Outside,
Max and Michael had spent a while doing things that were normal.
Too normal both would think as they were making sure Michael was able to stock up on all the things, he would need to make his new home complete. It was different to be back in Roswell after time on the road, and then in Nashville,
which is a very musical town that had its own code, Michael would think as he was coming to appreciate that there was something calm about being Roswell.
We operate using different wave lengths that Nashville would never imagine trying to copy.
And of course, he knew this town.
Or he once did, nearly two decades ago.
A lot has changed. But one can say that about everywhere in this world he thought. No one is the same, and that goes for people too… Of course, Michael knew he did not always feel like that, because he knew
I wanted to be off this planet for so long he thought.
Then I got my fill on being outside of it, even though he and Maria would eventually manage to make a life and it was not always living out of a suitcase. We did manage that little picket fence.
But it was the suitcase life at times, but as Lucy got older, one had to stay home, and it was often him.
And I was fine with it.
Maria got to have her dreams Michael muttered.
It was not like I was destined for anything he thought.
I was simply happy to be out of jail, or even alive. After all, I did not even graduate, he thought.
Although there were a lot of reasons why I did not. But it was not like I was going overboard in trying to graduate once his early attempts by the wayside,
thanks Utah, he muttered but knew he could have done a better job but then it was about putting food on the table and
keeping a roof over my head before I vanished from these parts, so he now looked at his return to Roswell with different eyes.
It was calm, he thought. Although there was still a lot that the public did not know.
Despite our exit he thought.
It had died off,
most did not believe much, and the government had tried to cover up what they were trying to do that day he thought.
Terminate four unarmed teenagers.
Okay, okay, we were armed in many other ways.
Not that many people knew it.
Only a select few did.
So, now that he was back. He had to get back into the swing of things, and with Max wanting to get out and not mind about having his ex-wife and daughter back in town, it led to a guy only mission to pick up supplies for the new house.
And it had largely worked. Because they had been kept busy. And they did not let the past or the now get in the way.
That was then, this was now, of course, because Michael had been the first one to see the warning sides of trouble when they stopped up the street from the Crashdown. Because they were planning lunch at one of the luncheon places that was open. Because there were not as many restaurants that were fully open yet. Like the Crashdown, they either closed doors or reverted to takeout to make ends meet. Therefore, they did not have eat in yet, except for a few that were able to open right up, and because Jeff and Nancy had not made the transition to take out or even food apps before the pandemic hit, they were at a loss to move quickly to embrace the new technology, which is why Jeff did not want to stick around and worry about it all, but there were places of course that were open to it.
And Max and Michael were planning to make do with a lesser quality burger. After all, for all the drama that would come out of the Crashdown on an
almost daily basis back in the late 90’s, and the early months of the new millennium. The food was always first class,
I should know Michael thought as he had manufactured some of it.
Even though I did not like the job at the time.
But it kept the lights on, and cable on the television, mostly with the help of that other job Michael thought of in the apartment he was forced into when he went out on his own once things went south with Hank. And he was out on his own and having to handle dealing with his own life. There was so much that he had to handle once he was on his own. He would admit those days were often rocky, if you kept it to their daily lives as teenagers.
Often, you could not because they were so much more to them once
that shooting occurred, and things started to change.
And now it was more than two decades from those shots ringing out, and so much had changed.
And here he was back in his hometown, a changed man and a happy one at that although his best friend had seen better times, so he knew it had to be difficult for his friend to eating somewhere other than the Crashdown.
I am used to it.
But we do not have any other choice he thought as they were preparing to eat at a lesser place, although still delicious but only Max could attest to it. Because Michael was only a few days off being back in town, and not a formal resident yet. While Max was someone different.
