October Snow

by Jenna Brooks

  She took a long shower when she got back to the apartment, and spent extra time putting on makeup and styling her hair. She posed in the mirror, pleased with the fact that she looked far younger than her years; then, she made a face at herself and turned away, recalling Shelly’s preening in her car that night at Barley’s.

  It was almost nine o’clock, and she hadn’t seen Max yet. She grabbed her phone to call, and there was a text there from the night before. It was from John:

  We’ll be there at 6 tmrow nite

  “That’s right,” she mumbled.

  It seemed odd, that they both wanted to see her that way: the three of them hadn’t been in the same room since Christmas; and then, for only a couple of hours before they had made their excuses to leave.

  The boys never got together on their own, just the two of them. John had gone reckless, almost thuggish, for a couple of years after he bolted from the house. Matt had gone as far as possible in the other direction until he, too, left home, and then he seemed to be challenging John for the bad-boy title. He went there only briefly, though, until he saw that it would likely cost him his college degree if he didn’t get back on track. For a while, he lived in the apartment building next door to John, obviously trying to regain the closeness they had once shared. One of the only things that Jo had a hard time forgiving John for was the way he consistently, cruelly rejected any attempt by his little brother to be a part of his life. He had moved on to other people, and to a different way of living, and he left Matt behind to mourn the losses that John himself didn’t have the guts to face.

  Jo was sure he had assumed that she and Matt would stay close. They hadn’t, because Matt blamed her for the pain he felt; as a result, she had wound up alone–and that was one of the only things she had trouble forgiving Matt for.

  She closed her phone, forgetting about Max for a moment, deciding not to answer John’s text since it had come in twelve hours earlier. A more honest reason, had she thought about it, was that with all of the times she’d had no idea where one–or both–of her sons were, and how they cared nothing about that fact, she simply didn’t want to respond.

  The even deeper truth was that she felt the slightest movement inside of her. Something painful, something like hope–but she quelled it fast, too quickly to allow it change her perspective.

  Daisy was sniffing and pawing at the door.

  “Maxine out there, Daize?” The door opened then, just a few inches, and a dog biscuit appeared. Daisy grabbed it and trotted off to the bedroom.

  “Morning, hon.” Sam gave her a quick hug as Max went past her, straight for the coffeemaker.

  “Good morning, Bim,” Jo said, her hands on her hips.

  Max grunted, “Coffee first.” She stood at the counter, her hands around her mug, drinking deeply. “Oh, good coffee…”

  Jo took her usual chair at the table. “Having any, Sammy?”

  She took Max’s chair, propping her legs across the corner of the table, crossing her ankles. “Nah. I don’t know. Oh, just a half-cup, maybe.” Max was already setting a filled cup in front of her. She picked it back up and chugged half of it before she set it down again.

  “Sammy’s all dolled up today, Jo, didja notice?” Max was pulling her cigarettes out of her pocket.

  “I did. You look great.” She got up to put the exhaust fan in the window. “What’s up with that?”

  “I’m going to Boston today. Going to talk to Dave.”

  “Picking up Tyler, or leaving him there?”

  Sam didn’t seem as upset as Jo would have expected as she answered, “Leaving him there. For the summer, probably–Dave’s parents will be there from mid-June until the end of July. It’ll be a nice time for him. And I need to get away.”

  Jo frowned. “A whole summer without Tyler? Really?”

  Sam swung her legs down, resting her arms on the table and leaning toward her. “I wanted to ask you if it would be okay for them–just Dave and Tyler, I mean–to come up to the beach house a couple times.”

  Max looked doubtful. “How trustworthy is Dave?”

  “Yeah, Sammy, the idea is that we’re going to disappear for a while.”

  “Girls, this is Dave, remember?”

  “Okay, he’s trustworthy. But will he be smart enough not to mention where we went?”

  Sam raised her eyebrows, offended. “Yes.”

