Sing You Home

11
MAX

Imagine if you were the positive pole of a magnet, and you were told that under no circumstances were you allowed to touch that negative pole that was sucking you in like a black hole. Or if you crawled out of the desert and found a woman standing with a pitcher of ice water, but she held it out of your reach. Imagine jumping off a building, and then being told not to fall.

That’s what it feels like to want a drink.

And that’s how I feel when Zoe calls me, after she’s been served the legal papers.

Pastor Clive knew that she’d call-which is why he’d told Reid to stick by me like glue on the day the process server was headed to her house. Reid took the day off work, and we went out fishing for tautog on his boat. He’s got a sweet Boston Whaler and takes his clients out to catch blues or mackerel. Tautog, though, are different. They live in the places your line is bound to get snagged. And you can’t set the hook as soon as you feel a hit, either. You have to wait for the tog to swallow the whole green crab you’re using for bait, or you’re bound to reel in empty.

So far we’ve been out here for hours and we haven’t caught anything.

It’s warm enough in early May for us to strip off our sweatshirts and get sunburns-my face feels tight and uncomfortable, although that may have less to do with the sun than with me imagining what it’s like when Zoe opens that door.

Reid reaches into the cooler and takes out two cold Canada Dry ginger ales. “These fish sure don’t want to be caught,” he says.

“Guess not.”

“We may have to make up a story for Liddy,” Reid says. “To spare ourselves excessive male humiliation.”

I squint up at him. “I don’t think she cares if we bring home tog or not.”

“Still, who wants to admit he’s been outsmarted by a rock dweller?”

Reid reels in his line and baits another green crab. He is the one who taught me how to string a hook through a worm for the first time, even though, when I tried, I threw up. He was with me when I caught my first lake trout, and from the way he carried on, you would have thought I’d won the lottery.

He’ll be a really good dad.

As if he can read my mind, he looks up with a huge smile on his face. “Remember when I taught you how to cast? How you got your hook caught on Mom’s straw sunhat and sent it sailing into the middle of the lake?”

I haven’t thought of that in years. I shake my head. “Maybe you’ll do a better job teaching your son.”

“Or daughter,” Reid says. “No reason she can’t be a Bassmaster, too.” He is so excited about the possibility. All I have to do is look at his face, and I can practically see his future: a first ballet recital, a prom photo, a father-daughter dance at a wedding. I’ve underestimated him, all this time. I thought he only got jazzed up about his business deals, but now I think maybe the reason he threw himself into his work was because he wanted a family he couldn’t have, and it hurt too much to be reminded of that day in and day out.

“Hey, Max?” Reid asks, and I glance up. “You think my kid… you think he or she will like me?”

I’ve rarely seen Reid less than completely sure of himself. “What do you mean?” I say. “Of course.”

Reid rubs the nape of his neck. His vulnerability makes him, well, more human. “You say that,” he points out, “but we didn’t think so highly of our old man.”

“That was different,” I tell him. “Dad wasn’t you.”

“How so?”

I have to think about that for a second. “You never stop caring,” I say. “He never started.”

Reid lets the words sink in, and flashes me a smile. “Thanks,” he says. “It means a lot, knowing you trust me to do this.”

Well, of course I do. On paper, no one looks like a better set of parents than Reid and Liddy. I have a sudden flashback memory of sitting up in bed with a calculator, trying to figure out how far in debt Zoe and I would be if we not only used in vitro to conceive but then actually had to pay for the baby’s doctor’s visits and diapers and food and clothing. Zoe had crumpled my calculations. Just because it doesn’t work on paper, she had said, doesn’t mean we won’t find a way to make it work in real life.

“It’s normal, right? To be a little freaked out about becoming a father?”

“You don’t become someone’s role model because you’re smart enough to have all the right answers,” I say slowly. I’m thinking of Reid, and why I always looked up to him. “You become someone’s role model because you’re smart enough to keep asking the right questions.”

Reid looks at me. “You’re different, you know. The way you talk, the decisions you make. I mean it, Max. You’re not who you used to be.”

I have wanted Reid’s approval all my life. So why do I feel like I’m going to be sick?

When the phone rings, it’s bizarre. Not just because we’re floating off the shore of Rhode Island but because we both already know who it is. “Remember what Wade said,” Reid tells me, as I hold the ringing cell phone in my hand.

Zoe starts yelling before I even have it pressed to my ear. “I can’t talk to you,” I interrupt. “My lawyer told me not to-”

“Why would you do this to me?” Zoe’s crying. I know, because when she cries, her voice sounds like it’s wrapped in flannel. Lord knows I’ve heard it enough times over the telephone lines, when she called to report another miscarriage, and tried to convince me that, really, she was fine, when clearly she wasn’t.

Reid puts his hand on my shoulder. For solidarity, support. I close my eyes. “I’m not doing this to you, Zoe. I’m doing it for our kids.”

I feel Reid reach for the phone, push the button to end the call.

“You’re doing the right thing,” he says.

If I’m really so different, now, why do I need Reid to tell me that?

Next to my foot is the bucket of green crabs we’re using as bait. No one likes green crabs; they’re at the bottom of the food chain. They’re moving in circles, getting in each other’s way. I have an uncontrollable urge to toss them all overboard so they have a second chance.