He had lived his life here in town, since coming back to their hometown with heartbreak in his heart. But that all changed as they got out of the car, and he was locking it up when he looked down the street, not really looking at anything seriously until he spotted the
no longer flashing lights of the spaceship above the Crashdown. A place now dormant, and he missed his former workplace not for the work, but for who he had met there, and all the drama that came from it. But he knew Max had a lot more memories attached to it, for many more reasons than he could attest too. But now he was seeing a brunette who he had not seen in over a year, not since she had been in Nashville.
Someone who was eerily looking like her mother,
and her father Michael sighed. Because he knew how much
her absence had cost his best friend.
Both her, and of course the girls’ mother.
Someone he had not seen since that visit in Nashville for his own daughter’s 16th birthday. A gathering that had been lots of fun for the party girl, but he also knew that he had been lucky to see his daughter grow to become sixteen, and now seventeen. While Max was different. He had missed all this, and now Claudia was even older, and his best friend had missed it all.
Except for three months.
Unfair, Michael thought now. Now he saw Claudia as she stood outside the dormant shell of the Crashdown, that was still closed for business.
But he knew the intention was to open it up again, and he wondered if Liz would be able to do it.
Claudia was standing outside the restaurant and talking to a young man, and it took a closer look for Michael to recognize who it was.
Oh shit, Michael muttered.
And it was something Max heard even though he was in his own head because he was stewing on the difficult discussion with his father, and what
I do not know he thought.
Which might be a lot.
Which was true, but he did not know half of it.
And now he was called back into reality by his best friend, and he spotted what Michael was looking at, and he took his own look, and he stopped in his tracks and was almost paralyzed
Oh Max, Michael would now say.
Max was too far out of it to respond.
Naturally Michael thought but did not blame his friend for the reaction because he would almost certainly have the same response if Maria had kept
his child away from him, but that was something Maria
had not done, he thought.
I got to know Lucy from the day she was born through her formative years, to her current free spirit phase.
Very much like her mother.
And he loved every minute of his daughter’s life.
But now he had other pressing matters as the second in command was coming out in him, and Michael thought he should take control of this situation because he knew it could go many ways. “Max,” he would say again.
Finally drawn out of his trance, Max had to shake himself out of it.
You saw her this morning. You can deal with this he thought as he saw his daughter, and now she was simply talking
to Tripp Valenti. Born
James Valenti, the third but given the name Tripp early on in his life.
Because there were not many other ways to go with the name, since Jim was still alive, and Tripp according to our sister who was close friends with the boy’s father, did not seem like a James. And really, we all knew how Kyle and his father had a complicated relationship with the original James Valenti.
A former town Sheriff who went down a path that would echo his own son’s but fortunately Jim’s landing was a lot easier, even if it was complex in origin.
So, Tripp was as if he was the son from Kyle’s first marriage.
Not that Michael knew him. But Max did,
for obvious reasons because of what my sister has chosen for her life.
And he saw that it was Tripp who was talking to his daughter, and as he took a few extra steps. He saw that the teenage boy was smitten with his daughter. After all, Max knew what smitten looked like because he had spent so much of his life being smitten
by one woman, and one woman only he thought.
Liz.
And now he was seeing a teenage boy acting like that with his daughter. And a reaction of
I could care less from his little girl. A girl he did not know. Which would cause a strange sensation through him because he did not know what he should be feeling because he knew he had missed Claudia’s life. Everything but three months.
And now he was seeing his daughter in a different light.
One that was older. Who knew how to handle her own life? It was an odd sensation for Max to feel because he had been so absent from his daughter’s life.
She is 18 years old Max was forced to remind himself.
“Are you okay?” Michael wondered as he got through to his best friend.
“I am fine,” Max said softly. But he did not know if he was telling the truth. “Maybe I am, maybe I am not. I do not know what I am…”
“What do you want to do?” Michael asked.
“I have to speak up,” Max said softly. “I cannot walk away,” he sighed of the changes in his life. And what it would all mean, as he took some steps and walked towards his little girl. Who was now a big girl?
