Rogue (8 page)

Maxine had one more patient after that, a sixteen-year-old girl who cut herself, had scars up and down her arms, which she covered, and had attempted suicide once at fifteen. Maxine had been called in by her family physician, and they were making slow but steady progress.

Maxine called Silver Pines before leaving her office, and was told that Jason had put jeans on and joined the other residents for dinner. He hadn't said much, and had gone back to his room right afterward, but it was a beginning. He was still on close suicide watch, and would be for a while, until the attending physician and Maxine felt more comfortable about him. He was still very depressed, and very much at risk, but at least he was safe at Silver Pines, which was why she had sent him there.

Maxine was in the elevator of her apartment building at seventhirty, exhausted. As she walked into the apartment, Sam flew by her at full speed, dressed as a turkey and gobbling loudly, and she grinned. It was good to be home. It had been a long day, and she was still sad about Jason herself. She cared a lot about her patients.

“Halloween is over!” she called out to him, as he stopped, grinned, and ran back her way to throw his arms around her waist and hug her. He nearly knocked her down when he did. He was a solid little kid.

“I know. I'm the turkey in the school play,” he said proudly.

“They got that part right,” Jack commented as he sauntered by in soccer shorts and cleats, making marks and leaving clumps of dirt on the carpet, which didn't concern him in the least. He was carrying a stack of video games he had borrowed from a friend.

“Zelda's going to have a fit,” his mother warned him, glancing at the carpet, and as soon as she said it, the nanny appeared scowling at them all.

“I'm going to throw those shoes out the window, if you don't park them at the door, Jack Williams. You're going to wreck all our rugs and floors! How many times do I have to tell you?” She hmphed loudly and stomped back into the kitchen, as he sat down on the floor and took his shoes off.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and then grinned up at his mother. “We won against Collegiate today. They're wimps. Two of them cried when they lost the game.” Maxine had seen boys on Jack's team cry too. Boys took their sports seriously, and were rarely gracious winners or losers, as she knew.

“That's nice that you won. I'm coming to the game on Thursday.” She had cleared her calendar to do it. And then she turned to Sam, gazing up at her adoringly in his turkey costume. “When's your play?”

“The day before Thanksgiving,” he said, looking delighted.

“Do you have any lines to learn?” He gobbled loudly for her in answer, as Jack covered his ears and walked away, and Zelda shouted from the kitchen, “Dinner in five minutes!”

She walked out again to see Maxine and lowered her voice. “We waited for you.” She tried to hold dinner on the evenings that Maxine worked late, except when it was just too much for the children. But she was good about making it possible for Maxine to share dinner with her children. Zelda knew how important that was to her. It was one of the many things Maxine appreciated about her. She was never sneaky or passive/aggressive about keeping Maxine from her kids, or screwing things up for her, as some of her friends' nannies did. Zelda was devoted to them in every way, and had been for twelve years. And she had no desire whatsoever to usurp Maxine's motherly role with the kids.

“Thanks, Zellie,” Maxine said, and then glanced around. She hadn't seen her daughter yet, just the boys. “Where's Daff? In her room?” Sulking probably, she assumed, after being put on restriction the day before.

“She took her cell phone back, and was calling on it,” Sam volunteered before Zelda could answer, and the nanny frowned at him. She was going to tell Maxine herself at the right time. She always did, and Maxine knew she could trust her.

“It's not nice to tattle on your sister,” Zelda scolded, and Maxine raised an eyebrow, and headed for Daphne's room. As Sam had suggested, she found her on her bed, happily chatting on her cell phone. Daphne jumped when she saw her mother. Maxine advanced toward her with her hand held out for the phone. Looking nervous, Daphne put the cell phone in it, after rapidly disconnecting her friend without saying goodbye.

“Do we still have an honor system around here, or do I have to lock it up?” Things were definitely changing with Daphne at a rapid rate. There was a time, not long before, when she would have respected the punishment and not snatched back her phone. Thirteen was changing everything, and Maxine didn't love it.