“You all right?” Reid asks, peering up at me. “How do you feel?”

Thirsty.

“Kind of seasick, believe it or not. I think maybe we should just pack it in.” And when we reach the dock, fifteen minutes later, I tell him that I promised Pastor Clive I’d help clear some brush at his place.

“Sorry about the fishing,” Reid says. “Better luck next time?”

“Couldn’t get much worse.”

I help him get the boat on the trailer and hose it down and then wave to him as he drives home to Liddy.

The thing is, I never promised Pastor Clive anything about clearing brush. I get into my truck and start driving. I’d throw myself on a board and surf to beat all the thoughts out of my head, but the water’s dead flat today-my curse. Meanwhile, my tongue feels like it’s swollen twice its size, and my throat’s gone so narrow I can barely whistle my next breath through it.

Thirsty.

It’s not like one little drink would really hurt. After all, like Reid said, I’m different now. I’ve found Jesus; together I know we can walk away from the second one. And to be honest, I think if Jesus were in my shoes right now, he would want a cold one, too.

I don’t want to go to a bar, because the walls have eyes and you never know what’s going to get back to someone. Now that Reid’s paying the bulk of Wade Preston’s fee (Anything for my little brother, he had said), and with the church pitching in the rest-well, the last thing I need is for some member of the congregation to go tattling about me stumbling off the straight and narrow. So instead I drive to a liquor store all the way in Woonsocket, where I don’t know anyone and nobody knows me.

Speaking of legal evidence-which is apparently what I’m going to be doing a lot of in the near future-here is some:

1. I only buy one bottle of J.D.

2. I plan to have a few sips and toss the rest.

3. As further proof that I am thinking clearly and not falling off the wagon (or being run over by it, for that matter), I don’t even crack the seal until I reach Newport again. That way, when I drive home, it’s only a matter of miles.

All of the above is presented, Your Honor, as proof that Max Baxter is in full control of himself and his life and his drinking.

But when I pull into a parking lot and open the bottle, my hands are shaking. And when that first golden lick hits my throat, I swear I see the face of God.

The first time I was introduced to Liddy, I didn’t like her. Reid had met her while he was doing business down in Mississippi; she was the daughter of one of his investment portfolio clients. She held out a limp hand and dimpled her cheeks and said, “I am just so delighted to meet Reid’s baby brother.” She looked like a doll, with her blond curls and her tiny waist and hands and feet. She wore a purity ring.

Reid and I had actually talked about that little detail. I knew Reid was no saint and had had his share of relationships in the past-and I myself couldn’t imagine buying a lifetime supply of ice cream without tasting the flavor first-but it was my brother’s life, and I was far from qualified to tell him how to live it. If he wanted to hold (limp) hands with his fiancée until his wedding night, that was his problem, not mine.

Liddy’s only job, although she had been out of Bible college for three years, was teaching Sunday School at her daddy’s church. She’d never gotten her driver’s license. Sometimes, I’d pick fights with her just because it was so easy. “What did you do when you had to buy something?” I’d ask. “What if you wanted to go out to a bar one night?”

“Daddy pays,” she told me. “And I don’t go out to bars.”

She wasn’t just sweet, she was saccharine, and for the life of me I didn’t see why Reid was blind to the fact that Liddy was too good to be true. No one was that pure and sweet; no one actually read the Bible from cover to cover or burst into tears when Peter Jennings reported on starving children in Ethiopia. I figured she was hiding something, like that she used to be a biker chick or that she had ten kids stashed away in Arkansas, but Reid just laughed at me. “Sometimes, Max,” he said, “a cigar really is just a cigar.”

Liddy had grown up as the only spoiled child of an evangelical minister, and because she was making a major life change by moving north of the Mason-Dixon Line, her father insisted she give it a trial run. So she and her cousin Martine moved to Providence, in a tiny apartment on College Hill that Reid had found for her. Martine was eighteen and thrilled to be away from home. She started wearing short skirts and heels and spent a lot of time flirting with Brown students on Thayer Street. Liddy, on the other hand, began volunteering at the soup kitchen at Amos House. “I’m telling you, she’s an angel,” Reid would say.

But I didn’t answer. And because he knew I didn’t like his fiancée-and he didn’t want that kind of strain in his family-he decided that the best way for me to get to like her more was to spend more time with her. He started making excuses, working late, and asked me to drive Liddy each day from downtown Providence to Newport, where he’d then take her out to dinner or a movie.

I’d get her in my pickup, and she’d immediately change the radio station to a classical one. Liddy was the one who told me that composers used to always end their pieces in a major chord-even when the piece was mostly written in a minor one-because ending with a minor chord had some connotation of the Devil. It turned out that she was a flutist who’d played with all-state symphonies and had been first chair at her Bible college.

I’d swear a blue streak at a driver who cut into my lane, and she would flinch as if I’d hit her.

When she asked me questions, I tried to shock her. I told her I sometimes surfed in the darkness just to see if I could make it through riding a curl without smashing my head against the rocks. I told her my last girlfriend had been a stripper (which was true, but it didn’t involve a pole-just wallpaper. Yet I didn’t mention this to Liddy).