And Michael had no choice but to follow his friend and make sure this did not go badly, but then he got closer to the Crashdown and spotted Liz inside the restaurant. Well, he knew this was going to be a losing battle.
Yeah, this will not go well Michael thought.
What else is new…
But Max did not care.
*
Claudia did not take the effort to kick her out of the Crashdown well. But she did not resist because she knew she could deal with it later, when she was alone with her mother. And really, she needed some fresh air so she took up on the effort to dismiss her, and so she and Tripp would leave the aging restaurant that needed to be remodeled if her mother was serious about bringing her grandparent’s old place back into shape. Although critically, she knew it did not need much but it probably needed to be brought up to the standards of 2021, because it was still very much back in in her parent’s time.
Parents, plural Claudia muttered to herself. After all, because most of her life was about growing up with only a single mother. The fact she knew her biological father was in this town, and she could see him at any time, well, it was still a shock to the system. She knew she should not be surprised, after all, she knew she was her parents’ hometown.
Not mine because
I was born elsewhere.
That much I do know because she had seen her birth certificate, and knew she was born in small cove near the Mexican border, in California. She should be happy to know California was her birth state, but it was not one they stayed in,
obviously we moved around she thought s
o it was only a place where I was born, and not a place where I do not know.
Like this one.
So much of her life had been about having a single mother. She did not know if she could think of having two parents, especially since she did not know her father. Could she handle having him part of her life. But then she did want to know him, right, because that she was the one who sought him out just that morning. She could have kept their relationship to one that was nonexistent, which was how it was before now, but she had gone there, and now she was curious about this town.
And she was standing in front of a place that had major ties to her family, and her parents, and could be their future.
If Mom’s sticks this time Claudia muttered.
How can I be sure she will not wake up and want to move away? she asked herself.
If it becomes too hard for her? But everyone else did not have my father in it, Claudia muttered to herself once more.
Can he convince her to stay?
As stood outside, in the fresh air. She knew so much was different than where she thought her life was going a year before, when life turned upside down and changed itself forever. As she spotted the different ways everyone was coming out of the pandemic. Because not every store was open.
Tripp saw that Claudia was observing the new and controlled bustle of their main street.
Yeah, everything was different he would tell himself.
And I was born here and lived here all my life. But he knew this town was different than it was on the cusp of 2020.
Now, it’s 2021 and it is trying to get its sea legs up and running.
“This is probably new for you?” Tripp was asking because he did not know what to say to her.
His dream girl.
He was still smarting from the breakup with his ex-girlfriend
Rita. It was six months now, but it had still had him smarting but then Claudia had come to town. And even though he could not speak to her, or more like it, he did not know how to talk to someone who obviously had a different kind of life.
She is not from around here, even if she has family here.
But they did not know each other.
But he hoped they would get used to each other.
“Somewhat,” Claudia muttered as she was reminded that she had
a bodyguard of sorts she sighed.
Tripp. As she did not know how to talk to Tripp either because they did not know each other. So, she was concentrating on the street traffic and hoped for her mother’s discussion would end and she could go back into the restaurant, and they would go upstairs and figure out where to go from here with her little brother JJ, and then she saw the two gentlemen looking at her.
Uh, oh she muttered.
“What?” Tripp asked.
“This is what I do not need,” Claudia muttered. “Not at least, right now.”
“What?” Tripp asked, because he was obviously in the dark.
“Claudia,” came the second man as they came closer to the two teenagers. Obviously, not listening to Claudia’s inner pleas to walk away.
Nope, they could not do that, could they?
“Uncle Michael,” Claudia murmured of the man who was married to her godmother. Even though they were not as close because of the distance that she and her mother were living for most of her life. Still, in the last decade, she had seen Lucy’s family more and more except for the last year when of course a crushing pandemic had gotten in the way, and it stopped everything in their tracks, and the ability to see old friends, so this weekend was the first time in over a year. While her biological father’s name was not mentioned when they would see the Guerin family. Still, she knew that Lucy’s father was the best friend of her biological father.
