in my room. All the pain from the years that Dad couldn’t be bothered to visit us, to pick up our calls, or even send a birthday card, well up out of me and for once it’s not accompanied by anger. As I sob, my throat aches as if I’ve been screaming for hours and I give voice to the questions I never had the strength to ask Mom.
“Why couldn’t he love us? What was so wrong with us…”
“Him, Jelly Bean. There was something wrong within him, never you, nor Dylan, nor your mom,” Max says, his voice firm and strong. “We won’t ever have an answer for it, but you can’t let his failings define you.”
“Since I’ve been with Russ,” I confess one of my secrets to him. “I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like a ‘before and after’ pie chart. There’s less anger inside of me, and more happiness.”
Max lets out a sigh, ignoring it when I wipe my nose on his sleeve before snuggling deeper into his hug. He shifts to the side and pulls out his walkie talkie.
“Banks,” he says, but I can plainly see he hasn’t pressed the button on the side. “Don’t smother him with a pillow. Repeat. Do not smother Russ with a pillow.”
“You’re not as funny as you think, Uncle Max,” I tell him, laughing despite myself.
“Why do people keep saying that?” he sounds mystified, giving me a light noogie through my hood.
“You’re going to leave again, aren’t you?” I ask him after a few minutes.
“I promised Banks I’d get her home,” he tells me. “With her ankle we figure it’ll be a month before she can travel.”
“Since you promised her you’d get her home, I understand. But you need to promise me you’ll come back to us.”
Max kisses my forehead before pulling back and smiling down at me. “I promise, Jelly Bean. I promise.”
“And you have to promise to stop calling me that,” I say, even though I would hate it if he did.
“Nope.”