One freezing cold day, when we were stuck in traffic, she asked me to turn up the heat in the truck. I did, and three seconds later she complained because it was too hot. “For God’s sake,” I said, “make up your mind!”

I figured she’d lay into me for taking the Lord’s name in vain, but instead Liddy turned to me. “How come you don’t like me?”

“You’re marrying my brother,” I replied. “I think it matters more if he likes you.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

I rolled my eyes. “We’re just different, is all.”

She pursed her lips. “Well, I don’t think so.”

“Oh really,” I said. “Have you ever gotten drunk?”

Liddy shook her head.

“Ever bummed a cigarette?”

She hadn’t.

“Have you ever stolen a pack of gum?”

Not even once.

“Ever cheated on a guy?”

No.

“I bet you’ve never even gotten to third base,” I muttered, and she blushed so bright that I felt like my own face was on fire.

“Waiting for marriage isn’t a crime,” Liddy said. “It’s the best gift you can give someone you love. Besides, I’m not the first girl to do it.”

But you may be the first one to actually carry through with it, I thought. “Have you ever lied?”

“Well. Yes. But only so I could keep Daddy’s birthday surprise party a secret.”

“Have you ever done anything you regretted later?”

“No,” she said, just like I expected.

I rested my wrist on the steering wheel and glanced at her profile. “Have you ever wanted to?”

We were stopped at a red light. Liddy looked at me, and, maybe for the first time, I really, really looked at her. Those blue eyes, which I’d thought were so empty and glassy, like those of a toy doll, were full of hunger. “Of course,” she whispered.

Behind us, a driver honked; the light had turned. I looked out the windshield and realized that it had started snowing; that meant my chauffeur services would take even longer. “Hold your horses,” I said to the driver under my breath, at the same time that Liddy realized the weather had turned.

“Oh my,” she cried (who in this millennium says Oh my?), and before I could stop her she jumped out of the truck. She ran into the middle of the intersection, her arms outstretched and her eyes closed, as the snow-flakes landed on her hair and her face.

I honked, but she didn’t respond. She was going to cause a massive pileup. Cursing under my breath, I got out of the pickup. “Liddy,” I yelled. “Get into the fucking car!”

She was still spinning. “I’ve never seen snow before!” she said. “This never happens in Mississippi! It’s so pretty!”

It wasn’t pretty. Not on a grimy Providence street where a guy was doing a drug deal on the corner. But cynics always assume the worst, and I guess I was the biggest cynic of them all. Because, at that moment, I realized why I distrusted Liddy on principle. I was afraid that maybe someone like Liddy had to exist in the universe in order to balance someone like me. A woman who couldn’t do anything wrong surely canceled out a guy who never did anything right.

Together, we were two halves of a whole.

I knew then why Reid had fallen for her. Not in spite of the fact that she was so sheltered but because of it. He would be there for all these firsts-her first bank account, her first sexual encounter, her first job. I’d never been someone’s first anything, unless you counted mistake.

By now, other cars had started honking. Liddy grabbed my hand and twirled me around while she laughed.

I managed to get her back into the car, but I sort of wished I hadn’t. I wished we’d just stayed in the middle of that street.

When we started driving again, her cheeks were pink and she was out of breath.

Reid might have everything else, I remember thinking, but that first snow? That was mine.

One sip, when you measure it, is practically nothing. A teaspoonful. A taste. Certainly not enough to really help you quench a thirst, which is why that first sip leads to just a tiny second one, and then really just enough to wet my lips. And then I start thinking about Zoe’s voice and Liddy’s and they blend together and I take another swallow because I think that may split them apart again.

I really haven’t drunk very much. It’s just that it’s been so long, the buzz starts fast and spreads through me. There is a rush like a tide in my head every time my foot hits the brake, which manages to wash away whatever I was thinking at that moment.

Which feels awfully good.

I reach for the bottle again, and, to my surprise, there’s nothing in it.

It must have spilled, because there’s no way I drank a fifth of whiskey.

I mean, I couldn’t have, right?

In my rearview mirror is a lit Christmas tree. It takes me by surprise when I happen to glance at it, and then I can’t stop staring, even though I know my eyes should be on the road. Then the tree lets out a siren.

It’s May; there are no Christmas tree lights. The cop raps against my window.

I have to unroll it, because if I don’t he’ll arrest me. I tell myself to get a grip, to be polite and charming. I can convince him I haven’t been drinking. I did that for years, with the rest of the world.

I think I recognize him. I think he may even go to my church. “Don’t tell me,” I say, offering up a gummy, sheepish grin. “I was going forty in a thirty-mile-an-hour zone?”

“Sorry, Max, but I’m gonna have to ask you to step out of the-”

“Max!” We both turn at the sound of another voice, followed by the slam of a car door.

The cop falls back as Liddy leans into my open window. “What were you thinking, driving yourself to the emergency room?” She turns to the policeman. “Oh, Grant, thank goodness you found him-”

“But I didn’t-”

“He fell off a ladder while he was cleaning out the gutters, and conked his head, and I go off to get an ice pack and by the time I get back I see him zooming off in his truck.” She frowns at me. “You could have killed yourself! Or worse-you could have killed someone else! Didn’t you just tell me you were seeing double?”

I honestly don’t know what to say. I’m wondering if she conked her head.

