Chapter 2
"…so quiet…"
That was the first thing he'd noticed before a decade of honed survival instincts told him something was wrong with this.
"Have I missed roll call? Am I about to get pranked by my squad? Or smoked by my sergeant? ...am I in a cell?"
Many terrible possibilities flooded his hazy mind and made opening his eyes scarier than it needed to be, but he had to know.
Pushing through the weight of lingering sleepiness, Max cracked his eyes open and was momentarily confused by the fact that he wasn't in his usual cot, but in his own bed in his old room, with his father in a red bathrobe slumped over in a chair just a few feet from him.
It took him a moment to process the drastic change in circumstances from what he was used to, but as soon as the events of the previous night finally registered in his memory, Max lay back and laughed with relief. He didn't have to worry about his squad mates or superiors anymore, now that he was retired and back with his family.
Goofy inhaled sharply and stirred before opening his own eyes, and looked around the room before remembering how he got there, a wide smile materializing on his face as his eyes settled on his long lost son now looking back at him.
"Morning, dad," Max said.
The next thing he said was, "HOOF!" as Goofy fell on him
"I'm still not used to seeing you again!" he gushed as he hugged Max.
"I believe that," Max wheezed, struggling to breathe.
After a moment, his dad rolled off him into a sitting position on the bedside and told him cheerily, "Today is a new beginning for all of us."
"Sure beats getting locked out," Max chuckled sleepily.
"What do you mean?" Goofy asked, now slightly concerned.
Snapping himself awake, Max clarified, "Oh nothing, I just had this nightmare on the way home that the door to our house vanished and I couldn't get in."
Brushing the thought aside, his father told him, "Well it's still my house, and you'll always have a place in it, so you being locked out was never a possibility."
Max was comforted by that until another thought entered his mind.
"Does that mean Sylvia had no say in me coming back home?" he asked, now sitting beside his father on the bedside.
Goofy looked confused, so Max clarified by asking, "Does she have a problem with me being here?"
Goofy's features relaxed and he replied, "Not as far as I can tell. She seemed as excited as me when you told us you were finally getting out, and she helped me get the place ready for you without complaining even once."
That made him feel better, though it left hard questions unanswered, so he made a mental note to ask Sylvia about it when he had the chance.
"I won't make you guys regret it," Max promised.
Goofy smiled, put his arm around Max and told him, "I'm sure you'll do fine...but I also hope you'll be downstairs soon, we got a few surprises for you."
"Almost sounds like Christmas," replied Max, looking out the window at the snow as he got up and put on a blue bath robe.
Goofy said under his breath, "Funny you should say that..."
After a trip to the bathroom, Max headed to the living room and was stunned to see a lit up Christmas tree surrounded by presents near the fireplace which burned bright.
Goofy placed a hand on his son's shoulder and told him, "You're overdue a few Christmases and have some catching up to do."
"I feel ten years old again!" chuckled Max with childlike wonder.
"Oh, you're finally up!"
Max turned to see Sylvia mixing something in the kitchen, wearing a lavender bath robe over a sweat suit. He also noticed the time displayed on the stove's digital clock was 9:07.
"11 hours. Was I really out that long?" he asked in astonishment.
Sylvia glanced back at the stove clock, then told him, "We all woke up recently. I think we all had trouble sleeping until you got home but you definitely needed more rest than we did."
"You have no idea," Max slumped, looking away awkwardly.
"But I hope today will make it all worth it," she continued with a smile.
She then called out to Ajay and Macy, who were playing outside. Max headed into the living room where his father was placing some more wood in the fireplace and carefully sat himself down in the middle of the big couch, careful not to lose his balance on the way down, despite his...limitations.
Then the kids entered through the back door, shedding their winter layers and rushing into the living room to plop themselves down on either side of their older brother, who folded his arms just enough to hide his gloved left hand so it wouldn't be as noticeable.
"Merry late Christmas!" Macy greeted, handing Max a snowball dotted with valentine sprinkles. He fought back an eyeroll, then noticed Goofy still fidgeting with the fireplace and a sinister smirk overtook his face.
