Maria had been the call. But she did not bring the alcohol that had been requested because she knew that was what neither needed. With Zack now departed the house, and Olivia focused on the homework she was missing out on and studying with Amelia downstairs. Liz and Maria were occupying the bedroom upstairs. While she did not bring the booze. Maria did bring a shoulder, as she could sense that her friend was overwhelmed, and could break at anytime.
And not because of what their teenagers were going through, but because the past was haunting her friend. It was quite evident, and anyone could see it. With Michael focused at the house on what Kal might have known about the massacre, she had taken the opportunity to come and see her friend and pick her daughter up when it was time to get home.
“You told them it wasn’t some fairy tales?” Maria asked as she did not envy her friend,
I would rather be in hell than deal with what Max and Liz had to deal with, as she had seen her friend sentenced to those years they had taken from Max because her life had been on hold despite raising Olivia to be an impressive young woman and get her medical degree. She still had lived in suspended animation.
She did not want that life for her friend and yet she had to watch it while she got everything. The husband and the kids, as she and Michael had made it work. Quite the surprise from the turbulent time they had in high school, and the fact they only got married because the stick turned blue.
And yet here they were, still married, and incredibly happy.
Maria wanted her friend to be happy. It hurt like hell to watch as her friend pine for the one who had been taken away from her.
Unfortunately, it was not like death in that they would know he would not be coming back
Although knowing these two, death had not even stopped them she reflected. “You know I am sorry…”
“Don’t” Liz sighed. “I don’t want your pity. When I am doing fine with my life,” she murmured. “I don’t have anything to regret.”
“Don’t you?” Maria wondered. “Don’t you wish that you and Max just ran, and taken off, and were living together on some desert island?”
A desert island, that is a nice thought Liz laughed. “Oh, I wish it, but it wouldn’t have been very prudent. They caught up to us didn’t they, and that is no life to lead” she sighed. “I wouldn’t have wanted that for Olivia.”
“But you would have had him?” Maria asked. “You guys would have been together?”
“Yes, I would, but at what cost?” Liz asked.
“You know it sucks,” Maria sighed as she thought of her friend’s situation
such a lousy fate, despite an ambitious and beautiful daughter and a career anyone would love, but not the man to go along with it, who literally died for you. “So, you laid a lot on Max’s son?” she sighed as she had not come to terms that the kid was back, and in their lives, and looking so much like Tess but with Max’s essence
Thank goodness
“Yeah,” Liz admitted. “I know he gave us cause in the beginning, given how he showed himself. But it does look like he’s a decent kid who wants answers and are finding more than he ever bargained for when he came searching for his origins.”
“Similar to what happened with Max, Michael and Isabel?” Maria asked.
“Probably” Liz allowed. “So much changed when they started to discover” she sighed. “So, no, the girls are pretty clear that despite how it looked, what happened was far from a fairy tale, and it was pretty grim.”
“Of course, fairy tales in the olden days had bite to them,” Maria laughed. “They weren’t Prince Charming waking up Sleeping Beauty?” she sighed. “Little Red Riding Hood gets eaten…”
“You have to wonder?” Liz laughed. “I would I have been the evil stepmother if the boy had stayed with me, if Max was always destined, you know, to go off” she wondered as she had not the energy back then to be anyone’s wicked stepmother,
or the normal variety thank you Liz thought to herself as she knew the truth, and even Max had known it eventually. Zack had been better off away from them, and away from the influence of their life.
If only Olivia had not been born into this life? Snapping back to the present, “Anyways it didn’t matter because his son was better off in the life that he was able to have…”
“Nah, I think you would have been too kind, and compassionate to be the evil stepmother” Maria laughed as she also sighed. “Life is always a bunch of choices, and we have to make peace with what we choose to do, and what we decide…” she sighed. “But I do agree back then this life was not one to bring an innocent child into…”
“And yet we did,” Liz muttered. “We forced our kids to live this life, and the secrets it means to be one of
them,” she sighed. “I want all this to end, what am I going to do?”