Liddy opens the driver’s side door. “Move over, Max,” she says, and I unbuckle and slide across the bench into the truck’s passenger seat. “Grant, I just cannot thank you enough. We are so blessed to have you as a public safety officer, not to mention as a member of our congregation.” She looks up at him and smiles. “Will you be a darling and make sure my car gets back home?”

She gives a little wave as she drives off.

“I didn’t bang my head-”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Liddy snaps. “I was out looking for you. Reid told me you left him at the dock to go help Pastor Clive.”

“I did.”

She glances at me. “That’s funny. Because I was with Pastor Clive all afternoon, and I never saw you.”

“Did you tell Reid?”

Liddy sighs. “No.”

“I can explain-”

She holds up one small hand. “Don’t, Max. Just… don’t.” Wrinkling her nose, she says, “Whiskey.”

I close my eyes. Stupid idiot I am, believing I can pull a fast one. I look drunk. I smell drunk. “How would you know, if you’ve never had it?”

“Because my daddy did, every day of my childhood,” Liddy says.

There is something about the way she says it that makes me wonder if her father, the preacher, was trying to drown his own demons, too.

She drives past the turn that would have led to our house. “Lord knows I can’t take you home in this state.”

“You could hit me over the head and take me to the hospital,” I mutter.

Liddy purses her lips. “Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” she says.

The biggest knock-down fight I ever had with Zoe was after Christmas Eve at Reid and Liddy’s house. We’d been married about five years by then and had already had our share of fertility nightmares. Anyway, it’s not a secret that Zoe wasn’t a big fan of my brother and his wife. She had been watching the Weather Channel all day, hoping to convince me that the snow we were going to be getting that night was enough to keep us from driving from our place to theirs.

Liddy loved Christmas. She decorated-not in a cheesy inflatable Santa way but with real garlands wrapped around the banister and mistletoe hanging from the chandeliers. She had a collection of antique wooden St. Nicholas dolls, which were propped up on windowsills and tables. She switched out her everyday dishes for a set with holly around the edges. Reid told me it took her an entire day to prepare the house for the holidays, and looking around, I totally believed it.

“Wow,” Zoe murmured, as we waited in the foyer for Liddy to take our coats and hang them up in the closet. “It’s like we’ve fallen into a Thomas Kinkade painting.”

That’s when Reid appeared, holding mugs of hot cider. He never drank when I was around. “Merry Christmas,” he said, clapping me on the back and kissing Zoe on the cheek. “How are the roads?”

“Nasty,” I told him. “Getting worse.”

“We may not be able to stay long,” Zoe added.

“We saw a car slide off the road on the way back from church,” Reid said. “Luckily, no one got hurt.”

Every Christmas Eve, Liddy directed the children’s Nativity play. “So how did it go?” I asked her. “You guys taking it to Broadway?”

“It was pretty unforgettable,” Reid said, and Liddy swatted him.

“We had an animal control issue,” she said. “One of the little girls in Sunday School has an uncle who runs a petting zoo, and he loaned us a donkey.”

“A donkey,” I repeated. “A real one?”

“He was very tame. He didn’t even move when the girl playing Mary climbed onto his back. But then”-she shuddered-“he stopped halfway down the aisle and… did his business.”

I burst out laughing. “He took a dump?”

“In front of Pastor Clive’s wife,” Liddy said.

“What did you do?”

“I had a shepherd clean it up, and the mother of one of the angels ran out to get carpet cleaner. I mean, what was I supposed to do? I never officially got approval from the school to bring in livestock.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time an ass went to church,” Zoe said, straight-faced.

I grabbed her elbow. “Zoe, come help me in the kitchen.” I dragged her through the swinging door. It smelled delicious, like gingerbread and vanilla. “No politics. You promised me.”

“I’m not going to sit back while he-”

“While he does what?” I argued. “He hasn’t done anything. You’re the one who made the snide comment!”

She looked away from me, petulant. Her gaze landed on the refrigerator, on a magnet printed with a fetus sucking its thumb. I’M A CHILD, said the caption. NOT A CHOICE.

I put my hands on her arms. “Reid is my only family. He may be conservative, but he’s still my brother, and it’s Christmas. All I’m asking is that, for an hour, you smile and nod your head and you don’t bring up current events.”

“What if he brings them up first?”

“Zoe,” I begged, “please.”

And for about an hour, it seemed as if we might get through dinner without a major incident. Liddy served ham and roasted potatoes and a green bean casserole. She told us about the ornaments on her Christmas tree, a collection of antique ones that had come from her grandma. She asked Zoe if she liked to bake, and Zoe talked about some lemon refrigerator pie that her mother used to make when she was a kid. Reid and I talked college football.

When “Angels We Have Heard on High” played on the CD in the background, Liddy hummed along. “I taught this one to the kids this year for the pageant. Some of them had never heard it before.”

“The Christmas concert at the elementary school is apparently the holiday concert now,” Reid said. “A bunch of parents got together and complained, and now they won’t sing anything that has even faintly religious overtones.”

“That’s because it’s a public school,” Zoe said.

Reid cut a neat little triangle of his ham. “Freedom of worship. It’s right there in the Constitution.”

“So’s freedom of religion,” Zoe replied.