“Sorry, Mom.” She didn't look directly at her mother, and then Zelda was calling them to dinner, and they all headed for the kitchen, Jack in bare feet and his soccer shorts, Daphne in the clothes she'd worn to school, and Sam still proudly wearing his turkey costume. Maxine took off the jacket to her suit, and changed into flat shoes. She had worn high heels all day. She always looked professional for work, and relaxed when she got home. If she'd had time, she would have changed into jeans, but dinner had waited long enough, and she was starved, as were the kids.

It was an easy, comfortable dinner, and Zelda sat down with them, as she always did. It seemed mean to Maxine to make her eat alone, and with no father at the table, Maxine had always invited her to join them. The children talked about what they'd done that day, except for Daphne, who said little, and knew she was still in disgrace. And she was embarrassed about the incident with the phone. She had figured out that Sam had squealed on her, so she glared at him, and whispered under her breath that she would get him later. And Jack talked about his game and promised to help his mother set up a new computer program. Everyone was in good spirits, and went back to their respective rooms after dinner, including Maxine, who was beat, after a long day. Zelda stayed in the kitchen to clean up. And Maxine wandered into Daphne's room to chat.

“Hi, can I come in?” she asked her daughter from the doorway. She usually asked permission, particularly right now.

“Whatever,” Daphne answered, which Maxine knew was as good as she would get, given the restriction, and the incident with the phone.

Maxine walked into the room, and sat down on the bed where Daphne was lying watching TV. She had done her homework before her mother got home. She was a good student, and got good grades. Jack was a little more erratic, given the temptation of his video games, and Sam didn't get homework yet. “I know you're mad at me about the restriction, Daff. But I didn't love the beer party. I want to be able to trust you and your friends, particularly if I have to go out.” Daphne didn't answer, she just looked away, and then she finally turned toward her mother with resentment in her eyes.

“It wasn't my idea. And someone else brought the beer.”

“You still let it happen. And I assume you drank some too. Our home is sacred, Daffy. So is my trust in you. I don't want anything to screw that up.” She knew without question that something would. It was to be expected at Daphne's age, and Maxine understood that, but she still had her parental role to play. She couldn't just pretend it hadn't happened, and not react. And Daphne knew that too. She was just sorry they got caught.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Your friends have to respect us when they come here. And I don't think beer parties are such a hot idea.”

“Other kids do worse,” her daughter said, sticking her chin out. And Maxine knew that. Much worse. They smoked pot, or even used hard drugs, or drank hard liquor, and these days a lot of girls had already had sex at Daphne's age. Maxine heard about it regularly in her practice. One of her patients had been giving random blow jobs since sixth grade. “So why is it such a big deal if we had some beer?” Daphne pressed.

“Because it's against our rules. And if you start breaking some rules, where is it going to stop? We have certain agreements with each other, spoken or otherwise, and we have to respect them, or renegotiate them at some point, but not right now. But rules are rules. I don't bring guys home and have wild sex parties here. You expect me to behave a certain way, and I do. And I don't sit around my room getting drunk on beer and passing out at night. How would you feel if I did that?” Daphne smiled in spite of herself at the unlikely vision of her mother.

“You never go out with anyone anyway. Lots of my friends' moms bring boyfriends home. You just don't have one.” The words were designed to hurt, and they did, a little.

“Even if I did, I wouldn't be getting drunk in my room. When you're a little older, you can have a drink with me, or in front of me. But you're not of legal drinking age, and neither are your friends, and I don't want that going on here. And surely not at thirteen.”

“Yeah, I know.” And then she added, “Daddy let us have wine last summer in Greece. He even gave some to Sam. And he didn't get crazy about it.”

“That's different. You were with him. He gave it to you, and you weren't drinking behind his back, although I'll admit I'm not crazy about that either. You're all too young to drink. You don't need to start that now.” But that was Blake, and his ideas were a lot different from hers, and his rules for himself and his children nonexistent. And he did bring women along, if you could call them that. Most of them were barely more than girls, and one of these days as the kids got older, the women he went out with would be the same age as his children. Maxine thought he was far too easy and freewheeling in front of them, but he never listened to what she said. She had mentioned it to him many times, and all he did was laugh, and do it again.