“What do you want to do?” Maria sighed.
“I want sanity,” Liz sighed. “I want this to make sense”
*
Sanity was not going to be possible anytime soon they both knew and the same could be said for Max as he walked around the outside yard of the prison. It was supposed to be his hour of being outside, and fresh air for the day. But his mind was not in it, and all he wanted to do was go back to his cell, but he knew it gave the guards time to ransack his cell and make sure he was not storing anything to try to dig a way out of the prison.
Like that is possible given where they have the cell? he mused.
Plus, I have other ways to get out if I really wanted to make a break for it.
Why didn’t he use his other ways?
He did not know because as I want to go sweep Liz off her feet and get out of dodge. Like Liz though, he knew it was not the answer. Staying in prison allowed his family to be safe, and now he had reasons to stay because his family had grown in ways, he had not even been aware of, and now all kinds of memories were making him crazy. Years of compartmentalizing his existence was down the drain, and now he was out in the fresh air and all he wanted to do was go back to his cell and wallow.
Wallowing made it better somehow.
Finally, the bell rang, and he walked back to his cell and was frustrated by the fact his nice solo cell was not exactly empty when he did make it back. The one thing being who he was, and what he had been convicted of meant that they had not given him a roommate because he was too notorious to have one, and personally he had not wanted one.
Roommates are too observant, and they pick up secrets that are meant to be kept, and Max liked his life the way it had molded itself to be for the past seventeen years. His existence did not lead to roommates. He had made the choice to confess. So, he needed to take it like he should.
Except now he had more outside the walls…
In so many ways.
“What’s going on here?” Max muttered deeply irritated by his guest and it was not a guest he wanted to wish for because if he was here, then it meant bad news for one person, and that was him. “What are you doing here?” he asked of the warden.
“My job,” the warden motioned to the new guard on duty today. Max had not seen this one yet, and knew the regulars were off for the weekend and they tended to rotate the newbies on the weekend shift. The guard did not know what to think because knew there was talk that this cell belonged to someone you did not want to mess with, and when the warden ordered him to escort him, the guard was not thrilled about the opportunity.
Max sensed the apprehension because he had seen his share of new guards over the years, but he had rarely seen the warden, and now he had to wonder why he had gotten this honor?
Something tells me the prison is not happy that I have hired a new lawyer Max wondered to himself and wondered if he was going to get some hell.
“What’s this?” the warden said waving the documents he had found in Max’s cell, and photos. “What are you doing with all this?”
“It’s called research,” Max muttered.
“You are not allowed” The warden responded
“Anyone is allowed into the computer lab,” Max asked. “All I wanted was to know what was going on in the outside world. Because it is not like I am headed out of there besides to the prison yard, so I have a right to know what is going on?”
“Why do you have these pictures,” the warden asked waving the ones that Max had saved from the printouts that he had gotten in his research. “These individuals are underage?”
“They are family,” Max muttered.
Jesus these people trying to create something not a crime as anyone looking at the material would know it was not illegal to have the images.
“You don’t have family,” the warden answered.
“You know very well I do,” Max muttered
anyone in this damn world knows I have family. “I can’t see them, so I have a right to know what is going on with those who are at home, with those I love…”
“Given what you were convicted of you have given up on any rights to know what is going on with those on the outside” the warden muttered, “Your privileges are hereby rescinded, and you will no longer be able to have visitors.”
“The hell you will,” Max muttered as he felt cornered, and if you are cornered, you would attack, but he had to fight the urge to attack. “We both know that I have been a model prisoner to this point, and nothing has happened to change that view. But because after years of silence, I wonder what is going on the outside, and I ask for new representation, you come along and decide what the heck, shut it down” he asked. “We both know you have no right to prevent me from seeing anyone…”
“I can do whatever I want because this is my prison,” the warden muttered and it suddenly came to Max that something was up, and the fact that he had gotten a hold of Isabel and who Isabel was in the community must be scaring the authorities, and they will do anything possible to make sure they still had someone to blame. “Remove the documents,” the warden instructed the guard, and the guard was uncertain and knew not to cross his boss and attempted to move towards the bed.