Reid grinned. “You try all you want, but you can’t take Christ out of Christmas, honey.”

“Zoe-” I interrupted.

“He brought it up,” Zoe replied.

“Maybe it’s time for the next course.” Liddy, always the peacemaker, jumped up and cleared the dinner plates, then disappeared into the kitchen.

“Let me apologize for my wife,” I said to Reid, but before I could finish the sentence, Zoe turned, furious.

“First of all, I’m perfectly capable of speaking for myself. Second of all, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I don’t have an opinion about-”

“You came here spoiling for a fight-” I argued.

“Then I’ll happily call a truce,” Reid interrupted, smiling uncomfortably. “It’s Christmas, Zoe. Let’s just agree to disagree. Stick to topics like the weather.”

“Who’s ready for dessert?” The swinging door to the kitchen opened, and Liddy stepped through, carrying a homemade cake. Written across the top in white icing it read: HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY JESUS.

“My God,” Zoe murmured.

Liddy smiled. “Mine, too!”

“I give up.” Zoe backed away from the table. “Liddy, Reid, thank you for a lovely dinner. I hope you have a great Christmas. Max? There’s no need for you to leave if you don’t want to. I’ll just meet you at home.” She smiled politely and headed toward the foyer to get her boots and her coat.

“What are you going to do, walk?” I called after her. Excusing myself quickly, I thanked Reid and kissed Liddy good-bye.

By the time I got outside, Zoe was already trudging down the street. The snow, unplowed, reached up to her knees. My truck barreled through it easily and stopped beside her. I leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Get in,” I snapped.

She thought twice, but she climbed into the cab of the truck.

For a few miles, I didn’t speak to her. I couldn’t. I was afraid I might actually explode. Then, when we hit the highway-which had been plowed-I turned to Zoe. “Did you ever think how humiliating that was for me? Is it really too much to ask for you to make it through one meal with my brother and his wife without being a sarcastic bitch?”

“Oh, that’s really nice, Max. So now I’m a bitch, because I don’t feel like being brainwashed by the Christian right.”

“It was a fucking family dinner, Zo. Not a revival meeting!”

She twisted toward me, the seat belt cutting against her throat. “I’m sorry I’m not more like Liddy,” Zoe said. “Maybe Santa could slip a lobotomy into my stocking tonight. That would help.”

“Why don’t you just shut the hell up? What has she ever done to you?”

“Nothing, because she doesn’t have a mind of her own,” Zoe said.

I’d had plenty of discussions with Liddy about whether people like Jack Nicholson and Jonathan Demme owed their success to B movies; about Psycho’s impact on film censorship. “You don’t know anything about her,” I argued. “She’s a… a…”

I swung the truck into our driveway, letting my voice trail off.

Zoe jumped out of the truck. It was snowing so hard now that there was a curtain of white behind her. “A saint?” she said. “Is that the word you’re looking for? Well, I can’t be one, Max. I’m just a flesh and blood woman, and apparently I even suck at that.”

She slammed the passenger door and stomped to the house. Furious, I spun the wheels in reverse and tore down the street, skidding.

Between the fact that it was Christmas Eve and the heavy storm, it seemed like I was the only one on the roads. Nothing was open, not even McDonald’s. It was easy to imagine I was the last person left in this universe, because that’s sure as hell how it felt.

Other men were busy building bicycles and jungle gyms so that their kids could wake up on Christmas morning and get the surprise of a lifetime, but I couldn’t even manage to produce a kid.

I pulled into an empty shopping center lot and watched a plow go by. I remembered the first time Liddy had seen snow.

I reached for my cell phone and dialed my brother’s house, because I knew she would answer. I was just going to hear her say hello, and then hang up.

“Max?” she said, and I grimaced-I’d forgotten about caller ID.

“Hey,” I said.

“Is everything okay?”

It was ten at night, and we’d left in a major storm. Of course she was panicked.

“There’s something I need to ask you,” I said.

Do you know how you light up a room?

Do you ever think about me?

Then I heard Reid’s voice in the background. “Come on back to bed, honey. Who’s calling so late, anyway?”

And Liddy’s response: “It’s just Max.”

Just Max.

“What did you want to ask?” Liddy said.

I closed my eyes. “Did… I leave my scarf there?”

She called out to Reid. “Sugar? Did you see Max’s scarf?” There was some exchange I couldn’t quite make out. “Sorry, Max, we haven’t found it. But we’ll keep a lookout.”

A half hour later, I let myself into my apartment. The light over the stove was still on, and the little tree that Zoe had bought and decorated herself was glowing in the corner of the living room. She absolutely insisted on a live tree, even though it meant lugging it up two flights of stairs. This year she’d tied white satin bows to the boughs. She said each one was a wish she had for next year.

The only difference between a wish and a prayer is that you’re at the mercy of the universe for the first, and you’ve got some help with the second.

Zoe was asleep on the couch, curled beneath a blanket. She was wearing pajamas with snowflakes all over them. She looked like she’d been crying.

I kissed her, to wake her up. I’m sorry, she murmured against my lips. I shouldn’t have-

“I shouldn’t have, either,” I told her.

