Tuesday & Max

13

HIDE AND SEEK

TRAINS AND

SEWING MACHINES

The following Thursday night, they meet at seven at the corner of the closed park near Tuesday and Julia's flat and it's already dark. Max leans against a streetlamp, hands in his pockets, face-downturned and closed-off.

"You okay?" Tuesday asks, rubbing her arms as she approaches. There's a new café near here they've been wanting to try and she can't wait to get out of the cold and into it. December is just around the corner and her hoodie and leggings aren't sufficient to keep out the chill.

She notices that she and Max are accidentally matching, though; him in black jeans and a black hoodie, her in black leggings and a black hoodie. Usually, she'd point it out, amused, but it doesn't feel like the right time.

"Yeah," he says flatly, staring out at the trees.

He kicks off from the post and begins to walk, so Tuesday follows. She knows without circling it that all the park gates are firmly bolted, and there's no getting over the sharp spikes of the fencing; but it's a familiar place to her, and she realises quickly that Max is walking the carpark that surrounds the park instead.

The streetlights are sporadic, droplets of light in a sea of vast darkness. Tuesday has the oddest urge to run from one to the next, where it feels safe; where she can be cowardly, and maintain their usual happiness, which she knows will be broken as soon as she asks Max what's wrong.

"So," she says instead.

"So," he agrees, and smiles weakly across at her. "We fought."

"You and your mom?"

"Of course." He rolls his eyes.

"What about?"

Max sighs. "I tried to sit down and talk to her, properly. Just to see if I could get through. She's been... not very good, she..."

"What was she doing?"

Max hasn't said much about his mother, but he recaps their arguments, which seem to be getting more frequent lately.

"She made a stew and decided she'd put cleaning stuff into it," he says flatly. "So she was panicking about that, checking the bins and stuff, measuring the bottles of bleach. Went on for a while."

"What did you do?"

"I tried to make her sit down. Tried to explain to her that she didn't do anything to the food, but it's like talking to a brick wall."

His face is pinched, sweet features turned sour, and she can see for the first time how much his mother's condition affects him.

"She won't listen. Even when she's checked the cleaner bottles and I'm sitting there telling her, telling her the truth, she just doesn't see it. And she just keeps getting into worse of a state."

"She can't help it," Tuesday says uselessly, because she doesn't know what else to say. "I guess."

"I know!" Max snaps, then sighs and rubs his head. "Ugh. I'm sorry. I know she can't help it. I know I shouldn't get annoyed. But I'm the only one there that has to deal with it. There's no break. There's school, then there's her. That's it. That's my life."

And me, Tuesday thinks.

"And Lost World," she jokes instead, and he laughs at last.