11:30 pm

Max came back here after Snuffy’s memorial. I was certain that she and the gang would have ended up back at Crash to spend some time with Herbal. I had barely taken the exo out of its crate and given it a cursory look when the doorbell rang. I ignored the bell for a couple of rings while I fired off an email asking Sebastian to dredge up DOD specs on exoskeletons, circa 2005. Then I reluctantly made my way to the door and yanked it open, frustrated at the untimely interruption. I was about to utter an irritated ‘What!’ when I saw Max’s face.

She gave me a soft smile and a quiet ‘Hey’ and then headed directly for the living room and began setting up the chessboard. I doubt that I have ever seen Max quite so subdued. Ringing the doorbell is not Max’s usual method of announcing her presence, nor is it her style to wait patiently until I am ready to answer it. Her tentativeness at the door and even the contemplation with which she set up the board suggested that there was something weighing on her. She avoided my gaze as she slowly laid out piece after piece. I felt a deep desire to help carry some of that weight and, without even thinking, I reached out and I wrapped my hand around hers just as she was about to place another pawn on the board. She looked up in surprise at the sudden closing of the distance between us. I was amazed at how much her expression softened due to my simple gesture. I hadn’t realized how desperately she needed the comfort of a simple touch.

"You okay?" I asked, still holding her hand.

"Do you ever feel like a pawn?" She asked, her warm brown eyes revealing depths of sorrow I can barely begin to comprehend. Then in a flash, the cocky façade came back, and without waiting for my response, she continued with a wicked grin. "Well, you’re going to feel like one tonight. Ready to get your ass kicked?" Then she proceeded to do just that, at least for a while.

"He used to tell stories," she said quietly, looking up in the middle of the game.

"Who?" I asked, not quite following her.

"Ben," she said almost in a whisper, then her attention drifted back to the chessboard. I could tell, though, that her heart was no longer in the game. She would look up at me periodically as if she had something she wanted to tell me, but she wasn’t sure if she could. Eventually, she started to talk.

"Our mission was to capture a man, who had been released into the woods outside Manticore," she began. It didn’t take long me for me to realize she was talking about the man in the photos. I destroyed those photos, but I understand Max will not be able to destroy those memories. They will always be with her. "It was a timed exercise," she continued. "I believe it took us two minutes to capture him. But we didn’t stop there. We killed him." She paused for a moment, deep in thought. "Lydecker didn’t seem to mind."

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I just nodded my head in acknowledgement. What she told me has given me a much greater understanding of what she is fighting against. This afternoon, I reassured her that she has moves, but the more I learn about her past, the more impressed I am at what she has accomplished. She told me some more about Manticore tonight, but she mostly talked about Ben, his intelligence, his creativity and his faith in the Good Place. She even described it for me.

"No one gets punished, no one gets yelled at, no one ever disappears, and when you wake up in the morning, you can stay in bed a long as you want." She smiled thinking about it.

"All he wanted was to go to the Good Place," she said, with a terrible sadness and longing in her voice for the ten-year-old brother that she knew.

"You did the right thing," I told her. She looked at me intensely for a few minutes. Then she nodded her head slowly. Though she has never told me exactly what happened with Ben, she knew what I was talking about and that I understood. I think she realizes that she did the right thing, that she couldn’t allow Ben to continue doing what he was doing.

"Don’t laugh," she said, suddenly getting up from the table and perching nervously on the back of the sofa. "I have a question."

"Shoot." I told her as I followed her, thinking that I would never laugh at anything she was serious about.

"Have you ever been to confession?" She asked cautiously, afraid that I was going to ridicule her.

"I can’t say I have," I said, completely surprised. I never expected Max to be interested in organized religion, or religion of any sort. "How was it?" I asked sincerely. I knew that this was one time that even good-natured kidding was not appropriate.

"It was different. We talked." She replied in her typical nonchalant manner, but I could tell it had made a difference for her. I’m not exactly sure what Max believes. She was raised not to believe in anything other than her unit, and even her faith in that was shattered years ago. Yet this must be where she found the reconciliation she was seeking after Ben’s death. I can sense her grief, but also a level of peace that she seems to have found.

I haven’t felt the need to think much about faith or the ‘Good Place’. I’ve spent most of my time in the last few years trying to make the here and now a better place. It has been more than enough for me. What good is faith in anything if you don’t act on it? Mom used to talk about the universe and how things happened for a purpose. "It’s right on schedule," she used to say. I didn’t pay much attention then, but I can understand both Mom and Max’s hope that there may be something more out there. God knows I send up a thousand prayers each time Max goes out on a mission.

Max continues to amaze me. After Ben’s death, I mentally accused her of being unfeeling, expecting her to show more anger, more grief, more something. I didn’t think it could be possible for her to resolve her feelings that easily and go back to life as usual with her friends. I thought she was just hiding from the darkness in her life. Now I realize she hasn’t been hiding at all, but that she has worked hard to gain the peace that she has. She truly does have more moves than I ever expected.