Just a little note to some feedbacks:RhondaAnn: HaHa! I think you may be reading a little too far into it.
LairaBehr4:HAHA!! You are hilarious! You already know since I PMed you about it.
Behrsgirl1230: Luckily, I didn't make any PROMISES, it took me a little longer to come back than I had anticipated. There was just a little extra tweaking that needed to take place first.
Candycane14: Look! I'm baaaack!!!
CHAPTER 30
2005
“What the hell happened?” Alex was practically on the edge of his seat. He needed to know more! Boy, this story was addicting.
Liz bit the inside of her lip. “Do you remember when you asked me why I eventually left my mother to live with Max, even though I thought I could never do that to her?”
“Yes...” Alex said carefully.
Her bottom lip began to quiver as she seemed to become washed over with emotion. “She actually left me,” she said as a tear fell onto her cheek and Max immediately reached over to brush it away.
******************
July 1999
When Michael had finally gotten through to Maria again, after she had hung up on him, he had a hard time understanding what his girlfriend was upset about. When Max came out of the audience, feeling pretty good about himself, his smiled faded almost instantaneously when he heard Michael on the phone. "Maria, calm down! I can't understand what..." Maria had been freaking out, as if she didn’t really believe what was happening. "Maria, please, just tell me what happened!" Max watched as tears of frustration began to form in Michael's eyes. Max then watched as frustration gave way to pain.
"What the hell's going on?!" Max had demanded, and after a few minutes of silence, Michael had explained painfully that Liz's mother had been killed in a sky-diving accident when her chute didn't open. Max had sat down in the nearest chair in total disbelief. After a moment, Max had pulled the flask from his jacket pocket, obviously needing a few good drinks to function under the circumstances.
Max had also demanded to talk to Liz, of course, but Michael informed him that Liz would not come to the phone. Maria had told him that it was as if Liz was catatonic or something, and she wasn't speaking. She had run up to her room and locked herself away, shutting out the world. The only reason Maria had known what had happened at all was because she had picked up the phone after Liz had dropped it, inquiring what had happened herself.
Max had quickly called his mother, not knowing everything, but knowing that he needed to get to Liz. Michael, Max, and Diane had all hopped on a private jet to get to their loves as quickly as the laws of the world would allow. Diane had met them in Roswell, since she had been in Minnesota at the time.
On the plane ride over, Max and Michael were silent the entire way. The cabin was full of pressure, and it had nothing to do with being in the air. Inside Michael's mind, he knew he just had to see Maria. He had to be with her now, and he had to help her through this. It was hard for him to stop imagining how something could have gone so wrong. Nancy Parker had been on numerous jumps, as Maria had told him. Nothing had ever gone wrong before. All he could do at this point was hope that she didn't suffer at all.
Max's mind had been on overload as well. He wanted to get to Liz and be with her. He was already concocting what he was going to do in order to help her. He already planned to speak with his mother about her staying with them in Minnesota. ..........
“Where is she?” Max pushed past Maria through the door before she could even answer him. She was crying so hard, she probably wouldn’t have been able to speak anyway.
Michael came through the door next, gently looping an arm around his sobbing girlfriend as she cried even harder into the napkin she held in her hand.
Diane Evans came in right behind Michael, closing the door behind her. She was stricken with a sad expression herself.
“Baby?!” Max called as he threw open the door to her bedroom, where he found that it was empty. He could hear her crying, though, and he knew where she was. He came upon her after opening up the closet door, where she sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, crying her eyes out into an old blanket. She had shown it to him before. It was a baby blanket that her father had given her once. There was a wallet-sized picture on the closet floor in front of her of her parents and herself. It was balled up, indicating that she had been crushing it with her fist. “Oh, baby...” His tone became soft and sincere as he sat in front of her, holding her close as soon as she fell against him.
“Max....” She sniffled and Max could feel the tears soaking his chest through his designer shirt.When she said his name, he hoped it was a good sign since she was speaking. He put his hand in her hair, to bring her even closer still, wishing he could take every ounce of pain away from her and put it on himself. She lifted her eyes to his. “It’s not a dream, is it?” she whispered painfully.
Max couldn’t even bring himself to shake his head in the negative. He didn’t want her to hurt anymore. But his expression was enough to send Liz into another crying fit and fisting his shirt in her hands, pulling at him to bring him as close to her as possible. He picked her up gently and she curled her body into him. He brought her to the bed and attempted to lay her down. When he began to move, to make himself more comfortable, she pulled at his shirt frantically.
"No! Max, please!" Her eyes went wild with fear. "Please don't leave me, Max!"
He stopped himself, in his still uncomfortable position and smoothed her sweat-soaked hair from her forehead. He moved to her ear, his lips gently brushing the cartilage. "Not even if you leave me."
******************
“How are you, Liz?” It was the lawyer’s first question when he entered the room. He didn’t need to ask it though. It was obvious. She was extremely pale and her eyes were bloodshot. As sad as it was, she bore the same expression on the day he had read her father’s will.