Still kissing her, I slipped my hands under the edge of her pajama top. Her skin was so hot it burned my palms. She dug her fingers into my hair and wrapped her legs around me. I sank to the floor and tugged her down with me. I knew every scar on her body, every freckle, every curve. They were markers on a road I’d been traveling forever.

I remember thinking our lovemaking that night was so intense, it should have left behind some kind of permanent record, like the beginnings of a baby, except it didn’t.

I remember that my dreams were full of wishes, although, when I woke up, I couldn’t remember a single one.

By the time Liddy gets to wherever she’s planning on going, my buzz has worn off and I’m pretty much pissed at myself and the world. Once Reid finds out that I was pulled over by a cop for drunk driving, he’ll tell Pastor Clive, who’ll tell Wade Preston, who’ll lecture me on how easy it is to lose a trial. When all I wanted, I swear, was to quit being thirsty.

I have been riding with my eyes closed because I’m also suddenly so tired I can barely keep upright. Liddy throws the truck into park. “We’re here,” she says.

We are in the lot in front of the storefront that houses the administrative offices of the Eternal Glory Church.

It’s after hours, and I know that Pastor Clive won’t be around, but that doesn’t make me feel any less guilty. Alcohol has already messed up my own life, and here I am using it to mess up a whole bunch of other people’s lives, too. “Liddy,” I promise, “it won’t happen again…”

“Max.” She tosses me the keys to the church office, which she has because she is the head of the Sunday School program. “Shut up.”

Pastor Clive has set up a small chapel here, just in case someone needs to come in to pray at a time other than our weekly service at the school auditorium. It’s got a few rows of chairs, a lectern, and a picture of Jesus on the cross. I follow Liddy past the receptionist’s desk and the copy machine into the chapel. Instead of turning on the lights, she strikes a match and touches it to a candle that’s sitting on the lectern. The shadows make Jesus’s face look like Freddy Krueger’s.

I sit down beside her and wait for her to pray out loud. That’s what we do at Eternal Glory. Pastor Clive carries on a conversation with Jesus and we all listen.

Tonight, though, Liddy folds her hands in her lap, as if she’s waiting for me to speak.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” I ask.

Liddy looks up at the cross behind the lectern. “You know what my favorite passage in the Bible is? The beginning of John 20. When Mary Magdalene was grieving after Jesus’s death. He wasn’t Jesus to her, you know, he was her friend and her teacher and someone she really cared about. She came to the tomb, because she just wanted to be close to his body, if that was all that was left of him. But she got there, and his body was gone, too. Can you imagine how lonely she felt? So she started crying, and a stranger asked her what was wrong-and then said her name, and that’s when she realized it was actually Jesus talking to her.” Liddy glances at me. “There are lots of times I’ve been sure God’s left me. But then it turns out I was just looking in the wrong place.”

I don’t know what I’m more ashamed of: the fact that I am a failure in the eyes of Jesus, or in the eyes of Liddy.

“God’s not at the bottom of that bottle. Judge O’Neill, he’ll be watching everything we do. Me and Reid, and you.” Liddy closes her eyes. “I want to have your baby, Max.”

I feel electricity run through me.

Dear God, I pray silently, let me see myself as You do. Remind me that none of us are perfect until we look into Your face.

But I am staring at Liddy’s.

“If it’s a boy,” she says, “I’m going to name him Max.”

I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to.” Liddy turns toward me. “Did you ever want something so bad you think that hoping is going to jinx it?”

In all the spaces between the words, I hear ones she hasn’t spoken out loud. So I grasp the back of her head, and I lean forward and kiss her.

God is love. I’ve heard Pastor Clive say that a thousand times, but now, I understand.

Liddy’s arms come up between us, and with more force than I would have expected her to have, she shoves me backward. My chair screeches across the floor. Her cheeks are bright red, and she’s covering her mouth with one hand.

“Liddy,” I say, my heart sinking, “I didn’t mean to-”

“You don’t have to apologize, Max.” Suddenly there is a wall between us. I may not be able to see it, but I can feel it. “It’s just the alcohol, acting out.” She blows out the candle. “We should go.”

Liddy leaves the chapel, but I stay behind. For at least another minute, I wait, completely in the dark.

After my car wreck, when I let Jesus into my heart, I also let Clive Lincoln into my life. We met in his office, and we talked about why I drank.

I told him that it felt like a hole inside me, and I was trying to fill it up.

He said that hole was quicksand, and I was sinking fast.

He asked me to list all the things that made that hole bigger.

Being broke, I said.

Being drunk.

Losing clients.

Losing Zoe.

Losing a baby.

Then he began to talk about what could patch that hole in me.

God. Friends. Family.

“Yeah,” I said, looking down at the floor. “Thank goodness for Reid.”

But Pastor Clive, he can hear when you don’t mean what you say, and he leaned back in his chair. “This isn’t the first time Reid’s bailed you out, is it?”

“No.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“How do you think it makes me feel?” I exploded. “Like a total fuckup. Like everything comes so easy to Reid, and me, I’m always drowning.”

“That’s because Reid’s given himself over to Jesus. He’s letting someone else lead him over the rapids, Max, and you-you’re still trying to swim upstream.”

I smirked. “So I just let go, and God takes care of it?”