And she could see the ease that the two men were under right now,
obviously they are close friends Claudia murmured to herself.
It is just odd because I am looking at a man I do not know, “Dad?”
And now Tripp looked surprised. Obviously, he was not up on the full nature of the squad’s branches, and that Claudia somehow related to Mikyla’s uncle aka
Kyla.
Whoa Tripp would think now,
“Max is Claudia’s father. That surprises me,” he would tell himself.
And probably it did because he knew Max Evans was the emphasis of being lonely. Because he had been single for many years, and he, Kyla and her sisters did not know most of what went down in the past with their parents. The elders of their clan kept quiet for a reason. Because with Liz and her daughter gone, and the trouble largely tamped down, it never made sense to open old wounds. After all, Michael, and Maria and later with Lucy would settle elsewhere. And his father was in and out of his many marriages. And Kyla’s mother would remarry her father,
although we know the truth of her parentage, but Neil Anderson was a good father to his stepdaughter, and treated her like his own daughter, and therefore early on Kyla would take the name Anderson even though adoption never occurred, but it would when he and his wife would adopt Kyla’s younger sisters Poppy and Katy because they were orphaned due to a fire.
And put in the system. And Isabel, a short-lived resident of the system swooped in with her husband and quickly adopted the infants, and they would join Kyla’s family.
And now he was seeing that he was Claudia’s father.
Really? he wanted to say but did not want to be considered clueless.
“Claudia,” Max said softly.
“We did not expect to see you,” Michael murmured. “We were planning on lunch up the street…”
“I hope we can count on your business when Mom gets this place up and running?” Claudia said with ease.
If that even happens, she murmured to herself but did not say it, and Michael smiled. And Max was mystified by it all. The fact that his daughter was back in town, and his ex-wife was back, and the fact that Liz was planning on taking over the Crashdown.
And not just live above it. “Is that the plan?” Max asked, because of the things he had asked or considered asking. He never imagined that it would involve his ex-wife taking back her father’s restaurant.
“If you ask Mom, it is,” Claudia muttered. “And why she quit her job and moved JJ and me here,” she sighed.
Although I have to acknowledge that it was my choice to come back here…
Max did not know what to say.
Michael felt for his best friend. It was going to be hard to deal with it, as everything was new for everyone involved in their little story.
Max was not sure what to say, and he was almost ready to say something when he took a simple look around and found his eyes going through the glass of the door that his daughter had just come out of, and he stopped and found someone that captivated his eye. And it had been that way since they were in third grade together.
And Liz would not have known Max’s name. But Max knew her name. And how cute she was in that playground, when she was playing with her friends, and especially Maria. And he would keep his eye on her throughout their lives as they would grow up, and co-exist in the same grades, or as partners when they were in high school together, and the same science classes. That is when it all changed for her.
That is when Liz had noticed him. Just like he had noticed her.
Of course, it had taken a simple shooting to change everything for them.
Although we would learn that it was not a simple shooting at all. Because it would become a lot more confusing, and a lot more painful as we got away from it.
When he saved Liz’s life.
After all, he could not let her die.
And it was something he did not regret. Not even after she would destroy him by walking away from him and ending their short-lived marriage. Max would never regret that he had loved her, or that he saved her life. Because of what she had provided him. Even if it had been suspenseful and stressful for several years, and it had only ended in pain for him.
When she walked away from, and taken their daughter with her, and now she was back. And was older than that tiny baby she had seen, and then of course he had his eyes trail and found Liz in the Crashdown talking to of all people Kyle Valenti.
Kyle, someone who had been in their very beginning. Someone who was his competition even if that competition ended early. But there was a part of him that would be jealous. Even though Kyle obviously had moved on, and had other girlfriends, and marriages and was a feature in
my own sister’s life he thought.
In eyes that Isabel has not yet recognized.
And as soon as his eyes reached Liz, it would seem like her eyes found his.