  “Okay.” Max sounded unconvinced as she pulled the stool from its place at the kitchen counter, sitting beside her. “Not trying to insult him, just want to be sure Jack can’t find you for a while. Is that what you were setting up on the phone last night?” She grinned at Jo. “She was on the phone with Dave for over two hours.”

  “Yup.” She looked down, circling the rim of her cup with her finger. “It was good to talk to him. We had a really nice conversation. Oh, here you go.” She typed a quick text to each of them. “Changed my number yesterday. Jack was blowing up my phone.”

  Max and Jo exchanged a look, then Jo asked, “How much does Dave know?”

  “Just that I’m definitely leaving Jack, but not too much about why. I don’t think he’s ready for that yet.”

  “What about the last few weeks of Tyler’s school?”

  “Dave said not to worry about it, he’d take care of things down there. Something about a work-study something-or-other. No one from the school district wants to mess with Dave Delaney, anyway. It’ll be fine.” She sighed. “Nice to turn things over to someone else, you know?”

  “Especially when that someone is a lawyer.” Max got up to refill the cups. “You need to get going soon, Sammy.”

  “I know. Right now, actually. I told him I’d be there before eleven.” She smiled demurely at Jo. “We’re going to brunch together again, the three of us.”

  “So he doesn’t know what Jack’s been doing?”

  “With Dave’s temper? No. I’m just giving him the outline.”

  “Did you tell him you’re pregnant?”

  Max whistled softly. “Yup, well, that’s the question, huh?” She looked at Sam, who was examining her cup again. “Didn’t think so.”

  “I’m going to tell him later.”

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Jo said softly.

  “I agree with that,” Max said, “and I’m not saying she should tell him now–I’m just wondering…Well, as long as ‘blunt’is going on here, why is it an issue between you and Dave? Why not just blurt it out?”

  Jo gave her an annoyed look.

  “C’mon. Don’t look at me that way, especially when you asked the big question, and you’re thinking the same thing.”

  Jo shrugged. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Oh, please.” Sam picked up her phone. “You guys know why.” She stood, sliding her purse onto her shoulder. “Gotta get going.”

  Jo nodded. “I know. Call later?”

  “Yup.”

  “Careful driving.”

  “Yes, mother.”

  Max stood up, holding her arms out. “C’mere, sweetie.” She gave her a quick hug. “Have fun. Give Dave our best.”

  Sam laughed. “Give him ‘our best’? You sound like my mother now.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Hey, that’s payback for being so nosy.”

  Max opened the door for her. “Git.”

  “Later.” She blew a kiss to Jo as Max closed the door.

  Jo was frowning, confused.

  “What?” Max asked.

  “Wasn’t she supposed to work a ten-to-eight shift today?”

  Jack strode into the restaurant, through the kitchen, and straight into Barb’s office.

  She looked up from her computer, surprised. “What are you doing…?”

  He shut the door carefully, pulling out the swivel chair across from her, sitting forward with his forearms on top of his thighs. He made obvious his struggle to remain calm as he asked, “Okay, where’s Samantha?”

  Barb closed her laptop, where she had been trying to redo the schedule. �
�At this moment? I have no idea.” She sighed, fully exasperated with both Sam and her idiot husband, and she hoped her expression was relaying that fact to him.

  “Do you have her new phone number?”

  She didn’t know that Sam had changed it, but it gave her pleasure to taunt him. “She hasn’t given it to you? Then I would assume she doesn’t want you to have it.” She leaned back in her chair. The little punk had some nerve, she decided.

  He jumped up, kicking a box of invoices that sat beside the semi-circular desk, his boot ripping a jagged hole in the side.

  She didn’t react, except to calmly ask, “Do you have an issue, Jack?”

  “Yeah, I have an issue. I can’t find Samantha. She isn’t here, she isn’t at her buddies’ apartment, and now I can’t even call her.”

  Barb was enjoying the show, watching him with amusement as she said, “She called me at eight o’clock this morning, and she quit.”

  He leaned on the desk, resting his weight on his balled fists, his face only a few inches from Barb’s.

