Growing Attachments

The speaker was Michael Guerin, the person he was speaking to was Liz Parker, of all people. He briefly wondered why he had chosen to lay it out on Liz, who was closer to Max, than Maria, who he’d struck a sort of love-hate relationship with; but he supposed it was natural, more or less. He didn’t know where he stood with Maria DeLuca half the time; but thanks to the incident with Liz’s journal, he knew he could trust her.

The topic of conversation was the growing suspicions of Diane Evans, Max and Isabel’s adopted mother. Liz was briefly hurt that Max hadn’t said anything to her, but she supposed that was to be expected at this point in the game. “Maybe,” she said in reply to Michael’s statement. “But I can understand where she’s coming from. It is different for girls and their mothers. It must be killing Isabel to have to keep this from her, especially if she’s close to her mother.”

“But she’s not her mother! The Evans’ are not their real parents, and it’s time they realised that!”

“They may not have given birth to them naturally or be biologically related to them, but the Evans’s are Max and Isabel’s parents. They’ve raised and loved them for ten years; laughed with them, cried with them. The bond is no less real because they are adopted, or because Max and Isabel are what they are. I understand the fear that it would change if the secret came out, and I can understand Isabel for hating having to keep the secret.”

“It’s not like that for me. I could care less about my foster father.”

She squeezed his arm. “That’s because you’ve had rotten luck with foster parents.”

Michael snatched his arm away. “It’s better that way. We’ve always known then one day our secret will be out, and we would have to run. It’s easier to leave without emotional attachments.”

Liz got the sense that he was talking about more than just Isabel and her mother. “Is that way you keep pushing Maria away?”

He flinched, almost imperceptibly. “This has nothing to do with her.”

“I think it does. She told me how you’ve been running hot and cold with her. It’s confusing her.”

“It’s better for her this way. It’ll hurt her less if I push her away now, rather than getting involved only to have to leave one day. And we will have to leave one day. Soon. We’ve had too many close calls with the FBI already.”

Liz could see that the idea of leaving Maria affected Michael more than he was letting on. She knew him well enough to know, however, that he would never admit it. So she dropped that line of conversation, but not the topic. “So you’re just going to leave? Just like that?”

Michael nodded. “Don’t know when, but it’ll be soon. The FBI is not going to give up that easily just because Topolsky’s gone. They’ll be back, and we’ll have to go; and you and Maria and Alex will be safe to resume your nice, normal lives.”

There was a touch of sarcasm to Michael’s voice, which Liz ignored. “It won’t be as simple as that.”

“Why not? The FBI isn’t after you.”

“How can you be so sure about that?” she countered. “They know, or at least suspect, that I was shot that day in the Crashdown, and that Max healed me. What makes you think that they won’t want to question me, examine me?”

Michael had no reply for that, so she went on. “In any case, they’re bound to know that Maria and I, at least, have been helping you… Alex too, now. I know Sheriff Valenti’s suspicious, and one day he’ll put two and two together.”

“All the more reason for you not to get involved,” he shot back. “It’s too dangerous.”

“We are already involved,” Liz countered gently. “We became involved that day in the Crashdown when Max healed me.”

Michael looked away, uncomfortable with that thought; uncomfortable because deep down he knew it to be true. “What are you saying?”

“We can’t go back now. As much as you don’t want to admit it, our lives are intertwined.”