Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1) (10 page)

“Rosie would have done better to stay home
with her mama than traipse across the country like a hippie.”

To Miss Violet, any woman who wore her hair
long and didn’t do heels was a hippie.

“But then, Rosie was always different.”

Miss Viola could put more connotations on the
word
different
than Miss Violet could to the word
business.

Max’s eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened.
Sometimes he was a little too astute for his own good.

“How’s your pet goose?” he asked.

Livy resisted the urge to groan. There’d be
no getting away now. The sisters’ goose had been a bone of
contention between them and Rosie since the day they’d brought it
home. According to Rosie, a wild animal should not be a pet, and
the twins were exploiting the goose for their own nefarious
purposes.

“It’s not a pet,” Miss Viola snapped.

“More of a decoration, maybe a tourist
attraction,” Miss Violet clarified. “When Daddy started dropping in
for tea, the former owner wasn’t the only one who stopped coming
around. Our ghost goose went away.”

‘‘Daddy never liked that goose, even when he
was alive.” Miss Viola wrinkled her nose. ‘‘Daddy, not the
goose.”

“That’s probably why the goose went away. The
judge can be difficult, even though he’s dead. So we got a very
special, very live goose to make up for the loss of the ghostly
one.”

“I don’t remember hearing about a ghost goose
at your house,” Livy said.

“The goose was one of the ghosts that horse
thief who sold Daddy the house never even mentioned. And it didn’t
leave when Mama buried the King James.” Miss Viola frowned in
concentration. “Maybe because geese aren’t familiar with the
Bible.”

“What does this goose do that makes it so
special?” Livy had often wondered.

“Stays in the yard and doesn’t fly away.”

“Well now, Sister,” Viola pointed out, “our
goose
can’t
fly.”

“Did you have its wings clipped?” Livy
couldn’t keep the censure out of her voice. Perhaps Rosie was right
about the goose, after all.

‘‘Of course not!” Viola looked insulted.
‘‘The poor thing had an accident as a gosling. That’s how it ended
up being trained in the first place. Our goose would have died in
the wild. It’s better off here, regardless of what
Rosie
says about exploitation for monetary gain.”

That sounded like Rosie.

“Rosie says you made the whole thing up to
get on the ghost-walk tour,” Max offered.

The sisters’ mouths pruned. Together they
turned toward Max.

Livy grabbed his hand. “Gotta go. Nice
chatting with y’all.”

This time she didn’t have to drag Max. He
came willingly. Around the corner. There he stopped dead.

“Old hens.”

“Keep a respectful tongue for your
elders.”

“Why? They don’t have a respectful tongue for
Rosie.”

Livy wasn’t sure what to say to that. It
always seemed as if she was telling him to behave in one way while
the rest of the world behaved in another.

Do unto others.

Everyone did—though not in the way the Golden
Rule intended.

If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say
anything.

The sisters had just ruined that one.

Don’t get arrested.

Max’s grandma visited jail every other
week.

Don’t cheat, don’t lie, don’t swear.

Livy wasn’t even going to think about how
many times each day he saw those rules broken.

Did all parents have the same problem? Was
anyone else trying to raise decent human beings in an indecent
world? Or were they all scrambling to get along the best they could
and hoping things would work out fine in the end? Some days Livy
did that, too.

“Just do what I say, not what everyone else
does. If someone jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?”

“You always say that.”

“I always wonder. Let’s get out of here
before they follow us.”

Max glanced over his shoulder with wide eyes.
He appeared more concerned about the sisters than the ghosts.

Livy couldn’t blame him.

Rosie came home to an empty house, an
uncommon occurrence at 7:00 p.m. Max couldn’t still be at the
neighbor’s. Sometimes Livy was late, but she never forgot.

Frowning, Rosie walked through the front hall
and glanced into the parlor. No blinking red light signaled a
message on the answering machine. If Max was in the E.R.—again—
someone would have called.

Even when Max’s mishaps had Rosie’s blood
pressure on the rise and her heart palpitating like the wings of a
frightened bird trapped within her chest, she kept a cool head for
her daughter’s sake. Livy could blow a gasket quicker than anyone
Rosie had ever seen, and after traumas both Max and Livy needed a
sane voice in their world. How Rosie’s husband would laugh to hear
that these days Rosie was the sane voice.