And they stared.
And Kyle could only laugh inside, and Michael knew that feeling on the outside of those doors.
Unreal Michael thought.
Claudia did not know what to feel because there was so much, she did not know.
You can read about it. But it is another thing to see it.
She remembered feeling the same the day before when all of this started, when they set their eyes on each other and she had seen it and now she was seeing it again, and she did not know how to feel about it.
If Mom cannot keep her eyes off my father. Why did she leave him?
It was a question that was unknowable except for two people.
Certainly, Liz’s daughter did not know.
*
Everything seemed to stop. No one knew what to do next. Would Max and Liz be able to finally talk to each other. It was anyone’s guess. Michael knew lunch was now forgotten, because nothing would be able to stop his friend Max, and hunger pains seemed meaningless to any other pain his friend had experienced before. And especially now that his friend had a new chance to actually eye his ex-wife once more.
What else is new.
Claudia and Tripp were now trapped outside, unsure of what was going to happen next. Although for the couple’s daughter, this was more of an issue than Tripp who could only look on with awe at the drama unfolding while his father was inside having to deal with it from a place that involved way too much of the inner drama of it all.
Still though while it was decided what would come next. Nearby, Isabel who did not know what was happening with her brother, or her
two brothers. Although she would not be shocked to know it had to do with her unknown niece, or her former sister-in-law because after all, one would assume that one of these days, her brother would find himself making sure that he saw his former wife.
Talking to her might be another story Isabel smiled to herself, although she was not sure if she could smile because she wanted her brother to be happy.
But still, she knew none of this. Isabel needed some retail therapy after an unfortunate conversation with her father, which had left her with too many unanswered questions and of course her brother, but her father bothered her, still. Because on a normal day, she wished her father would clean up his act and come back to the land of the living. But now she did not know what her father was dealing with, or what she wanted the future to be. So, instead of dealing with her father, and getting those questions she had answered. Well, she decided to do a little shopping.
With her daughters away. Kyla was not due back for a week, after she had gotten accepted into an rare and exclusive exchange that opened up for international students despite a pandemic that was swirling, but Kyla wanted to do it, and she would be safe in a bubble of sorts with the other students, and Isabel had said yes, because it had been a rough year since the loss of her father, well, the twins would be back a few days later after spending time with their paternal grandparents
Daisy and Frank Anderson who lived in Maine. And with their son dead. They still wanted to be a part of Poppy and Katy’s life, and Isabel wanted to allow them. She knew it was important for the girls to have grandparents. And especially since the girls had not been able to see their grandparents since before the pandemic. Daisy and Frank had not been able to come to the small funeral held because travel was locked down. Therefore, Isabel felt now that life was starting to resume to allow the twins to go and spend time with their grandparents. Kyla would have gone with her sisters if not for the opportunity to study overseas.
She would be back. Of course, Isabel knew that Kyla’s life was a little more complicated because her mother was not had acknowledged who her biological father was, because of an agreement between the parties. Isabel did not want Kyle forced to take responsibility for a child she had wanted, and he only helped out with its conception as a friend.
Not even the old fashion way, Especially, once he started getting involved in his marriages.
Neither was doing anything about it. Although Isabel suspected both Kyla and Kyle’s son Tripp knew what was going on.
You cannot keep a secret in our clan.
So, it was a very bad secret. An open one at that. But Kyla and Tripp did not make it an issue. Isabel knew her eldest daughter saw Jim. But it was not a grandparent relationship. Still, Jim spoiled Kyla on occasion. And helped his
biological granddaughter financially with her trip. So, Isabel knew everyone knew about it.
But she had not wanted to deal with it. Especially after losing Neil the way, she did. And it had taken most of the last year to deal with the loss because she had loved Neil in her own way. It had not been the young love she had for Jesse. But it was strong. And she had raised three great children with him.
They had a great marriage. Even if the passion had dwindled a little by the end, she was content and would have been happy if Neil had not gotten sick.