“Don’t” Max threatened “Obviously someone has gotten to you, and if the have, then you might want to remind those who have gotten to you that if they make me mad than I am liable to be lot worse if I am crossed. I have been the model prisoner all these years, and hardly raised a stink and pushed my family away from me, and I can easily make a case for myself…”
“Are you threatening me?” the warden asked.
“No, I am telling you to tell the people who obviously got you that I won’t be silent anymore… You think you can stop me, and if you do, then you are wrong. Because I have to too much to fight for…”
“You are nothing,” the warden reminded Max. “If you think you can get out of here, then you’re sadly mistaken and your wife is better off without you in her life…”
“You better not talk about my wife,” Max muttered as images of Liz popped in his brain as if they had ever really left him because he was seeing
Liz all the time since their visit. Nothing could prevent him from loving his wife, and he would not allow anyone to get in the way.
“You nearly killed her,” the warden reminded Max. “If you think the judge will allow you to see her than you have another thing coming, take the documents,” he told the guard.
“Leave it,” Max said as he walked closer to the two men and given it was a cramp cell, it did not take much. “Why does it bother you so much that I have something to capture my past in in because if you have your way I am not getting out of his place, so why just allow me what I want to do, and continue on…”
“Take it,” the warden instructed. “You committed a massacre, and you’re not entitled to privileges.”
“I confessed but it does not mean I did it” Max allowed.
“That is some rational you have there, because yes if you confessed, then it definitely means your guilty,” the warden muttered as the guard packed the material confiscated from the cell. Max was in agony at losing his only memories of his wife, and daughter that he did not have already stuck in his mind. Max started to become too aggressive, and finally the warden finally snapped “You know what to do. You are to take him to isolation…”
Max was pulled from the cell as the remainder of his memories of his past was packed up and taken from his cell, as he was pushed into the isolation cell. And no one would know until Monday morning when his lawyer showed up on the scene.
*
Monday morning Isabel stood in the warden’s office after hearing that she was being denied the opportunity to see her client, and finally she pressured the guard to admit her brother was in isolation and had been since Saturday. Coming back from a relaxing weekend with her husband and kids, and even despite herself having a good time at the concert because she saw how much Maxine loved the music, now Isabel stood outraged, and terrified for her brother. Because while he was often in isolation by himself as a kid. Still, prison isolation was ten times worse, and Isabel could not handle it despite knowing that she had not known what her brother had been forced to endure these nearly seventeen years since he had been in federal custody. Still, she stood in the warden’s office and demanded to see her brother.
“Your client is a confessed bomber,” the warden said. “Any attempt to open his case if futile, and we all prisoner’s the right to see visitors, and we have the right to strip them as we see fit…”
“If it was his parents, or wife or daughter visiting maybe,” Isabel said shouting in her anger, and it rang out through the room. “I am his lawyer. You don’t have a right to keep him from him.”
“We have a right to say when you can visit, and you can’t visit him now” said the warden truly gleeful. “If a case before the court, you can visit all you want. Any other time we put the limits on you.”
“Then I am filing an immediate request for access to my client,” Isabel declared.
“File away,” the warden smiled. “We make the rules.”
“You have a right to treat your prisoner in a humane way, and what you’re doing stinks because you’re being pressured from higher in command aren’t you because you’re afraid that my client is onto something. You are afraid he will revoke his confession and want to reopen his case.”
“Ms. Evans, that won’t happen” the warden murmured at the surprise on Isabel’s face. “Yes, I am aware of your connection to your client, and how you tried to circumvent yourself when you mislead your identity when you came to visit your brother,” he muttered. “Your client was argumentative and aggressive, and we have every right to punish a prisoner if we are protecting others?”
