Max reaches the tenth floor under the duel influences of will-power and a firm grip on the railing by which to pull himself up each step of the stairwell. His legs are burning and his heart is pumping. He's been half pulling himself up each step since level five when his legs went limp as his thighs started to burn. It always seems like a great idea when he's standing on the ground floor but it only takes a few floors to remember the last time he did this he swore was going to be the last.
Using a wall to stop himself falling over, Max closes the door to his apartment as quietly as he can. It's not that he's hiding from his wife, especially not at six in the evening, but he's used to getting home late from work and needing to be as quiet as possible. It's the habit of it. Not that it matters because the heavy breathing from his trek up the ten floors to their apartment could well wake the neighbours.
Thalia's voice can be heard from down the hall, “Climb the stairs again?”
“Yeah.”
“Regret it again?”
“Yeah.”
“One day you'll learn.”
“I hope so.”
Tahlia is playing on her tablet computer while watching the TV. She maintains a strict structure around working from home and dedicates the standard nine am to five pm work hours to her job but will run from her home office as soon as five appears. So now she relaxes by looking at a two screens at once. She looks up at Max when he enters and smiles. Teasing she says, “Feel the burn, baby.”
Max flops on the couch and can barely say, “Stupid burn. Why can't exercise be less… burny?” Tahlia laughs. Max reaches for the remote sitting on the coffee table but it's just beyond his fingers. Tahlia sees what he’s trying to do, “Oi, I'm watching this.” She’s not really.
He lets his hand drop to the floor as Tahlia says, “You have got a package in the mail.”
“What is it?” Max says without moving. His interest doesn't overpower his pain.
“A box. It's on the bench.”
Max grunts to show his interest but also his inability to move.
“Fine.” Tahlia says as she gets up and grabs the small box from the kitchen bench. She brings it over and drops it on his back causing him to groan once more, “Can't you see I'm already in pain?”
“Oh, I can see it,” she says, smiling.
Max tries to reach the little parcel on his back but can only wriggle causing it to roll off and drop to the floor. He reaches down to find the box is extremely light. He shakes it but whatever’s inside doesn't make a sound. He rips it open to find a roll of bubble wrap and, on unravelling that, he finds a mobile phone and charger. It looks to be brand new but it's not in its original packaging. To his surprise it’s already on and receiving a signal.
“A phone?” Tahlia says, reminding Max she's been watching him open it. “Who's that from?”
Max turns the phone over in his hands as he stares at it like it’s a long lost toy. It's cheap and nasty and only good for calls or texts. He goes through the menu and into the contacts list. There's one number listed under the name 'Answer Me'. He checks the Inbox to find a message reading: 'Keep me charged'.
He sits up and the pain of his walk up the ten floors is no longer registering. He scrolls through the menu checking everything until he realises Tahlia has been speaking to him the whole time, “I'm sorry?” he says after finally looking up at her.
“Who sent it to you?” Tahlia says with a degree of impatience after having said it half a dozen times already.
“I don't know,” is all Max can say as he stands and walks to the bedroom. He sits on the edge of his bed and leans down, reaching behind his bedside table with one end of the charger and plugging it into the wall. He places the other end into the phone. It beeps and the animated battery symbol begins flashing to indicate it’s charging.
He places it on the bedside table as gently as if it was a holy relic. It sits charging as Max sits watching. The powerful feeling of nausea begins to well in the bottom of his stomach again. With nothing to work on other than intuition he can’t help but feel his thoughts concerning his brother may turn out to be a real possibility.
He grabs his own phone from his pocket, dials a number in his contacts list and places the phone to his ear. The ringing ends with the sound of his father’s excited voice, “Max!”
“Hey dad, how’s things?”
“Yeah good matey. I took the week off work to get some stuff done around the house. I’ve been replacing the back fence today. We’ve got the frame concreted in, and we’ll get the rest done tomorrow or the next day.”
“Yeah? Who’s we?”
“Harry from next door. You remember Harry?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course.”
“How are things with you my boy?”
“Yeah good. So, I have a random question for you if you’ve got a sec?”
“Go for it.”
“So… have you heard from Heath recently?”
“Wow son, you weren’t kidding about it being random.”
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s all good. But, no, unfortunately. Whenever I said the last time was, was the last time. Haven’t heard from him since.”
“You haven’t had any weird things happen. Someone calling and hanging up or anything?”
“Not at all. Have you?”
Max is hesitant to reveal too much and doesn’t feel the need to overtly connect Heath to the murders just yet. If his father even knows about the murders as he’s infamous for being out of touch. Even Max announcing his speculations would grieve his parents. He looks at the cheap phone sitting on his bedside table and says, “Not really. Just a few things got me thinking about him and I thought I’d check in about it.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“It’s nothing I can go into right now.”
“Well Heath was an unusual boy. Your mother and I still aren’t sure what we did wrong.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t you.”
“Maybe not, but what if I said something? What if he needed me and I wasn’t aware and pushed him away? What if that… broke him? What if he just needed more love than we could have given?”
Father and son hear an odd click sound through the phone line as a voice joins in. Max’s mother. “Max?”
“Hi mum.”
“I heard your father saying something about your brother.”
Max’s father pipes in, “Max was just asking if we had heard from him. I said we hadn’t for years.”
“Is everything OK Max? Have you heard from him?”
“No mum, I was just thinking about him is all.”
The three way conversations started years ago when his parents saw the idea on the TV show Seinfeld and thought it would be a productive way to speak with family, better than one at a time and having to repeat the same conversations. Max doesn’t enjoy it as much as they do.
His father responds, “Max said something happened that made him think about his brother.”
Max tries to reword what his father said but is interrupted by his mother, “Are you OK darling? What happened?”
“No, mum, I’m fine. Nothing happened. I was just thinking about him and wanted to check in with you.”
“But if you hear from him be sure to give him our love and tell him to call. It’s been a long time. We’re worried.”
“Yeah, I know mum, I’ll be sure to tell him.”
His mother sounds sad, “He was such a good boy. He never did anything wrong.”
His father agrees, “It’s true. Max you were the trouble child.”
His mother agrees, “Oh yes. Max you were a handful. Remember when you were boys and burnt your hands?” His father announces that he remembers as his mother continues. “That was horrible. Neither of you could do anything for yourselves for nearly a year. We had to feed you.”
Max slaps his forehead. Every time these three way conversations happen his parents end up talking over each other, saying the exac
t same thing, telling the same stories from their own perspective. “Thank you, yes, I’m sorry again. I remember all that. I’ve grown up…”
Max is interrupted by his mother, “No need to apologise darling. You’ve grown into such a wonderful man. Heath was never the same though.”
“It’s true, Max.” His father agrees, “We’re so very proud of you my boy.”
Max spends the next few minutes working his way out of the conversation so he can hang up and when he finally does he flops back on the bed, exhausted from what was actually a short call compared to past experiences.