She sat on the love seat without bothering to
turn on a light, and let the serene darkness soothe her. “I miss
you more every day, Henry. I thought it would get easier as time
went by, but it hasn’t.”

Rosie teased Livy that her daddy was up and
walking, but in truth, he was gone and at peace. Because if Henry
was going to appear to anyone, it would be Rosie, and while she
talked to Henry every day, he never talked back. But she felt
better for the talking, and that was what counted.

The house creaked and settled around her, a
comforting sound, old and familiar. She’d once loathed this house
and all that it stood for.

With age came truth, if not wisdom. It had
not been the house, or even her parents, that had made her unhappy.
Rosie had needed something more than a solid home and a good family
could give.

She’d found that something in Henry Frasier.
Passionate love, pure freedom, the adventure of open skies, open
road, open life. The possibilities had astounded her.

She had never been so happy as when she was
with that man. The reality of their daughter had almost been an
intrusion—for Rosie, anyway. Not that she hadn’t loved her child.
She had, still did. But Henry had taken one look at Livy and fallen
in love. From that moment on, Rosie had been the outsider in her
own family.

Most women would be thrilled with a husband
who changed diapers, walked the baby at night, did practically
everything but feed the child, and Henry even did that once Livy
refused the breast at five months—another mother failure on Rosie’s
mother failure scorecard. Rosie hadn’t been complaining. She’d just
been...left out.

She’d never wanted to go to college, never
been interested in a career. Sure, she’d wanted to want something,
and once Henry came to town, she’d wanted him. Then she’d had
dreams of being the perfect mother to a brood of children. But
she’d only had one, and that one had not wanted to be mothered at
all.

Silly to be jealous of her daughter’s
relationship with her father, but there it was. Livy and Henry had
been two of a kind, twins of the soul, and although he’d always
loved Rosie—and she’d known it—what he felt for Livy was deeper
than love, a kind of connection that went beyond anything Rosie
could fathom. And she’d resented it.

So she understood why Livy stared at her with
resentment whenever Rosie and Max shared a joke and a giggle, or
just a look without a word. Because Max and Rosie were connected at
the soul, too.

Once, Livy had been as full of life as Henry.
When he’d died, a good slice of Rosie did, too. But a bigger part
of Livy had, and Rosie wasn’t sure what to do about that.

When she’d returned to Savannah for good,
she’d found her child with a child of her own. Rosie had never
questioned Livy’s assertion that the baby’s father was dead. The
sadness in her daughter’s eyes, the stiffness of her body, the way
she devoted heart and soul to her son—all had made Rosie believe
something terrible had happened beyond the loss of Livy’s own
father.

Rosie had wanted to be a different kind of
mother from her own, a woman who had kept a tight rein on a girl
who needed freedom and questioned Rosie about everything as if she
didn’t trust her at all. Rosie hadn’t wanted that for Livy, so
she’d kept her questions to herself.

She had hoped that by staying in Savannah, in
making the three of them a new family, she might forge the
relationship she’d always wanted with her daughter. But things
hadn’t worked out as Rosie had hoped.

“Our little girl could sure use you around,
Henry. We both could. Sometimes I feel so lost, so adrift and
confused—”

“Hey, Rosie, I’m back.”

The whisper right behind her head should have
made Rosie shriek. At the very least, it should have taken her a
minute to figure out who had come calling her name. But Rosie would
know the voice of her darling anywhere.

She reached up, yanked him over the back of
the love seat and into her lap. Max lay there giggling, so she
leaned down and gave him a loud raspberry on his neck, which only
made him laugh harder. His flailing cast nearly caught her in the
chin, so she gently pinned it down, then tickled him a while.

When Rosie was with Max that lost feeling
fled, because at last she’d found her vocation. Despite her
aversion to the title, Rosie Cannaught Frasier had been born to be
a grandma.

* **

Max and Rosie tussled on the couch, laughing
and whispering and rolling about like puppies in the sun. The tug
to join them was strong, yet Livy wasn’t quite sure how to go about
it.

“Who were you talkin’ to, Rosie?”

“Only Grampa, sugar. You wanna say hi?”

