Free Maximum Security by Rose Connors Page A

living room window, paws on the sill, keeping a watchful eye on us throughout our driveway debate. He starts barking at Ralph now, moving his big paws up to the windowpane, his nails scratching the glass. I’m not sure what prompted his change in demeanor, but I decide to trust his canine instincts. “I’m going in now,” I tell Ralph. “There’s nothing more to say. We disagree. That’s all there is to it.”

    He clutches his goateed chin between thumb and index finger and shakes his head. He’s angry—again—that I don’t see life through his cheerless lenses. He opens his mouth, as if he plans to continue the argument, but then apparently thinks better of it. He presses a button on his key chain and the Porsche lights up and honks as I head for the back steps. “Marty,” he calls after me.

    He’s got one foot in the car when I turn around, his left hand on top of the open driver’s-side door, his right one still holding the keys, resting on the roof. He juts his goatee out toward the cottage. “Your friend in there,” he says. “Henry.”

    “Harry,” I correct him.

    “Whatever.” Ralph pauses and shakes his head yet again. He’s annoyed with my attention to unimportant detail. “The guy’s got an attitude,” he says, pointing his keys at the living room window. “I don’t like him.”

    Ah, the considered, objective judgment of the scientist. Where would the rest of us be without it? I turn away from him and climb the back steps without another word.

    By the time I get back to the living room, it’s obvious that Luke is exasperated. This, in itself, is not surprising. Luke always gets exasperated when he plays chess with Harry, but it usually takes a little longer than the fifteen minutes or so they’ve been playing. He gets up from the floor and flops onto the living room couch. “Wake me up when you move,” he says to Harry, “if I’m still breathing.”

    Harry sits immobile on the floor, his eyes glued to the chess-board on the coffee table, the only sign of life his occasional ogle of Luke’s king. “Sure thing,” he answers, motionless.

    Luke bounds up again. “I forgot,” he says, pounding a palm against his forehead as if he’s in a V8 commercial. “You cheat.”

    “It’s not cheating if everyone knows you do it,” Harry replies.

    Luke calls these pearls of wisdom Harry-isms. There’s no reasoning with the guy, he tells me after every chess match. He turns to me now, his hands in the air, his eyes wide. “Do you see what I’m talking about?”

    I nod at him and laugh. I do.

    “I’m gonna order a pizza,” Luke says, heading for the phone in the kitchen. “Watch the board for me, will you, Mom? You can’t trust this guy for two seconds.”

    “Sausage and onions,” Harry yells after him. “And anchovies,” he adds.

    “Not on your life,” Luke calls back. “Pepperoni. Nothing else belongs on pizza.”

    “Order two,” I tell him. “And one of them had better be half plain cheese.”

    Luke pops his head back into the living room to see if I’m serious about this outrageous suggestion. I nod to let him know I am. I’m hungry. And at the rate this chess game is moving, we won’t get out to eat until next Saturday. Luke’s eyes move to Harry, as if he needs a second opinion.

    “Your mom’s a plain Jane,” Harry says, his gaze not leaving the chessboard.

    Luke rolls his eyes and goes back into the kitchen. Harry’s delivering old news.

    Harry looks up when Danny Boy and I settle on the couch to do guard duty. “You okay?” he asks.

    “I’m fine,” I tell him as Danny Boy nestles his head on my lap. “But you’re not. My ex-husband doesn’t like you, Henry. You have an attitude.”

    He falls backward, slapping the back of one hand to his forehead. “I’m shattered,” he says. “Roscoe and I could’ve been close. We have so much in common. We could’ve had a future.”

    We’re both laughing when he sits up, but Harry leans