And had not wanted Max’s help.
Because Isabel had wisely not headed into another marriage with such a secret between herself and her betrothed. She had told Neil. Like Jesse, there was discomfort with the knowledge. But Neil had come around and wanted to marry her anyways, and while he was never 100% comfortable with it, still he loved both Isabel and her daughter
Mikyla and wanted to be a family with them.
And Isabel and her daughter would feel accepted by Neil and his family. Although Isabel’s in-laws would not know the truth, because that would be taking the secret a little far. And there did not seem to be a pressing need for the Anderson’s to know the truth. Poppy and Katy were normal. And Kyla had her quirks, but she did not want her Anderson grandparents to know because she could see how much knowledge brought to people. Thankfully Neil had accepted it, but they were not sure how accepting his parents would be.
Why try?
Although with Kyla growing up. Who knows what the future will hold? But it was not a worry for Isabel today as she sought retail therapy to get her mind off some normal worries, her own family ones. That did not have to do with how special she or her daughter were.
So, she was in a nearby boutique, checking out the fashions when spotted Maria and Lucy on the sidewalk. Happy to know that her brother Michael was in town. She felt life calming down. She only wished it would calm down for her brother, and that Max could be happy.
She stopped her browsing and walked out of the boutique. “Hey, strangers” she said to her friend Maria. “And boy, Lucy, you have grown up so much since last I saw you.”
“Hey, Aunt Isabel” Lucy Guerin smiled as she saw the friendly face of her honorary aunt, and godmother. “It’s been a while,” she sighed because she knew the last time, she had been here in town was the summer before her sixteenth birthday because of how much the pandemic had refused her to do anything the previous summer. So, it had been two years since she had been back in town visiting her grandparents and was able to see her aunt Isabel because her mother had been touring, and her father had gone with her.
For a change.
Lucy had come here to Roswell.
Truly her mother’s daughter Isabel commented.
I have seen that pixie cut she thought as she remembered a time where she had not known Maria formerly Deluca well. Because Maria had her quirks, but she worked and played with her best friend Liz and did not mix well with the life that Isabel had been living at the time. But somehow Maria had come into her mix, and it was mainly because of what her brother had done on that September day.
Save Liz Parker.
She and Michael were miffed because they could see things changing, and it was never good to have their very lives changing before their eyes. But somehow Michael had fallen for that blonde pixie that their daughter was now modeling. “That haircut.”
“Don’t you love it?” Lucy asked with a smile, and Maria could only grin as she exchanged a knowing laugh with Isabel because they both remembered Maria’s own time with that pixie cut,
as she started to attract Michael during that time even though it would be a hard journey of three years before they would make a commitment.
The only people who had a harder go were her brother and Liz.
Only for Liz to walk away in the end.
Shocking them all.
“It’s an original one alright, although I think your mother tried it out back in high school,” Isabel sighed.
Lucy waved it off.
“I am glad you two are back,” Isabel said with a smile, and knew it was the truth because she needed some friendly faces in this town.
Because who knows what is coming our way.
And my brother’s way.
And what did my father have to do with it? So, Isabel could use some friendly faces in their lives as she got a text, and she looked down. “Oh great,” she muttered out loud.
“What is it?” Maria asked, as she stood next to her daughter.
*
“Are you going to actually speak to him?” Kyle was wondering as he was still in the Crashdown and beside his former girlfriend who was still in a state of paralysis,
of course she is as she had not moved an inch. Nor had Max so they were both in sync in that regard.
They always had this need to be in sync, but then the worst would happen, and all hell would break out. “Maybe it is time you two talk,” he suggested because the one thing he knew was that they had probably
not spoken. “You are back here now, aren’t you and it is not like Max is a part-time visitor, because he lives here in town” he murmured. “Somehow, you will be seeing him often,” he sighed. “Especially if you do get this place up and running?”
Liz nodded.
