I found myself glancing around, making sure Max hadn’t come back into the house yet. “Ah, Jesus. Hang on.” I made my way upstairs, so at least I could hear the door and have time to end the call if I needed to.
I went to the far side of our bedroom, which was entirely glass and provided a complete view of the beach where the steps led up to our backyard — the way Max would surely come home.
“Okay,” I said. “Tell me why.”
“It’s so hard.”
“Just tell me.”
“It’s hard not to talk to him. He was my first love, my only love. He’s changed. He’s…calmer, low key. Just like he was when we met as teenagers. Something changed him for the worst. But, Olivia, he’s had two heart attacks and survived them both. I loved him. I always did. The man I married went away for a while, for some reason. But he’s back now. We’re both much older… You wouldn’t understand this, at least not yet, anyway — ”
“Paula,” I said, interrupting because she was thinking dangerously. “That may all be true. I have no doubt it’s true, actually. But that’s not the same man you fled from.”
“But — ”
I cut her off again. The one word she got out was carried on a tone of weakness and desperation, and it made me sad. “Paula, think of Max.”
“I was hoping you would talk to him about it.”
Now I was getting frustrated. She wasn’t going to budge. That much was clear. “No.”
“Please, Olivia, he’ll listen to you.”
“I’m sure he would,” I said, “but I can’t support you on this, Paula. I just can’t.”
“Then please keep this between you and me,” she pleaded.
“That’s not fair. I tell Max everything. Paula, listen to yourself. Do you really want to go backwards? You’re doing so well. Max has made an incredible life for himself. And for you, I might add.”
“Now that’s none of your business.”
“Actually, it is. And I’m sorry I have to be so blunt about this, but remember, you came to me with this. If you’re just looking for someone to back you up, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. I know exactly how Max will take it, and so do you. I’m not going to be part of that. And I’m not going to lie to him.”
She was silent, and I gave her about thirty seconds to speak, but she said nothing.
“Paula, think long and hard about this. And when you’re ready to make the right decision, let me know. But if you need someone to talk to Max, that’s going to have to be you. I have to tell him, but I’ll give you a week to do it yourself.”
And with that closing statement to the conversation, I had dealt with Max’s mom just as I had dealt with my own parents — putting the ball in their court.
. . . . .
It wasn’t easy telling Max, and it was even harder watching him that day when he came home from visiting his mother.
I had waited until the end of the week, and then broached the subject over dinner. Max demanded to know why I didn’t tell him immediately, and I explained what I had told his mother, that she would have to do the talking, and that I would give her a week.
Max didn’t blame me. In fact, he comforted me.
He saved his fury for his mother, and when he called her, I was sitting right next to him and heard the entire conversation. It was brutally heart-breaking, listening to Max’s voice go from stern to almost cracking, and watching his face droop as if he’d just found out he’d lost a family member. That’s how it felt to me, too.
Max drove up to her house alone and got home around midnight. He had called ahead to let me know when he was leaving, and I sat in a front room, reading a script and killing time, so I could see the headlights pull into the driveway.
I went out to meet him on the front porch.
When he got out of the car, he looked like he’d been through hell, and that’s just how he characterized the conversation with his mother.
We walked inside and sat on the couch in the den. I curled up next to him, trying to comfort him, but his body felt rigid.
“She’s lonely,” he said. “That’s what it all boils down to.”
“Has she seen him?”
Max shook his head and pressed the fingertips of both hands to his temples. “No.”
“Do you believe her?”
He nodded. “I cross-examined her big time on that. Jesus, I can’t fucking believe this.”
I curled my arm around his. “How did this start? What are they talking about?”
“He called her out of the blue one day. She said they fell right into talking about the past. About me, about their teenage years, their honeymoon. I guess all the good stuff they remember. All the stuff that happened…before.”
“Reminiscing,” I said.
“And in denial,” Max added, sharply.
“Maybe the loneliness will subside and she’ll stop talking to him.”
He turned to me and took me in his arms, pulling me in close. “I’m sorry I tried to smooth things over with your family.”
“What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t my place,” he said quietly, his chin resting on my shoulder as we sat in an embrace. “Some things are just unfixable.”
My eyes welled up. It was the truth. A very sad one.
“You try too hard,” I said.
He pulled back from me. “At what?”
“At everything. And most of the time it works out for you. But you can’t make people do things in real life like you can make them do on the page. That’s why you became a writer in the first place.” I shrugged. “So, now this is just more evidence that you can’t control what you can’t control.”
“Profound,” he said, cracking a smile for the first time that day. “You’re right. Anyway, we have too much work to concentrate on. That’s the important thing. But I am having someone keep tabs on all of this. If he shows up or if she goes to him, I’ll know about it.”
Max told me that he had called Carl, figuring a lawyer could put him in touch with a good private investigator, and by the time Max got home, the deal was already in the works.
“And then what?” I asked. “What are you going to do if that happens?”
He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”
It sounded to me like the only viable option.
THIRTEEN
With less than a month to go before shooting, I was sitting in my office one morning when Jim Tames called.