a world not born until they arrive,
and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
- Anais Nin
Chapter 15
Go Fish
"Do you have any... Queens?" Nick's voice came out slowly as he surveyed his hand. Raine was sitting on the carpet across the coffee table from him. He'd gathered the photos and put them into a shoe box and slid them into the cardboard box with Max, who had yet to come out, but was peeking through the flaps at their game.
"Go fish," Raine announced, dragging out the ish.
"Man..." Nick reached for the deck. "I already got a whole ocean, you're kidding me." He pulled a card from the deck. "C'moooooon queenie!" Nick called, flipping his card to look at it. He frowned. Raine smirked as a tiny giggle escaped from inside the cardboard box as Nick flung himself backwards onto the couch cushions with a cry.
Max was enjoying watching. He crossed his legs the way Raine was and held out his hands as though fanning the cards out the way Nick was doing. He rolled backwards into the box as Nick had done on the couch, his legs flying up in front of him. He giggled and stared at his stocking feet in the air, wiggling his toes.
"Do you have an Ace?" Raine asked.
"Yeaaaaah," Nick took a card and frisbeed it across the table. He frowned down at his hand. "Too bad Max isn't playing," he said in a sad voice. He looked at Raine, who was folding a set of cards onto the table. "I bet Max would be real good at Go Fish."
"I'm sure," Raine answered, "Better than you..." she smirked deviously, "Which isn't hard actually."
Nick squinted his eyes. "You're not very nice."
Raine laughed, "But you love me just the same, don't you?"
Nick's stomach gave a little jolt at the L word and he laughed and looked down at his cards without answering. After a small pause had passed, he said, "Got any fours?"
Raine apprehensively pulled a four and tossed it onto the table for Nick. He folded two cards onto the table as well. She swallowed. "Twos..."
Nick brought the card to the table and she reached for it before he'd drawn his hand away, their finger tips touching. Raine looked up at Nick's face and Nick turned away, biting his lower lip and turning to look at the box. Max peered out from inside and Nick could just see his eye, lined up with the crack between the flaps of the box.
They kept playing, quiet now that the awkward moment had passed, and when Raine had won - because that was inevitable, the way Nick kept picking up cards and building his deck larger and larger, Nick yawned. "Well," he said, sliding the cards off the table and into one solid block to return to the package, "I guess it's time for bed."
Raine glanced at the clock, and realized for the first time that it was well after ten.
"Wow, yeah," she agreed. She glanced at the box. "Where is..."
"My bed..." Nick waved to the sofa, "I'm gonna sleep down here tonight."
Raine stood up and grabbed some cups they'd used from the table. She knocked on the box door. "Knock, knock," she called, "Can I have the cereal bowl back?"
Nick had remembered to get Cinnamon Toast Crunch from Mimi.
Max pushed the bowl out of the box and Raine collected it. "I'll put this stuff in the dish washer, if you wanna just head up," she offered.
"Sure," Nick answered. He scooped up his camera from the floor beside the coffee table. "Hey Max," he said, "Wanna come out so we can go upstairs? I'll carry your box for you." Max waited until Raine had carried the dishes out of the room before poking out the door. He crawled across the carpet and stood up, staring up at Nick, holding the shoebox of photographs. Nick smiled, "C'mon, Max."
Nick grabbed hold of the cardboard box and carried it into the entry way, onto the first couple steps. He paused when he didn't hear Max behind him on the steps and looked over his shoulder. Max was sitting by the door, putting on his sneakers. "What'cha doin' Max?" Nick asked.
Max tied up his laces while Nick waited, then plodded across the entry way and joined Nick on the stairs. Nick shrugged and continued up, carrying the box in front of him. When he reached the top, he led the way down the hall to his room, where he kicked open the door and put the box on the bed, like Mimi had warned him would be mandatory.
Max looked around the room from the doorway. He inched his way in as Nick slid pillows and the blankets into the box's depths. Max put the box of photographs on the floor by Nick's desk and looked across its surface at the papers and pens and a can of roasted sunflower seeds. He reached up and touched the bobbly head of an owl figurine on the edge of Nick's desk, then walked around the chair and stared at the shelves of books he had lining the wall in an L shape under the window.
Nick had lots of books. Mostly big, thick books with lots of pages and titles that Max had never heard of. But Nick also had a wide variety of children's books with titles that Max had heard of. And it was somewhere along the shelf that he found it and his heart skipped a beat. He pulled it off the shelf and turned to Nick, holding it up.
"The Very Hungry Catepillar," Nick said, smiling at the book. He reached for it. "This was my favorite when I was your age."
Max's eyes widened. Mimi was right. Max and Nick had a lot in common, he realized.
Nick pet the bed next to him, "C'mon, I'll read this to you, if you like."
Max nodded and scrambled over, trying to climb onto Nick's bed, which was way higher than the bottom bunk at home. Nick hoisted Max up and Max crawled into the box and leaned back on to the pillows, pulling the blanket up to his chin as Nick cleared his throat, and began to read.
"In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf," Nick read, "One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and -pop!- out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry catepillar..."
Max listened to the story as though he'd never heard it before. Nick dramatized it and made exciting facial expressions and the tone of his voice rose and fell with the words. It was nothing like when Mimi read it, which was nice but just not like this. Max felt like he could hear a billion stories if only Nick would read them. He dreaded the moment when they reached the very last page... but like all stories, it had to end, and far too soon Nick was reading the words Max knew so well...
"He built a small house, called a cocoon, around himself. He stayed inside for more than two weeks. Then he nibbled a hole in the cocoon, pushed his way out and..." Nick turned the page slowly, smiling at Max, "He was a beautiful butterfly." Nick held up the last picture for Max to see, and when Max had seen it, he turned it back to himself and stared down at the page for a long moment before closing the book.
Max's eyes were droopy. Nick smiled and stood up and moved to the lamp on the desk. "I'm gonna leave the door open a little bit, okay?" he said, "I don't have a night light so I'll leave the hall light on." He turned the lamp off and it got dark, but not too dark in the room. Max heard the door open. "Good night, Max," Nick said.
Max listened as the door closed, but not all the way. He heard Nick's steps go down the hall, heard him thump down the stairs.
"Good night, Nick," he whispered.