"Almost got it," Goofy said, nearly completing the picturesque setup of fire logs- only for it to be knocked apart by a snowball of all things. He yelped in surprise, then turned around to see where that came from. Max just pointed at Macy, who was laughing.
"What did I tell you about throwing snow in here, little lady?" Goofy said sternly.
Macy went quiet, then looked at Max who had his arms crossed and was trying not to laugh, and defensively replied, "He threw it!"
"Nuh-uh!" Max denied.
"Yeah-huh!" Macy shot back.
Goofy groaned and told them "Let's not throw anymore snow in the house. Me and your mother- her especially- do a lot to keep things tidy, and we don't need anyone messing it up."
"Sorry," Max and Macy apologized while the former held back a snicker. He looked over at Ajay who appeared very worried.
"Now I gotta worry about TWO Macys?" he asked despairingly.
Max's little sister must have had more in common with him than he thought if she was being as mischievous as he'd once been- even with the functional family he never had. With that in mind, it suddenly occurred to Max that he was setting the wrong kind of example for his still impressionable siblings by reverting to childhood antics which were better left in the past.
"Old habits. I really shouldn't have done that," he explained, his demeanor drooping a bit, "So much has changed for me in the last week and I'm still getting used to being home again."
"You're probably not fully awake."
Max looked up to see Sylvia enter the living room with a cup and saucer which she handed him. He smelled something strong and sweet mixed in with the coffee and after taking a sip, recognized it as peppermint.
Taking a full gulp this time, he felt his senses sharpen and he leaned back in his seat and sighed, "It's good to be home."
"Is everything ready?" Sylvia asked.
"I think we're good," Goofy replied, "One of you guys want to play Santa?"
Ajay got off the couch and brought one of the presents to Max who accepted it with his left hand that still had a winter glove on, set the coffee down with his good hand, and unwrapped what turned out to be his first ever smart phone.
"Oh man, how much did you guys have to shell out for this?" he asked
"They're actually not as expensive as they used to be," Goofy pointed out, "Plus, I'm making darn good pay as it is."
"On top of the money I've been sending home?" Max wondered sarcastically.
"I'd heard of these things but never actually had one until now," he mused as he tried out some of the touchscreen functions, "Beats the heck out of my old Nokia."
"Welcome to 2010," Sylvia laughed.
Now curious, Macy asked him, "How different is the future?"
Pondering for a moment, Max replied, "Well, except for the phones, computers, and darker colors, 2010 looks a lot like the 90s- though everyone seems to be getting fatter for some reason."
She snickered at that last part. Ajay remained awkwardly silent, possibly due to him being heavier than his sister by a few pounds.
Max opened a few more presents, then got to a big box he needed to hold with both hands. He could almost guess what it was by the weight and sounds it made when he shook it...and sure enough it was a skateboard.
Max would have sweat-dropped if he could.
"It's a new car!" Macy announced, imitating a game show host.
"As soon as the snow melts, you can show Ajay how to use one of those!" Goofy pointed out, his face lit with fatherly pride.
"Can I keep the charade going that long?" Max wondered, briefly glancing at his left hand that still had a glove over it. He'd told them at dinner the previous night that his hand was hurt and the glove acted as a cast for it, but they'd seen him holding things with that hand several times this morning. How long until they started to catch on?
"Something wrong?" Sylvia asked.
Snapping out of it, Max said, "Nah, it's just been while since I used one of these."
"You gotta show us how to skate like you did at college!" Macy told him, bouncing in her cushion.
"We showed them the home movies we took of you competing with the Gammas," Sylvia pointed out.
Max briefly felt a surge of pride and sorrow for his college days; pride for the challenges he overcame and the friends he made along the way...and sorrow for how it all ended.
He was snapped back out of it when Goofy handed him another present. He reached for it with his left hand, realized his mistake and retracted it out of sight while switching to his right hand.
His little sister cocked her head and asked him, "Wouldn't it be easier to hold it with your left hand and unwrap it with your right?"
Should he agree or give an excuse for not doing that? He'd used his left hand just fine a few minutes before, and now he was refusing to, so either choice would contradict his earlier actions. As hard as he tried to think of a way out of this, he couldn't- and it showed; his indecisiveness had him frozen like a virus ridden computer.