Liz was so stricken with grief that she couldn’t even speak. She felt even worse than when her father had died. At least then, she had her mother still. Now, it was a harsh world to find herself in with no parents at all. Her mother had only been doing something she had found to love, and now it had become her demise. Liz felt as if the whole world was against her now. She could still hear Diane’s words ringing in her ears when she had sat on the porch of her home the day before.
“Liz, it’s going to be okay. I promise I will take care of you.” Her eyes were filled with caring sympathy.
Liz wiped the tears from her eyes. “I know you will, Diane. I know you will.” She pulled the woman into an almighty hug, grateful to have such a wonderful person to care for her.
Liz held tightly to Max’s hand, who sat beside her, comforting her the best he could. His mother sat next to him, holding onto his other hand. She had told Max prior to this meeting that she would help anyway she could. She had taken Michael in and she would be happy to take Liz as well. Max had hugged her when she had said that, and thanked her for being the best mother in the world. Max was determined to leave this room with Liz in his arms, and pretty soon, he would care for her while she stayed in his house. He swore to himself that he would shield her from anymore pain. At least, that’s what he had wanted at the time.
Michael and Maria sat beside Diane, with Michael holding Maria close to his chest. He knew that Nancy was practically the only mother Maria knew, and if he had to sneak her back to L.A. with him, he would. He wanted to be near her while she went through such a tumultuous period in her life. He wanted to be there for her.
“Well,” the lawyer began as he sat across from the group. “I suppose we should begin.” He opened the vanilla folder and began to search the documents with his well-trained eyes. He knew exactly what to look for and he knew exactly what to relay to make it as simple as possible for everyone to understand.
Everyone waited while he scanned the paperwork. They all wanted to get this over with. Nobody wanted to be in this room, faced with Nancy’s death when it was still so strongly hanging over everyone.
“As I’m sure you already know, Liz, everything is yours. The house, the property and everything in it.” Liz just nodded. She had already known that. “Your mother had enough money in her bank account to cover the funeral expenses.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll pay for it all,” Max interjected. “I don’t want Liz to have to worry about it.”
The lawyer simply nodded and went about looking for more information to divulge. “Now, there is the matter of custody.”
Max immediately turned to his mother and she lifted her head to speak. “I’ve agreed to take Liz into my home. I’ll care for her as if she were my own.” Liz’s loud sniffle had everyone turning their heads toward her until the lawyer spoke again.
“Well, that’s very kind of you Mrs. Evans...”
“Miss,” she interjected smoothly.
He lifted his eyes to hers. “Miss Evans,” he corrected. “But Nancy already chose a guardian for Liz in her will.”
Everyone seemed to stop at that moment. “What?” Max asked. “Who?!” he demanded.
The lawyer looked back at the paperwork. “A Mr....” he trailed off as he searched for the name. “Michael Guerin.”
“What?!” Everyone at the table, including Michael, shouted in astonishment.
*****************
2005
“Whoa!” Alex chuckled. “Seriously?”
Liz nodded. “Yup!”
“What did that feel like, Michael?”
“I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it. I had no idea she had changed her will to put me in it.”
“How did that feel for you, Liz?” Alex turned to her.
“I was shocked, too. And, once everything had been said, if I hadn’t have been so upset about my mom, I probably would have said something in rebellion, especially since Michael wasn’t that much older than me, but at the time, I was too drained to even bother.”
****************
July 1999
The lawyer began to pack everything away in his briefcase, after carefully explaining everything that Liz now owned and that if she ever needed anything at all to contact him. Just as everyone stood up from their chairs, another legal document caught the lawyer’s attention. “Wait a minute,” he said, causing everyone to stop moving and regard him. “Maria, this concerns you.”
“What is it?” she asked warily. She wasn’t sure she could handle anymore surprises tonight.
“This page here, and you can see for yourself,” he held it out for her to gaze upon it. “It states ‘In the event of the death of Nancy Parker, I, Amy DeLuca, can freely admit that there will be no one here to care for my daughter, Maria DeLuca, as I will be exploring myself in a Nudist Colony in Tibet.’”
“What the hell?!” Maria wasn’t sure what she was seeing was real.
“A nudist colony?” Michael couldn’t help repeating. If the situation had been different, he may have laughed his ass off.
“It also states that you are legally unbound to your mother, making you an emancipated minor...in the loosest sense of the term.”
“What does this mean?” Maria asked, completely confused. She was pretty sure that only a judge could grant an emancipation.
“It basically means that your mother has signed over legal custody of you to yourself,” the lawyer explained. “It basically means that you are now an adult.”
At this point, when Maria’s tears ran freely again, she wasn’t even sure which part she was crying about. The death of the woman who had mothered her for so long. The emptiness at knowing that her real mother was now gone from her life as well, intentionally. It could have even been the joy that at least her mother knew what would come with Nancy’s death, and to give Maria the best life she could, knowing she wouldn’t be a part of it any longer. Her tears came from many places inside her heart now.
TBC...