“I want to see my client,” Isabel demanded as she knew her brother, and while they might have had seventeen years nearly without each other. One does not change their core beliefs and she knew her brother did not have an aggressive bone in his body and had been too passive in all this which is why she had not had a brother these years, and Liz and Olivia had not had their husband and father.
“Come back and you might give a different answer, but you’re not getting such a visit today” the warden bluntly informed and Isabel did not have any recourse but to retreat, as she knew now more than ever that
They do not want Max getting out of prison, or seeing Liz
She immediately drove back to Roswell and went to the courthouse and filed for an emergency request for access to her client, saying his rights to having fair counsel was being impeded with, and that he had right to see his lawyer, whenever he wanted.
Once Michael heard what happened, he was just as outraged as Isabel as they knew the power-that-be were being rattled, and they could get somewhere if they pushed enough of the buttons. “What are you going to do about it?” he was asking to Isabel that night as Kyle and Isabel had brought the kids over for dinner, and now Isabel was sitting in Michel’s work office, talking about Max’s case.
“Force them to let me see him?” Isabel muttered.
What do you think? “They don’t want us to get anywhere Michael. The easiest thing for them was that Max confessed. They didn’t have to prove it was him, and now they will fight tooth and nail to prevent the truth from coming out.”
“They know there is very little proof tying him to the scene of the explosion,” Michael sighed. “So, they can’t have his confession overturned” he muttered because they both knew if the confession were overturned, and the conviction was too than their brother would be out of the hellhole he had been sentenced to because he should have been out there years before if he had only been convicted on the crap that had government made the jury believe went on between Max and Liz. “Watch them pitch a fight on every little thing Isabel,” he sighed. “They won’t want you to have a win.”
“Well, I am not going to allow them to beat us,” Isabel muttered, “They have taken too much from us already, and most all they have kept Max from Liz and their daughter.”
“One can say Max did it by his own hand, with the confession, and then refusing to see us, and most of refusing to see Liz?” Michael muttered.
“Well, we can’t let them keep him from them,” Isabel muttered. “Now that he had seen the errors of his ways and wants a chance to restart his life, well, he should be given that chance…”
“Let’s hope so,” Michael said growing pessimistic that they would win.
“I do have to at least try, because my brother would do the same for either of us if it was him on our side of things” Isabel sighed.
Michael nodded and once again it was not any easier to know that it could have been either of them and Max had been the unfortunate victim of their lucky streak running too hot, and one of those days, they were bound to get burned. Michael was so used to it being
him on the side of the unlucky, and it still took some getting used to know that he was on the side of the lucky. And he had been able to build a life with Maria and his kids at Max’s expense.
*
Isabel woke up the next day determined and went into work and forced the prison to allow her access to Max. The prison was not happy with the judgement of the court who said that a prisoner’s right to representation should not be impeded, whether the case was before the court or not, but because she had a day full of other clients, she could not get there that day, and planning to do it the next day. Olivia was feeling stronger as she sat in her biology class, and attended all her classes, and did not skip out on one of them. She was determined to use her studies to make something make sense in her bizarre word. She had not seen her mysterious half brother since Saturday when her mother had laid a whole bunch of sci-fi soap opera drama on their heads.
She did not know how to process any of what she had learned.
To think it only lasted three years before Mom and Dad were taken from each other? Olivia did not know how that love could be possible or for that loss to be imagined. Amelia was laughing at some joke that her boyfriend had text her from his boarding school in Europe. Olivia was trying to pay attention to the lecture when the clock went off, and the alarm went off, and signified that the break before their next class was on.
Walking out of the classroom. “What did Greg have to say?”
“Something funny,” Amelia laughed as she thought of the text. “But it is personal, so I’ll keep it to myself…”
“Suit yourself,” Olivia nodded. “Does Greg know you have eyes for my half brother?”
“I do not,” Amelia immediately said as a protest.