  “She quit?” he snarled through his clenched teeth. “She quit?”

  She rolled back a bit in her desk chair, pressing the security button under the shelf where the computer rested. Then she stood, leaning on her desk in the same manner as he, very much enjoying the moment. His attitude, which she knew was designed to intimidate, didn’t work on women like Barb–except to enrage her, and she thought about how this guy had so picked the wrong woman to try to threaten.

  “Get out.”

  He was taken aback, but only for a second. He blinked a few times, regrouping. “Where is she?” he demanded, scanning her desk, then the bookcase behind it. “You have her number here somewhere.”

  “You,” she pointed into his face, “get your ass out of my office!” She came around the desk to open the door.

  He pushed roughly past her to the other side of the desk, grabbing a large, black binder marked Personnel from the bookcase.

  Barb reached over his back, yanking at the book; Jack turned and shoved her hard. As her back hit the door, she felt her vision go red. “Thank you,” she hissed, pushing the sleeves of her sweater over her elbows. “Now it’s self-defense, you bastard.”

  He ignored her, his back to her as he rifled the pages of the binder. She entwined her fingers in his hair, pulling as hard as she could.

  He yelped, and she chuckled at the sound as she pulled him backward. He fell over the box he had just kicked, landing flat on his back.

  As he rolled over, moaning in pain, she grabbed a handful of the hair at the back of his neck again, pulling him to his feet. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Amy and two of the cooks running through the kitchen to the office, but she wanted to quickly do just a little more damage.

  She was still hanging on to the hair on the back of his head, and she bent slightly to hiss, “I got my ass beat for fourteen years by someone twice your size, you pathetic runt.” She shoved him out the office door, placing her foot in front of his ankles as she did so. He tripped as he exited, falling to his knees in front of Amy.

  “I want him arrested,” Barb said. “He attacked me.” She straightened her skirt, resisting the urge to kick him. “I pressed the panic button–cops should be here any minute.” As she stepped over him, the heel of her brown stiletto punctured the back of his hand.

  “Okay, Bim, we need to get some packing done.”

  Max yawned, stretching towards the ceiling as she stood, looking regretfully at her empty mug. “I guess.” She followed Jo to the bedroom. “Did you know Sammy snores?”

  Jo answered from inside her closet. “Uh, no. We’ve never slept together.”

  “Want me to pass her a note for you?”

  Jo leaned out and gave her a wry smile. “Sure. I’m hoping to date her one day.” She tossed a blue duffel bag to her. “Need this?”

  “Yeah. Thanks. I’ve got nothing to put shampoo and stuff in.”

  “I’m thinking we’ll take off next Monday?”

  Max wrinkled her nose. “Eight days? You really need that much time?”

  “Well, we have the hearing for the OP…”

  “That’ll be done by lunch tomorrow.”

  “And I need to pack for a couple days, then get to the bank and reorganize a few things. See my lawyer…I won’t be ready until Thursday, at the earliest. And next Sunday’s Mother’s Day.”

  “Oh.” She looked down, examining the bag. “That’s right.”

  “May as well leave after that.”

  Max was silent. Jo poked her head back out of the closet. “We good?”

  “Yeah,” Max mumbled, still busily checking the duffel bag, not looking at her.

  “Max? Something wrong?”

  She looked up then, with the disoriented expression of someone caught deep in thought. “No. No, all’s well.” She smiled. “I’m gonna go downstairs and get busy.”

  “Want to go for brunch in an hour or so?”

  “Yeah. That’ll be good. Come grab me on your way out.”

  “Okay.”

  She wanted to ask again, but Max held up her hand. “See you in an hour,” she said.

  She bit the inside of her cheek until she made it into her apartment; then, she leaned her back against the door, and she began to cry.

  Sam pulled into the space that Dave had reserved for her, having moved his car from his assigned slot to the street.

