I didn’t try. I just enjoyed it.
When the hug ended, he latched on to his backpack straps and looked at me. I didn’t let him linger. I grabbed my hat and shoved it on my head, checking with Mom for a nod of approval.
She gave it as Max said, “You look amazing.”
That gravelly voice worked on me. He meant what he said, but I set my sights on the carpet, unsure of what to say or whether to argue. I had a hat over Idaho, jeans over Pink Floyd, and sleeves over Tennessee. Of the bigger scars, that left the jagged one that arched up from the right corner of my mouth that I’d never named. I’d considered Mississippi, because it was two crooked, jagged lines—a sideways squiggly lightning bolt—but it never stuck. If Max saw all these imperfections, plus other minor ones, then amazing wouldn’t be his word of choice. Piecing Frankenstein back together took time and money.
Max focused on my eyes. “Seriously, I like the hat.”
I switched the subject. “You look . . .” I inventoried Max. Cutoffs; sandals; worn University of El Salvador T-shirt; long, choppy brown hair that the sun had worked on; a dirty FSU baseball cap hanging out of his pocket. It wasn’t all those things that struck me most; it was the way they fit him. The way they would have fit Trent: loose in some places, fitted in others.
He flicked his head toward the restrooms. “Mom says it all the time. I didn’t want to tell you.”
I couldn’t argue with that. I hadn’t totally warned him about my appearance either.
Mom intervened in our awkwardness. “It’s good to have you back, sweetheart.”
Max coughed and touched his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was a little louder.
“Hey, Mrs. K. It’s good to be back.”
Years of neighborly surrogate-mom moments showed in their welcome-home embrace. If Max were Trent, he’d have said something profoundly silly. Max was just Max though, and the hug was enough.
I held my hand up and measured his height. “Good Lord, what have they been feeding you?” I asked.
He laughed. “Beans.”
“You’re taller than he was,” I said.
Max straightened his back and put out his chin, proud of the six or seven inches he’d gained in the past year. “Not by much.”
I saw a ghost of Trent put Max in a headlock and tease, “You’ll always be my little brother.” He would’ve wrestled him down to the floor until Max tapped out.
Shaking away the image, I said, “Well, I guess I can wear any size heel I want around you.” Which was total crap; I never wore heels. Still, I popped him on the chest, unable to control my happiness now that the initial meet-and-greet was over. “I can’t believe you’re home.”
“I know, right? My face hurts from smiling,” he said, and stretched his jaw.
His voice hurt too. I winced a little for him.
Max’s mom manifested out of thin air carrying two shopping bags and a purse made of Kit Kat wrappers. “Tara!” Sonia dropped her bags and gave Mom a hug and then me. Time away had been kind to her. She’d shed four skins of sadness since last June, but she still wore some of it in her eyes and a little more in the gray hair above her ears. Max’s messages indicated Operation: Heal the Family had been relatively successful. Still, this trip home must be bittersweet.
“Dad caught a flight on Tuesday,” Max explained as I glanced around. He touched his throat, cleared it, and said, “He had some business in New York and had to fly into Panama City.”
“Hey, you sound good. Your voice is louder than I expected.”
He ignored my compliment the way I’d ignored his earlier. Instead, he picked up the flowers I’d dropped. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I had to do something.”
There are two kinds of laughter: at and with, and Max was brilliant at the with kind.
“You haven’t changed a bit, Sadie,” he said.
“I’ve changed several thousand dollars’ worth, Max McCall.”