After all, that is the plan, right? But she had to be honest with herself. She had not really thought about the reality of getting this place up and running.
I should have she was telling herself as Kyle once more saw his former girlfriend was in her own head and thinking of something other than his question to her. “Liz?”
Liz sighed, as she looked around and while the restaurant had held up remarkably well in the year that it had been closed, and boarded up, but there was definite updating that would need to be done to get it up and ship shape for this decade. She knew her father loved the place, but he had kept the maintenance to a minimum because he had not wanted to shut down the place for how long a total refitting would take place. And really, he had not needed too because business was brisk, and the restaurant withstand the many years since she was a waitress here. Initially not jumping on the opportunity, even as her father had made plans to sell but over time, she had made such a drastic decision even though fortunately by staying in one place. She had gotten the opportunity to rise in her chosen profession.
As a researcher and a scientist…
But the last year had burnt her out because of the demand to know what was going on in this world, with an out-of-control virus that was taking over the world. And she had been early on drafted to help with living and breathing patients, and that had escalated her burn out and once it became apparent that her son was not taking well to on-line schooling. It only increased the dual demand.
And finally, she finally had an enough and the thought had come to make this move. But she had not seriously thought about what it would entail, although thankfully the downstairs. The main part of the restaurant would not need much, but still enough had to be done before she seriously got around to opening it up. And when she did that, how she was going to deal with running it, well, that was still a mystery to her.
What she knew she did not need was to see her ex-husband wherever she looked. She knew she was in a dicey situation coming back to this town, knowing the little she did know, that her ex-husband was back in this town, and had not left it.
She did not count on feeling like she was out of control whenever she saw him, and now he was outside she thought. “Why do I deserve this?”
“You do not,” Kyle said with a smile. “But unfortunately, that is life. I have to deal with my ex-wife Sue Ann due to Tripp, but thankfully the other two have moved on except they get something out of my bank account each month,” he muttered. “But I have made peace with it, but I am sure being away from it, has gotten you out of the habit?”
“Yes, it did” Liz sighed. “I know what I have done to him…”
“At the end of the day, we grow up and have to deal with it” Kyle sighed. “We are all grownups now and have to deal with all the decisions we have chosen to make, both good and those that are bad.”
Liz nodded.
“So, are you going to talk to him?” Kyle asked.
“I almost have too, don’t I?” Liz muttered. “It would be easier if he had moved out of town or something and I did not have to deal with him…”
“Unfortunately, that is not to be” Kyle sighed. “Although I am sure there are some days where Max would have liked to have lived out of town, away from all the headaches of being here in town provides but nope, he has sticked it, out and has had to deal with his father on a daily basis as a result.”
Phillip Liz sighed. Knowing full well how much pressure she had put on her former father-in-law to handle the weight of what she had told him, and they had not seen each other at all during these years except for the odd picture she would send of Claudia as she grew up. Also knowing full well that she should be providing it to the child’s father, not the grandfather. But she could not bear having Max know where they were…
That is not the deal I made, she muttered to herself. And a deal she had to uphold unless she wanted to unleash havoc back here in town.
It had helped with Michael and Maria had moved to Tennessee, but she knew as well as anyone that
these people can find you anywhere and could have found Michael and Maria she thought. After all, Maria’s career had been on the upswing once they went to their old identities. She used her maiden name for her musical career which allowed for some anonymity.
Very few federal authorities were looking for a country singer musician and her mysterious housemaker of a husband.
Of course, they would not know the deal that Liz had made, or the sacrifice she had made for her husband, but also her best friend’s husband. Only one person knew some of the details, and that man only knew certain details.
Liz had kept it to a minimum.
She knew it was to protect her father-in-law, and while she knew that eventually Max could come back to this town. Liz had left it at that and closed off all channels except those occasional drops to Phillip.
She did know what had happened to Diane, and she felt guilty once she did learn.