“Why not? You sure as heck haven’t been doing a bang-up job lately, yourself.” Pastor Clive walked behind my chair. “Tell Jesus what you want. What does Reid have that you wish you could have, too?”

“I’m not going to talk out loud to Jesus-”

“Do you think He can’t read your thoughts anyway?”

“Fine.” I sighed. “I’m jealous of my brother. I wish I had his house. His bank account. Even his faith, I guess.”

Speaking it so baldly made me feel like shit. My brother had never done anything but help me, and here I was coveting everything he had. I felt ugly, like I had peeled off a layer of skin to find an infection underneath.

And God, all I wanted to do was heal.

I might have cried then; I don’t remember. I do know it was the first time I really saw myself for the person I was: someone too proud to admit his flaws.

I left one thing off the list, though, when I was talking to Pastor Clive. I never said I wanted Reid’s wife.

I kept that secret.

On purpose.

I apologize at least fifty more times to Liddy on the way home, but she stays cool, tight-lipped. “I’m sorry,” I say again, as she pulls into the driveway.

“For what?” Liddy asks. “Nothing happened.”

She opens the front door and lifts my arm over her neck, so that it looks like she’s supporting me. “Follow my lead,” she says.

I’m still a little unsteady on my feet, so I let her drag me inside. Reid is standing in the foyer. “Thank God. Where did you find him?”

“Throwing up on the side of the road,” Liddy answers. “He’s got a nasty case of food poisoning, according to the ER.”

“Man, little brother, what did you eat?” Reid asks, wrapping an arm around me so that he can take some of my weight. I pretend to stumble, and let him pull me downstairs to the guest room in the basement. After Reid lays me down on the bed, Liddy takes off my shoes. Her hands are warm on my ankles.

Even in the dark, the ceiling’s spinning. Or maybe that’s just the ceiling fan. “The doctor says he’ll be able to sleep it off,” Liddy says. Through slitted eyes, I notice that my brother has his arm around her.

“I’ll call Pastor Clive, tell him Max got back safely,” Reid says, and he leaves.

Pastor Clive was looking for me, too? A fresh wave of guilt floods over me. Meanwhile Liddy steps into the closet and reaches onto the top shelf. She shakes out a blanket and covers me. I consider apologizing again, but then on second thought, I pretend to be asleep.

The bed sinks under Liddy’s weight. She is sitting close enough to touch me, and I hold my breath until I feel her hand brush my hair away from my face.

Her voice is a whisper, and I have to strain to hear it.

She’s praying. I listen to the rise and fall of her words, and pretend that, instead of asking God for help, she is asking God for me.

The morning of the first time we are scheduled to appear in the courtroom, Wade Preston shows up at Reid’s front door holding a suit. “I have one,” I tell him.

“Yes,” he says, “but do you have the right one, Max? First impressions, they’re critical. You don’t have a chance for a do-over.”

“I was just going to wear my black one,” I say. It’s the only suit I own; I got it from Eternal Glory’s goodwill closet. It’s been good enough for me to wear to church on Sundays, anyway, or when I’m out doing mission work for Pastor Clive.

The one Preston’s brought is charcoal gray. There is also a crisply pressed white shirt and a blue tie. “I was going to wear a red tie,” I say. “I borrowed it from Reid.”

“Absolutely not. You don’t want to stand out. You want to look humble, stable, solid as a rock. You want to look the way you will when you go to the kindergarten parent-teacher conference.”

“But Reid will be going to that-”

Wade waves me away. “Don’t be obtuse, Max. You know what I mean. A red tie says, Notice me.”

I pause. Wade is wearing the most perfectly tailored suit I’ve ever seen. His initials are embroidered on the French cuff of his shirt. He’s got a pocket square made of silk. “You’re wearing a red tie,” I say.

“My point exactly,” Wade replies. “Now go get dressed.”

An hour later, we are crammed at one of the tables in the front of the courtroom: Liddy, Reid, Ben Benjamin, Wade, and me. I haven’t spoken to Liddy all morning. She’s probably the one person who could calm me down, but every time I try, Wade remembers something else he needs to tell me about my behavior in court: Sit up straight, don’t fidget, don’t make faces at the judge. Don’t react to anything the other side says, no matter how much it upsets you. From what he’s said, you’d think I was about to have my stage debut instead of just sitting through a legal motion.

My tie is choking me, but every time I yank at it, Wade or Reid tells me to quit.

“Showtime,” Wade murmurs, and I turn around to see what he’s looking at. Zoe’s just walked into the courtroom, along with Vanessa and a tiny lady with bouncy black curls that ricochet in all directions from her scalp.

“We’re outnumbered,” Vanessa says quietly, but I can hear her all the same, and I like the idea that Wade’s already thrown them off their game. Zoe doesn’t look at me as she takes her seat. I bet that little lawyer gave her a bunch of rules to follow, too.

Wade quietly dials a number on his cell phone, and, a moment later, the double doors at the back of the courtroom open and a young woman who works as a paralegal for Ben Benjamin wheels a hand truck full of books down the aisle. She stacks them on the table in front of Wade, while Zoe and Vanessa and their lawyer watch. There are books of research, books of law from other states. I start reading the titles on the spines: Traditional Marriage. The Preservation of Family Values.

The last book she sets on top of the pile is the Bible.

