max

I’d forgotten how much I appreciate Max, until he walks (saunters? flounces? bounds? leaps?) back into my life. He talks about our kids’ summer camp as if it were a prison. 

“I keep telling David to look for Lena,” he says. “But I’m not sure if they’re let out into the yard at the same time.”

A new good friend is turning 40, and I’m going out with her to celebrate. Our kids are a month apart, and good friends. I am immeasurably lucky in that I love Jenny as a person. Despite over a decade in age difference, we are some of the same. Figuring out how to be parents, how to deal with daughters. We recommend each other books, meet at the pool.

But Max. Max flops down on my bed without asking. Opens drawers and cabinets and my fridge. Stops by my house with pie and comic books. Max calls, keeps calling, and forgives. Max is twenty-something. He doesn't know what he wants to do, really. He’s still a dreamer. He's lost, but he doesn't care. He's in limbo. He doesn't have a mortgage. He’s just Max. 

Max and I have never been in love with each other at the same time. Sometimes I wish this wasn't the case. But most of the time I don’t. I don’t want to have to give up another best friend. 

High school, when pops taught max and me to ride motorcycles.