After the funeral, and after the dust had calm down. She did not know what she would have done if she had known before,
could I have come back and allowed Max to be a part of Claudia’s life earlier than now? she muttered to herself.
She did not know, and therefore, she knew she should be feeling guilty. And all Liz could do was nod as if she knew more than she did about her ex-husband’s life. Maria had told her a little, because that is how I wanted it and therefore she had kept it to a minimum and now her ex-husband was standing outside of the restaurant she was in, talking to their daughter.
And all the angsty feelings were boiling in her, “I heard what happened to Diane.”
“Cancer is evil,” Kyle muttered.
“Yes, it is” Liz sighed. Thanking that her parents were still relatively happy and healthy. No one should lose a parent to something that senseless, and while she and Diane were never close because of the circumstance. She knew how much her ex-husband had loved his mother even though relations had grown rocky there for a while, back when Liz had hope that she and Max could make it.
I would learn I was wrong Liz sighed. Even though she knew she was the reason they did not work out. And therefore, she had never come to terms with Diane, and she doubted if her former mother-in-law had seen her before her death, she would have
had something to say for breaking her son’s heart Liz thought because she knew how close Diane was to her son, and it hurt to know how distant she was from Max.
Because we had to run, and then I went and broke her son’s heart. Liz thought.
Diane had every right to hate me.
Although Liz did not know or could not know what Diane had felt because she did not give her the chance to know her granddaughter, or the true circumstances of what had gone down back then. Therefore, Kyle also did not know any of it. As he felt sympathy for his former girlfriend. “Max moved in with his parents before Diane’s health took a real downturn. And he stayed when things went the way they did,” Kyle sighed. “And things have been rocky between him and his father ever since.”
“Why?” Liz asked softly.
“Because Phillip has gone down the rabbit hole more than once, and Max feels its duty to be there for him, even though things are touchy between them.”
“Couldn’t Isabel have been some help,” Liz said as she did feel guilty of the pressure she had put on Phillip, and she had no idea whether his rough go was because of the burden she had put him under, and of course the cruel nature of his wife’s death.
It was a bit of both.
Only Liz could have sense of this, and even then, she did not really know because she had kept herself walled off from Roswell.
“Isabel was married and was raising her children and therefore she could only be so much help,” Kyle sighed as remembered how helpless Isabel had felt back then when she took the consolation of raising her children and having Neil to love because she could not help her mother. “And because Max was single, he had the ability to be there for his parents.”
“Because I left him, you mean” Liz asked.
Wincing Kyle sighed, “I did not say that” he sighed even though there was some truth to it. Max was single because of the divorce he sighed.
Max could have moved on and found someone new. But he never did, so he became the option to help out at the family home he sighed. “All I meant was he had the availability, and he had the ability.”
Liz nodded and once more looked out and saw the eyes of her former husband and wondered how she was going to handle whatever came next.
*
Max had to be thinking that too because he was out on the sidewalk knowing he was in paradise instead of pandemic fueled shell shock of a main street that was located in his hometown. So much was different, but he was a haze because he was talking to his daughter, someone of course he did not know.
Michael could only smile if he wanted too even though he was not going to smile because all he knew that he was trying to keep things calm because he did not know how this situation would go and especially since his best friend was exchanging looks through the doors of his former workplace.
No one knew how this would work out.
Which is everything you need to know about Max and Liz. Michael sighed.
You never knew how it would end up.
Neither did they and then he and the ones who were outside heard the door open, and the creakiness of the glass door once more moved and the uncertainty that Claudia was under, and she did not know how to approach this.
It was so much easier when we did not have to worry about any of this she thought.
But she was still here when she could have gone anywhere but here.
And she noticed her mother coming through the door along with Kyle, who nodded at Max and Michael. Liz who came out with him, because she knew she could no longer stay behind the glass windows, and a shell of a restaurant. She needed to face her now and figure out where she went now. “Max,” she said for the first time in a long time.
“Hello Liz,” Max said.