“I saw the two of you the other day,” Olivia countered as knew what sparks look like, and she had seen them between her friend and her mysterious half brother that she was still getting used to acknowledging, “You said it yourself, you have eyes…”
“Yes, I do,” Amelia sighed. “Doesn’t mean I would do anything with him, or he would do anything with me, because we don’t know each other. Greg and I are happy…”
“And ten thousand of miles away from each other,” Olivia countered. “I doubt it’s an all-boy’s school he’s attending either, so don’t you worry?” she murmured because she knew she was giving her friend a hard time but given that Amelia was known to give her own insight into her relationship with Alex
when we still had one so, of course, it gave her the opportunity to give it right back to her friend.
“That too,” Amelia allowed.” But sometimes distance is good because who knows what we would be doing if we were together all the time…” she said poking at her friend. “I trust him, and he knows that, I am not jealous. I trust Greg, and he trusts me, and he doesn’t have anything to worry about”
“Right,” Olivia allowed we
shall see about that as she saw Alex down the hall at his locker, and unfortunately, she knew hers was right next to his as it had been the benefits of a long-term relationship since they had entered these doors. They had not seen him since the big break up, as he had remained scarce, and had not tried to call nor had she tried to call him. Unlike their parents, she did not think it was a big deal. She knew she had Alex’s support, and they did not always have to talk.
Alex saw his sister and Olivia approach, and he wished he were already on his way to his next class, but he was not. “Sis…”
“Alex.” Amelia laughed at her twin’s nature to be miles away these last few days. She did not know what was better when his brother and best friend was too seeing too much of each other, and now with her brother so absent.
“Is everything alright?” Alex asked both girls, who nodded and did not expand on the motion. “I have to get to class…”
“Scaredy cat,” Amelia sang after her brother as Olivia ignored her fiend and opened her locker, to get her books for her next class. “Have you two talked?”
“Nope,” Olivia shook her head. “No need to.”
“I am sure there is some need to?” Amelia asked amusedly. “You ask me about my private life, which is vastly less drama than yours, and should you not be talking about you know, about everything…”
“I am ignoring
everything” Olivia admitted. “I haven’t even begun to think about it. All I know is everything is fine on that front despite my fainting spell, and for now, I do not have to stress myself out because I know everything will be fine in the end. Alex supports me, and we don’t need to talk for me to know it, and right now it is better to take it easy and not put myself into any high-pressure stressful situations,” she murmured. “I have to think about more than me…” she sighed. “Which I don’t want to deal with until I have to…”
“If you say,” Amelia nodded. “But you shouldn’t be allowing my brother to get off scot-free in this,” she sighed. “Alex should be there for you?”
“He would if I had wanted him to,” Olivia asked. “I don’t need it. I have too much to think about with finding about stuff about my family history that I wish I could have ignored, but I can’t now that I know…”
“I suppose,” Amelia nodded. “Anything more on that front since Saturday?”
“Nope,” Olivia sighed. “Mom is taking a breather, and so am I know, and the prison is making it impossible for Aunt Isabel to see my father, and that is one big mess…”
“I heard,” Amelia admitted. “Mom and Dad were furious at the breakfast table this morning” she sighed. “What does your mother think?”
“The same as me, that the government is trying everything to keep Dad from talking…”
“I am sorry Olivia, for you and for your mother” Amelia sighed again once more than she almost wished her friend could have the home life that she and her brother had, and it had been so hard to deal with the loss she had felt these years, and what she yearned for. “I wish this was all so much easier.”
“Mom doesn’t need it,” Olivia sighed as she hated how her visit to see Dad the previous week had opened this up, and caused so much angst, and so much pain for her mother, and she almost didn’t care about what ripping the band-aid had done to herself because she could see the pain in her mother’s eyes because she loved her father
Loving someone that much only gets you more trouble in the end she told herself.
