Twenty-Four Shadows. Tanya J. Peterson

Max will be hurt. I’m not trying to hurt anyone.”

      “But you just don’t care that people are hurt,” Reese said sharply.

      “Truthfully, no, not really. You’ll all get over it and move on. I told you. This is what I need to do, and by pursuing my happiness, I’m making room for everyone else to find theirs.”

      “Whatever, Gretchen. You keep telling yourself bullshit.”

      For the duration of the evening, Reese made meaningless small talk with Gretchen. She only looked at her because she needed to so Max wouldn’t catch on that an earthquake was about to rattle his world. As typical for a weekend evening, they ordered pizza. She watched Isaac light the torches that surrounded the patio. He loved those things. Normally, she did, too. Their dancing flames cast muted, flickering light across the whole area, making people and objects appear to glow warmly from within and without. Tonight, though, she thought that they looked like the flames of hell, and she wanted to go around behind Isaac and snuff them out. Only because she wasn’t in the mood to explain herself did she leave the torches lit.

      The pizza came. The boxes were opened. Isaac seemed to take great delight in loading up everyone’s plate by pulling individual pieces out of the box and letting the cheese stretch into long strings before finally separating them from the whole pizza. He laughed. “Look at that! Absolute perfection. Come on, pizza, get in my belly!” Max appreciated the Austin Powers reference. Reese did not, as she didn’t find a single thing funny at the moment. She had little appetite, but she noticed that Gretchen seemed fine. How could she sit here, casually eating and pretending like nothing was about to happen? Reese felt ill as she tucked Dominic into bed and checked on Elise, who was dozing in her playpen in the kitchen. Filled with dread and melancholy, she rejoined the others on the patio. She was barely settled in when Gretchen threw her brick.

      Never one to mince words, Gretchen got right to the point. “Max, I’m leaving.”

      Max shoved the end of his piece of pizza into his mouth and, without first chewing and swallowing, said, “Where’re you going? Another business trip?”

      Reese wanted to scream at Gretchen to knock it off and come to her senses. Instead she remained silent and caught Isaac’s gaze. She tried to bore meaning into him. He looked at her quizzically, and she figured that he probably missed the point. She turned her attention back to Gretchen and Max.

      Gretchen made a noise of disgust and wrinkled her nose. “God, Max. Don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s repugnant. And it’s more than a business trip. I mean that I’m leaving you and Elise. For good.”

      Max choked on the mouthful of food he had been in the process of swallowing. He tried to gulp down water but in a fit of coughing ended up spitting it all over the table in front of him. He continued to cough. Isaac whacked him on the back. Max continued to cough and sputter for a moment, but he managed to take a few drinks of water from the glass that Reese handed him. When he stopped gasping for air and regained the ability to talk, he looked across the table at his wife, who hadn’t made a move to help him. “What? You’re leaving us? Why?”

      Reese couldn’t decide if she wanted to punch Gretchen or simply cry as she listened to her coldly relate a summary of what she had told Reese earlier. When she looked over at Max and saw his distraught expression, she wanted to do both. As Max tried to express his lack of understanding, Reese looked frantically at her husband. She wanted to connect with him, to share this shock even if it was just across the table. Isaac, though, was looking from Gretchen to Max and back again. He squeezed his eyes shut and held them closed for a few seconds. When he opened them, his entire expression was cold and hard, his jaw clenched so tightly she could see knots of muscle formed in the upheaval of teeth bearing down on teeth. His eyebrows seemed to simultaneously pinch together and shove each other back so that the result was that he appeared to have suddenly devolved into a Neanderthal. His eyes were narrowed, beady, dark. All he needed to complete the look was a club. Thank God he didn’t have one. Almost imperceptibly, he adjusted himself, and his posture was stiffer, straighter. If Reese didn’t know it was impossible, she would have sworn that his shoulders looked broader. He ripped his glasses off his face and threw them onto the table. Chills came over her as she watched her husband seethe. She attempted once again to make eye contact with him, if for no other reason than to help pull him out of this, this, whatever it was. Isaac, though, was still glancing back and forth between Max and Gretchen, glaring more deeply with each look at Gretchen. Unsuccessful in her attempt to catch Isaac’s attention, she tuned back into the exchange between their best friends.

      “…but what’s so bad about us, Gretchen? Certainly whatever it is can be fixed. And how could you walk away from a beautiful, innocent, sweet baby girl?” Max’s voice was tight with emotion. Reese could tell he was trying hard not to cry, and her heart went out to him.

      Gretchen sighed with obvious boredom and crossed her arms over her chest. “Look. Max. You’re embarrassing yourself. Have the balls to accept this and move on. Elise was a mistake, one that I can’t continue to live with day in and day out, especially not with a man I don’t love. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be getting on my way. My car is packed with the only things I want, and I’m getting a head start tonight. Have a nice life, Max. Good luck to you and Elise.”

      When she scraped her chair backward across the patio stone, the crickets stopped their chirping. Reese hadn’t even noticed them until they stopped. Everything was hushed as Gretchen turned to go. Like the two men at the table, Reese sat perfectly still. The crickets resumed their melodic rhythm. Gretchen took a few steps across the patio, her feet barely making a sound. Reese jumped what felt like several feet into the air when Isaac shattered the silence.

      His chair crashed to the ground with a loud thud as he sprang to his feet. The glass he threw exploded beside Gretchen, peppering her leg with shrapnel and soda. The fragments of glass hadn’t completely come to rest on the ground when Isaac roared, in a pitch lower than his usual, “You bitch!”

      Gretchen spun around. “How dare you!”

      “How dare me? How dare you. Who the hell do you think you are?”

      Reese watched in disbelief as her husband and former best friend strode angrily toward each other and stood nose to nose screaming at each other. She looked at Max. He sat with his head in his hands, seemingly oblivious to the intensifying fight yards away from him. She turned back to Isaac and Gretchen, too stunned to intervene.

      “Look, you son of a bitch, don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

      “Despite what anyone thinks to the contrary, this is my house and my wife and my best friend and I’m here to protect them from whores like you.” He poked her hard in the chest.

      Gretchen slapped him across the face. “Don’t you dare call me a whore. And what the hell are you talking about, Isaac? No one thinks anything to the contrary. You can have your everything, especially your best friend because I am leaving.” She turned to go. Isaac grabbed her by the wrist. She glared at him. “Let. Go. Now.”

      Isaac tightened his grip. “Look, whore, Max is the luckiest man alive. His bitch is finally out of his hair.” He cried out and doubled over when Gretchen kneed him in the groin. He did not, however, let go of her wrist, and as he bent forward, he twisted it. She yelped and attempted to pull free.

      That was enough to break Reese’s stupefied trance. She lurched forward and tried to break apart these two people who had clearly lost their minds. She was unable to do so, though. She found herself gently nudged aside. Max wasn’t so gentle when he wedged himself between Isaac and Gretchen. “Both of you, knock it the hell off,” he bellowed. He grabbed Isaac’s arm and yanked it off of Gretchen’s wrist. “Don’t you ever call her a bitch or a whore again. Do you hear me, Isaac?” He shoved Isaac backwards as he let go of his wrist. Isaac stumbled but recovered his balance.

      “What the hell, Max! She’s leaving you. She’s abandoning her daughter. I’m trying to defend you, and you defend her?” He threw his hands into the air and stomped several feet away. He immediately stomped back and marched up to Reese. “Can you believe