Livy flipped on the overhead lights, making
Rosie cringe like a vampire who’d been thrown into the sun. “Don't
encourage him. He’ll never sleep.”

Max rolled his eyes. Rosie looked as though
she was having a hard time not joining him. Sometimes Livy felt
that she had two children instead of one. Especially when she had
to constantly bail the elder out of jail—something that hadn’t
happened in quite a while. Knowing Rosie, this only meant she was
planning something exceptionally rare for her next stunt.

“Where were you two?” Rosie asked. “I was
getting worried.”

Rosie never worried. That was why Livy did it
so well.

“Mom took me to McDonald’s.” Max knew better
than to mention Rosie’s archenemies, the Kendell twins, or their
poor exploited goose.

Rosie’s eyes narrowed as she searched for a
more recent injury than yesterday’s. Usually McDonald’s was
reserved for trips home from the hospital. Mainly because Livy got
as much comfort from a Big Mac as Max did. At this rate, her hips
would be the size of Atlanta by next year.

When Rosie’s search for new gashes or gaps
came up empty, she glanced at Livy. “What happened?”

Livy gave Max a pointed look. He hung his
head.

“I wasn’t where I was supposed to be when I
was supposed to be there.”

“Big whoop,” Rosie said.

Max snorted.

“Mama!” Livy shouted, a touch of hysteria in
her voice.

Both Rosie and Max stared at her, shocked at
the outburst. For a woman who prided herself on control—in all
situations but emergency rooms—Livy was having a hard time keeping
herself under control lately. And only she knew why.

Livy took a deep breath, started the
inevitable count to ten and beyond, and the phone shrilled, making
her gasp. She pointed up the stairs. Max went, dragging his
feet.

When Rosie made a move to answer the phone,
Livy snapped, “Let the machine pick up.”

Rosie sat, folded her arms and gave Livy a
look that was almost like a mother’s.

Kim’s voice came out of the machine. “Livy,
what were you thinking to run off like that? You turned off your
cell phone again. And you missed an appointment.” The sigh that
filled the room was long and full of concern. “You’d better call
me. Tonight.”

Click.

“Sugar, you need to stop grinding your teeth
like that or you’ll have nothin’ left to chew with.”

Livy hadn’t realized she was grinding. She
usually didn’t—except when the sound woke her up at night. She sat
opposite her mother in a chair on the other side of the knee-high,
cherry wood coffee table.

“Where
was
Max?” Rosie plopped her
bare feet onto the table.

“Not here.”

“I got that. Was he off with Sammy again?
Boys will be boys, you know. He needs to run and jump and get a
little dirty.”

“So I hear.”

“And he could use a man in his life.”

Was everyone conspiring against her? “Why
don’t
you
bring one home for him?”

“A man? Me?” Rosie laughed. “That’s not going
to happen.”

“Why not? Daddy’s been gone a long time. And
no matter what you might say, he isn’t coming back.”

“I know.” Rosie shook her head as if Livy
confounded her as much as she confounded Livy. “I just like to
tease you.”

“Tease?”

Rosie shrugged, a bit sheepish. “You make it
so easy.”

“Well, stop it. I’ve got enough trouble.”

“What kind of trouble? Kim sounded fit to be
tied, and that isn’t like her.”

Livy had never told her mother about J.J. Her
mother had never asked. She’d come home, fallen for Max, settled
in, and never once inquired about the baby’s father. At the time,
Livy had been grateful. She still was. But if Rosie truly cared
about her, wouldn’t she have demanded the answers? Regardless, what
good would confiding in her do now?

Livy stood. “I’ll take care of it.”

“I’m sure you will. Taking care of trouble is
what you do best. Sometimes, though, don’t you need a shoulder?
I’ve got two.”

A memory flitted across Livy’s mind of a day
long ago and a farmer’s field full of people. The summer sun was
hot; the breeze cool on her face beneath a big shady tree. Daddy
had gone to play volleyball and left her behind. She’d cried on
Mama’s shoulder, then laid her head in Mama’s lap. The flicker of
the sun through the leaves danced across her face. With music on
the wind, and the taste of Kool-Aid on her tongue, she fell asleep
with her mama’s fingers stroking her hair. On that day, all had
been right in Livy’s world.