“Neither do you,” Amelia asked as they both sat down in the next class and waited it to begin, and soon it did, and Olivia actually grabbed onto the knowledge she could learn and try to forget how complicated her home life was…
*
While Liz did not have such a luxury as she sat out of Jim’s office and waited for the Sheriff to see her as he had been in the meeting with their mayor when she arrived, and now she awaited and while she felt relief that Isabel had been granted access to see Max, still though, it meant that the government was not going to roll over and allow them to reopen her husband’s case without a fight. Fighting the memories of her visit with Max, and how different he was now as opposed to seventeen years before, and how she yearned to be in his arms again. It made the year apart in high school pale in comparison, and childish compared to how complicated real life was…
She snapped out of her memories as the door to the office came out, and she spotted Mayor Farr coming out of the office and nodding at her, and she knew she was infamous in town legend thanks to her marriage to her husband, and his subsequent trial. Anyone coming up over the years knew who she was. Who her daughter was, and that is why she knew it was saner and safer to raise Olivia under the
Parker name except people did know, and they did look at her particularly like she was crazy to still be married to Max, especially since he had confessed to the Army base explosion.
Liz did not want to think of what their life would have been if he had not confessed, and yet she hated not having her husband in bed at night. Moments later, Jim came out and smiled.
Finally, Liz muttered.
Someone who does not think of me as a criminal or for that matter crazy for staying married she mused. T
hey cannot judge. They do not know what it means to live this life she told herself as she saw Jim standing staring at her.
“Liz,” Jim said. “Come in…”
“Thank you for seeing me,” Liz smiled as she got up and passed the frowning of the receptionist on duty. “I see not everyone is happy I am here…”
“You knew it was bound to cause waves,” Jim admitted as she closed the door behind, and they had privacy to talk, and turned down the blinds that blinded those in the station from seeing what was happening or speculating in his office. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” Liz allowed “I will always be a good deal better than Max is, because of course he is in prison. I at least have the ability to deal with my daily life, and he doesn’t…”
“I am sorry for you and Olivia,” Jim acknowledged.
“We’ll handle it. Which is of course something we have done for the last seventeen years because we have enough experience with this by now, but I do hate it for my daughter because she does not have experience living with the knowledge of the past, unlike me, and so it’s all new for her…”
“How she is handling it?” Jim asked. “I understand that you have been filling her in some of the greatest hits of twenty years ago?”
“She probably wishes I hadn’t,” Liz sighed as she knew she had given her daughter a lot to deal with and to know, but Olivia was better armed knowing… “She should know what she’s getting into,” she allowed. “Especially if the government is planning on fighting, so, are they?”
“Given how they handled Isabel, yeah, I think that is a fair assessment?” Jim allowed as he had been livid when he heard of the government’s latest to play to try to keep Max from seeing his lawyer, and fortunately his daughter-in-law was a skilled lawyer and was able to get the decision reversed, but he knew they would not happy and therefore it was going to be a bumpy ride. “I wish I could be of some assistance?”
“I know you can only do so much,” Liz allowed as they all knew how much trouble Jim had gotten to in the past with his assistance the actions of his son’s group of friends. Rumors and speculation had long lived about just what he tended to do for his son, and his friends. Fortunately, some of it had fallen by the trash heap over the years but still the speculation still reigned and would pop up every so often so Liz knew Jim could only do so much. “So, I do appreciate the help you have given us to this point, but I don’t want you to get into trouble but all I want to know is if Max is okay, because Jim, I heard he’s in insolation?” she asked. “I know enough to know what that means, and that can be hell for a prisoner?”
“As far as I know is that he’s in decent shape,” Jim allowed.
“But you don’t know?” Liz asked as she feared for her husband.
“You are right, I do not know for sure” Jim acknowledged but he knew enough and knew that Liz wouldn’t like it if he had been totally been honest about the conditions of isolation, and what you faced in those circumstances “I only know so much, but I know enough to warn that you should not be rocking the boat Liz. You should allow Isabel handle it because we don’t want them making it any more difficult for you or Olivia…”
“How would I rock the boat?” Liz asked, curious, because she was wondering if maybe she had been too passive for seventeen years, and now was the time to fight back if she wanted her husband back in her life. She could not bare knowing the pain and suffering that her husband could be facing.
Jim did not answer her…