“Hey, Zoe,” the female lawyer says. “You know the difference between a catfish and Wade Preston? One’s a slimy, scum-sucking bottom-feeder. And the other one’s just a fish.”

A man stands up. “All rise, the honorable Padraic O’Neill presiding.”

The judge enters from another door. He is tall, with a mane of white hair that has a tiny triangle of black at the widow’s peak. Two deep lines bracket his mouth, as if his frown needed any more attention drawn to it.

When he sits down, we do, too. “Baxter versus Baxter,” the clerk reads.

The judge slips a pair of reading glasses on. “Whose motion is this?”

Ben Benjamin stands. “Your Honor, I’m here today on the behalf of third-party plaintiffs, Reid and Liddy Baxter. My client is joining in the effort to have them impleaded into the case, and my colleague, Mr. Preston, and I would very much like to be heard on that issue.”

The judge’s face crinkles in a smile. “Why, Benny Benjamin! Always a pleasure to have you in court. I get to see if you managed to learn anything I ever taught you.” He glances over the paperwork in his folder. “Now, what is this motion about exactly?”

“Judge, this a custody battle over three frozen embryos that remained after the divorce of Max and Zoe Baxter. Reid and Liddy Baxter are my client’s brother and sister-in-law. They wish-and Max wishes-to gain custody of the embryos for the purpose of giving them to his brother and sister-in-law to gestate and bring to term and raise as their own children.”

Judge O’Neill’s eyebrows knit together. “You’re telling me there’s a final judgment about property that the parties didn’t deal with during their divorce?”

Wade stands up beside me. His cologne smells like limes. “Your Honor, with all due respect,” he says, “we are talking about children. About pre-born children-”

Across the aisle, Zoe’s attorney rises. “Objection, Your Honor. This is ludicrous. Can someone please tell Mr. Preston we’re not in Louisiana?”

Judge O’Neill points at Wade. “You! Sit down right now.”

“Your Honor,” Zoe’s lawyer says, “Max Baxter is using biology as a trump card to take three frozen embryos away from my client-who is one of the intended parents. She and her legal spouse intend to raise them in a healthy, loving family.”

“Where’s her legal spouse?” O’Neill asks. “I don’t see him sitting next to her.”

“My client is legally married to her spouse, Vanessa Shaw, in the state of Massachusetts.”

“Well, Ms. Moretti,” the judge replies, “she’s not legally married in Rhode Island. Now, let me get this straight-”

Behind me, I hear Vanessa stifle a snort. “But we’re not,” she murmurs.

“-You want the embryos.” He points at Zoe. “And you want them,” he says, pointing at me, and finally he points to Reid and Liddy. “And now they want them?”

“Actually, Your Honor,” Zoe’s lawyer says, “Max Baxter doesn’t want the embryos. He plans to give them away.”

Wade stands up. “To the contrary, Your Honor. Max wants his children to be raised in a traditional family, not a sexually deviant one.”

“A man seeking embryos to give away to somebody else,” the judge sums up. “Are you saying that’s a traditional type of thing to do? Because it sure isn’t where I come from.”

“If I may, Judge, this is a complicated case,” Zoe’s attorney says. “As far as I know, it’s a new area of the law that’s never been determined in Rhode Island. Today, though, we’re only convened because of the motion filed to implead Reid and Liddy Baxter, and I strenuously object to them becoming parties in this lawsuit. I have filed a memo today stating that, and, in fact, if you choose to allow prospective gestational carriers to implead this case, then Vanessa Shaw should also be a party, and I will file a motion immediately-”

“I object, Your Honor,” Wade argues. “You already said this is not a legal marriage, and now Ms. Moretti is raising a red herring that you already tossed out.”

The judge stares at him. “Mr. Preston, if you interrupt Ms. Moretti again, I am going to hold you in contempt of court. This is not a TV show; you’re not Pat Robertson. This is my courtroom, and I’m not about to let you turn it into the circus you’d like it to be. I’m retiring after this case, and so help me, I’m not going out in a religious catfight.” He bangs his gavel. “The motion to implead is denied. This case is between Max Baxter and Zoe Baxter, and it will proceed in the ordinary course. You, Mr. Benjamin, are welcome to call whomever you like as a witness, but I’m not impleading anyone. Not Reid and Liddy Baxter,” he says, and then he turns to the other lawyer. “And not Vanessa Shaw, so don’t file any motions requesting it.”

Finally, he turns to Wade. “And Mr. Preston. Word to the wise: think very carefully about what kind of grandstanding you plan to do. Because I’m not allowing you to run away with this court. I’m in charge here.”

He stands up and leaves the bench, and we jump up, too. Being in court isn’t that different from being in church. You rise, you fall, you look to the front of the room for guidance.

Zoe’s lawyer walks over to our table. “Angela,” Wade says. “I wish I could say it’s a pleasure to see you, but it’s a sin to lie.”

“Sorry that didn’t go as well for you as you’d hoped,” she replies.

“That went just fine, thank you very much.”

“Maybe that’s what you all think in Louisiana, but, believe me, here you just got slammed,” the lawyer says.

Wade leans on the books that were brought in by the paralegal. “The true colors of this judge will come out, darlin’,” he says. “And believe me… they’re not rainbow-striped.”