  She was, at that moment, happier than she could remember being. It had been a reckless thing to do, quitting The Crate that way, but she was thrilled with having made what others would view as a truly rash decision. Spending the better part of nine years trying to be perfect, as if she had amends to make to her mother, was enough: having Tyler out of wedlock was not a mortal sin, and she was tired of doing penance. Besides, she was committed to going to that beach house with the girls, one way or another–no way would she and her baby be spending a long, hot summer playing sitting duck for Jack Seever.

  She smirked as she wondered what her mother would think when she found out that she and Jack had never eloped, hadn’t actually married–and here she was, pregnant again. She imagined herself telling her. “Well, Mom, you kept lecturing me that he was so brilliant, knew what was best for me, was the perfect match for me–how could I argue when he said we didn’t need a meaningless piece of paper?” She wondered briefly what the girls would say, then set the thought aside. This was a good day, the first in a long time.

  She walked quickly around the corner to the front of the brownstone townhouse, breaking into a smile as she saw Dave and Tyler sitting on the front steps. Tyler, eight years old, was a small mirror-image of his father: curly, dark brown hair, crooked grin, deep blue eyes. Looking at the two of them together, Sam thought her heart would break. It was the most natural thing in the world, Tyler and his dad.

  “Hey!” she called, faintly, her throat tight. She waved, and they looked up at the same time.

  “Mom!” Tyler came running down the steps, almost tumbling down the last few in his hurry to get to her. Sam crouched to hug him, and he threw himself into her arms. He was a strong, solid boy, and the impact almost sent the two of them falling over each other.

  She buried her face in the tangle of his hair as she lifted him up, inhaling deeply. “Baby,” she moaned. “Oh my gosh, I missed you.”

  Dave was beside them. “Hey,” he said, bending to give her a peck on the cheek.

  “Hi, Dave.”

  “Mom!” Tyler was almost bursting with excitement, wriggling from her arms. “Guess what?”

  She gave Dave a brief, amused look. “What?” she asked playfully.

  “Dad went to Fenway today and he got us baseball tickets!”

  “He did?”

  He nodded hard, talking so fast it was hard to understand him. “And he says, Dad says, if you says it’s okay then we can go to the Yankees game! The Yankees game! Mom!” He was holding his hands palms-up, earnestly trying to convey the importance of the
situation.

  Sam was laughing in delight at her little boy’s excitement. “My goodness, Tyler, that’s just wonderful. Of course you can go.”

  “Yes!” he shrieked, hugging her around the waist.

  “Hey, don’t break your mom,” Dave said, tousling his hair.

  “When’s the game?”

  “Next Sunday!” Tyler was jumping up and down, hitting the palm of his hand with his fist. “Yes!”

  Sam looked up at Dave, confused and a little upset. “Next Sunday?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. He reached into his back pocket, fanning out three tickets. “We thought maybe we could all spend Mother’s Day together.”

  “Oh.” She stared at the tickets. “Dave, I…” she faltered.

  “…would love to?” he finished for her.

  “Dad says maybe you’d want to just stay the whole week here, and we’ll go everywhere and do all sorts of stuff…Like…What’ll we do, Dad? I forgot.” He looked up at his father, who was still watching Sam.

  “What do you think, Sammy?”

  “Well, how can I possibly say no?” She glanced pointedly at Tyler, then back at Dave.

  “I thought of that. No pressure. If you don’t want to, I can exchange these tickets with a guy at the office for the Saturday afternoon game, and have Tyler back to you by Saturday night.”

  “Mom, please…” His little hands were clasped together under his chin.

  “I…gosh, guys, I didn’t even bring a toothbrush…”

  “Then we’ll just go get you what you need. Maybe some things that you don’t need. I have lots of room here–we can have a Mother’s Day week.”

  She saw that he was actually nervous, waiting for her answer, and she couldn’t help but smile.

  “Is that a ‘yes’?”

  She nodded. “Let me call the girls.”

  It was unusual, that Maxine’s door was locked. Jo had to knock a couple of times before she opened it.

  “Hey, you. Let’s eat.” She stepped out, looking Jo up and down. “You know, you should fix up more often.”