“Debbie did tell me to sit. Thought the toilet thing held more humor. Not as pathetic as what really drove me away.” He was the least pathetic man she knew. “She had an abortion without telling me. It was the lie. And the killing without remorse.” The writing on the wall for a marriage already dead, Max read between the lines.
Max couldn’t bear to look at him. She’d done things in her own time, a bad thing equal to the crime his wife had committed. Max had been lying about her terrible deed since she was thirteen. She could never tell Witt what she’d done. So she was no one to judge Debbie Doodoo, as Witt’s mother called his ex-wife.
Soft feet fell on the hall carpet. Thank God, Evelyn was on her way back. Conversation over.
Evelyn carried a black album, the kind you can add pages to. This one was overstuffed. The woman took her seat once more, the book perched on her knees, a hand flat against the leather cover.
She opened to the first page, and sitting this close to her, Max saw that it was a photo album. Two black and white photos had been pasted to the black pages. Not the present lift and stick kind, this album was older, meant for permanency, the pictures glued in.
“I haven’t looked at it for years.” Evelyn smoothed one of those beautiful, long-fingered hands, so like Cameron’s, across the page. “I suppose I saved it for Cameron, for when he visited, for when he had children to show it to.”
She looked at Max and a thought lay clearly in her eyes. Cameron would never have children now. “I haven’t brought this book out in years, though,” Evelyn continued.
Closing it with a soft whoosh, she placed it in Max’s lap. “You should have it.” She patted Max’s hand.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” the immediate thought tumbled out into words. “It’s your family book.” And it would be full of pain.
“There’s no one left to give it to. They’re all gone. Father, Madeline, Cameron.” She swallowed and her voice dropped with her next words. “Every one of them.”
Max couldn’t say a thing. She wanted it, needed it, but she was afraid of it.
“This might tell you what he was like as a child.”
And it might contain pictures of the sister Evelyn denied. Max knew she had no choice but to take it.
*
It was on the tip of Max’s tongue to say, “You open it.” But that would have been chickening out. Again. And she wouldn’t dare let Witt know how much of a chicken she was. Even if he already knew it intuitively from her actions over the past few months.
She put a hand over her nose, the tip cold from being outside not much more than the time it took to walk from the car to the restaurant they were seated in, the Copper Penny Cafe. The sign, faded, paint peeling, looked as if it hadn’t been changed in twenty years. The place had probably been there when Cameron was a kid. White Formica tabletops sported burn marks, carved names, and abrasive scratches from too much cleanser. The seats, relatively new by the undamaged state of the vinyl, were a deep chocolate brown that matched the speckles in the linoleum flooring. Some time past the lunch hour rush, most of the tables and booths were empty. Max and Witt sat in relative isolation by a front window.
The whir of overhead fans failed to erase the overpowering odor of grease and vinegar. A teenage boy washed the front window using a spray bottle and newspaper. Pimply-faced and big-eared, he worked harder than anyone she’d ever seen. The squeak-squeak of the paper carried through the uncrowded restaurant, then he stood back to survey, a broad smile on his decimated face. Not a streak showed on the gleaming windows, but the place reeked of the vinegar he cleaned with.
Max’s stomach rumbled. Witt had chosen the place. She worried about his cholesterol level and the hardening of his arteries if this was his usual choice.
“Gonna look at it before your burger comes?”
It being the album, she knew. “Not on an empty stomach.” Maybe not at all. “I’m starving.”
She’d perused the menu, finally deciding on the Quarterpound Beefy Delight and fries. Her mouth watered thinking of the pickle. Perhaps it was the vinegar in the air.
The waitress arrived, heavy white tights hugging her legs for warmth beneath the flimsy blue uniform. She took their order with an honest smile. Her name badge, pinned to the white apron, identified her as Izzie. The lines at her eyes and the corners of her mouth suggested she would have been close to Cameron’s age, mid-forties, and that she knew how to laugh a lot. Pulled back in a tangled ponytail of once-dark curls, Izzie’s hair now bore streaks of gray. It was her eyes that still held onto youth, a soft and tender green that reminded Max of new grass and new beginnings. She found herself returning the woman’s sweet smile.