“When I'm older, will you let me drink here?” Daphne was checking things out.

“Maybe. If I'm around. But I won't let your friends drink here if they're under age. I could get in a lot of trouble for that, particularly if something went wrong, or someone got hurt. It's just not a good idea.” Maxine was a person who believed in rules, and followed them to the letter. Her children knew that about her, and so did everyone else, including Blake.

Daphne didn't comment. She'd heard the speech before, when they discussed it. She knew that other parents had much looser rules, some had none at all, and some were like her mom. It was the luck of the draw. Sam appeared in the doorway then in his turkey costume, looking for his mother.

“Do I have to have a bath tonight, Mom? I was real careful. I didn't get dirty at all today.” Maxine smiled in answer, and Daphne turned up the TV, which was the signal to her mother that she'd heard enough and didn't want to hear more. Maxine bent to kiss her and left the room with her youngest son.

“I don't care how careful you were today. Yes, you have to take a bath.”

“That sucks.” Zelda was waiting with an ominous look, and Maxine left Sam to her, stopped in to see Jack, who swore he had done his homework, and went back to her own room, and turned on the TV. It was a nice, quiet, easy night at home, the kind she loved best.

She thought about what Daphne had said to her, that she never went out. It wasn't entirely true. She went to dinner parties occasionally, given by old friends, or couples from their married days. She went to the opera, theater, and ballet, though not as much as she should have, she knew. It seemed like such an effort, and she loved staying home after a long day. She went to movies with her children, and medical dinners she couldn't get out of. But she knew what Daphne meant and she was right. Maxine hadn't had a date in a year. It bothered her sometimes, particularly when she was aware of the passage of time. She was forty-two years old, after all, and hadn't had a serious man in her life since Blake. She dated once in a while, but she hadn't met anyone who set her bells and sirens off in years, and she didn't have much opportunity to meet them. She was either at work or with her kids, and most of the other physicians she met were married, or looking to cheat on their wives, which wasn't what she wanted, or would do. Eligible, appealing men in their forties and fifties were few and far between. All the good ones were married, or appeared to be, and what was left floating around were guys who had “issues” or intimacy problems, who were gay or commitment phobic, or wanted to date women half her age. Finding a man to have a relationship with was not as easy as it looked, and she wasn't losing sleep over it. She figured that if it was meant to happen one day, it would. And in the meantime, she was fine like this.

When she and Blake first broke up, she had always assumed she'd find someone else, maybe even get married again, but now that seemed less and less likely every year. Blake was the one swinging from the chandeliers, enjoying an active dating life, with gorgeous young girls. Maxine was sitting home night after night, with her children and their nanny, and she wasn't sure she wanted it any other way. She certainly wouldn't have traded time with her children for a hot date. And in the end, what was so bad about this? For an instant, she allowed herself to think of nights in her husband's arms, dancing with him, laughing with him, walking on the beach with him, and making love. It was a little scary thinking that she might never have sex again, or even be kissed. But if that was the way things shook out for her, then she was fine like this. She had her kids. What else did she need? She always told herself that was enough.

She was still thinking about it, when Sam walked in fresh from his bath, in clean pajamas and bare feet, with damp hair smelling of shampoo, and hopped onto her bed. “Whatcha thinking about, Mom? You look sad.” What he said startled her out of her reverie as she smiled at him.

“I'm not sad, sweetheart. I was just thinking about stuff.”

“Grown-up stuff?” he asked with interest, as he turned up the volume of the TV with the remote.

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Can I sleep with you tonight?” At least he didn't invent a gorilla this time, and she smiled at him.

“Sure. Sounds good to me.” She loved it when he slept with her. He cuddled up next to her, and it gave them both the comfort they needed. With small, yummy Sam in her bed at night, tucked in next to her, what else could she possibly want? No date or passing romance or relationship could ever be as sweet.