"Max, what's wrong with your hand?" his father ask after a long silence.
Max tried to think up a lie, but all he got was, "It's just hurt, that's all."
"But do you really need to wear a glove over it?" Goofy reasoned.
By now, everyone else was getting curious, having shifted their focus toward his left arm, and Max was torn on what to do. They were onto him, and it seemed they would find out sooner than later.
"Max, you don't have to worry. Whatever happened won't change anything between us," Sylvia assured him.
That caught Max's attention. His stepmother was asking him to open up to her; she was openly inviting him to connect with her family! A ray of hope burned through his doubts and made him nearly forget what he was afraid of. He was still nervous about telling them, but perhaps this was a chance to bring them all closer together.
Without another word, Max rested his left arm across his lap and slowly removed his glove, watching everyone's expression shift from concern to shock as he revealed his hand to them.
A hand made of metal and plastic.
He rotated it, letting everyone get a good look at what remained of the appendage. He even made sure to open and close the fingers a few times, a very faint whirring noise accompanying the movements.
The awkward silence was broken by Ajay, who asked, "Max is a robot?"
That caught Max off-guard and made him laugh, which made the others laugh, too, diffusing most of the tension.
"Nah, more like I got a robot arm attached where I lost my real one," Max told him, doing his best to maintain a matter-of-fact tone despite feeling light headed at the sight of his own prosthetic which he was still getting used to.
Goofy, however, was still in shock. Wanting to cushion the blow, Sylvia pointed out that Max could still learn to skate with a prosthetic hand, but instead of perking up, Max appeared to droop even further before he replied, "That's not the only thing I lost."
The room went dead silent again as Max stood up and pulled his right pant leg up to reveal another prosthetic.
"Oh my Lord," his father deadpanned, falling onto the couch as the back-to-back revelations hit him like bullets.
"I had time to get used to that one," Max assured them, looking down at his prosthetic right leg.
"You had time?" Goofy questioned, snapping out of his trance, "Son, how long ago did that happen?"
"Guess that wasn't the smartest thing to say," Max thought to himself, then replied, "I lost my leg a few years back, and my hand just a few months ago."
"...why didn't you tell us?" Goofy asked, looking more hurt than offended.
"You guys had enough to worry about," Max shrugged nervously, "As long as I was still mobile, I didn't think there was any need to put that on your shoulders."
Reaching out, Goofy took his son's hands into his own, palm to palm, feeling the differences. Max closed his fingers around his father's hands, wanting to demonstrate that he could get use out of both of them, but noticed tear drops falling onto them. Somehow, the left hand's mechanical movements drove home the absence of the real hand it replaced, and tapped into his father's greatest fear he had lived with since his son was first deployed; the fear of losing a child. This was a small taste of that happening.
Kneeling down to look Goofy in the eyes, Max told him, "Hey, I may not have made it out unscathed, but I still came home, and I can still get around on my own."
Wiping his eyes, Goofy replied, "You sure can. You're one resilient warrior, you do us all proud, and I'm honored that you went through so much for all of us, though I wish the price you paid wasn't so heavy. But even so, I'm glad it wasn't as high as it could have been."
Max pulled him into another hug and found himself getting suffocated by the whole family again, but this time he was ready for it.
After enduring full body strangulation for what felt like minutes, Max was finally released, and placed his hands on his dad's shoulders and told him, "You said it's a new beginning, and I said I would always be there for you. Let's focus on that, because it's all we need."
Goofy smiled again, the grief from before fading away as he replied, "We got all the time in the world to catch up."
"And you won't have to do it alone," said Sylvia, now hugging Max from behind. He also noticed Macy and Ajay still hugging Goofy, not wanting to see their dad upset.
"My first real Christmas," Max smiled warmly, briefly forgetting it was actually February.
He'd lived out his entire youth wondering what having a mother and siblings was like. While deployed, the first time he'd heard Goofy, Sylvia, Ajay, and Macy all together in the same phone call, he had burst into tears, the reality that he had a family at home had hit him like a freight train.
Now, here they all were, with the rest of their lives to connect, and nothing to come between them.