(Chapter re-edited on 2/23/2023)
Chapter 2
"…so quiet…"
That was the first thing he'd noticed before honed survival instincts told him something was wrong with this.
"Have I missed roll call?"
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 back 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 everything, but as soon as the events of the previous night finally registered in his memory, Max lay back and laughed with relief.
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."
"I'm still taking it all in," Max chuckled sleepily.
Goofy replied, "Well I hope you'll be downstairs soon, we got a few more surprises for you."
"Did the Petersons show up?" Max asked, referring to his friend PJ and his family.
"They were actually supposed to be here last night but got held up by a blizzard," Goofy groaned, his smile wilting a bit.
"Huh, I guess that explains why they were AWOL last night," Max pondered.
"They'll get here as soon as they can," his father assured him, "Now c'mon down and see what Sylvia made..."
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 were gone a few years 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 in a lavender bath robe, and putting something in the oven. 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."
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. Sylvia followed them in with a cup of tea and saucer which she handed to Max. He smelled something strong and sweet mixed in with the tea and after taking a sip, recognized it as peppermint.
Taking a full gulp of the caffeinated beverage, he felt his senses sharpen and he leaned back and sighed, "It's good to be home."
"Is everything ready?" Sylvia asked with anticipation.
"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."
"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."
"When do we get one?" Ajay asked.
"When you're both grown up and responsible enough to use one, like Max," Sylvia told him sternly."
Her curiosity sparked by that, Macy asked, "Did they have smart phones when you were a kid?"
'Oh boy do I have a lot to share with her and Ajay,' Max thought before explaining the differences in communication tech from both eras.
He then 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 and Macy how to use one of those!" Goofy pointed out, fond memories dancing in his head.
"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 in Philadelphia; pride for the challenges he overcame and the friends he made along the way...and sorrow for the terrorist attack that derailed all of it.
"Let's snap a shot of you with it," Goofy suggested.
Max got up, but nearly fell over when his fake leg gave out under him. He broke his fall by catching onto the coffee table, but the way he grabbed it dislocated his fake hand from the arm it was attached to, and by the time Max hobbled to his feet, it was clear from the way his "arm" was bent that his injury was far worse than he'd previously let on.
"Max, what's wrong with your hand?" Sylvia, visibly stunned like everyone else in the room.
The young Goof was petrified, and all he could think to say was, "I got hurt..."
"Son, your arm is bent!" Goofy pointed out, looking just as terrified.
Max turned away from them and quickly reset his hand back into place, then put his glove back on and tried to return to the skateboard now on the floor, but nearly fell over a second time and instead plopped himself down on the couch.
The room was still and silent as a grave, with everyone processing what must have been obvious. After a moment, Max broke the uncomfortable silence and suggested, "So...about that photo?"
His voice came out shakier than intended, and he felt a tear drop slide down his face. He hadn't even noticed his eyes were moistening.
"Are you okay?" Macy asked worriedly as she ran over to Max and held his gloved hand.
"Yeah...I'm okay..." Max told her vacantly.
"What happened to you?" Ajay asked, placing a hand on Max's knee.
Max tried not to feel intruded upon, they were only reacting out of concern for him, but he wasn't ready to expose his weaknesses to them so soon.
"It's okay, son, we're all here for you, no matter what," Goofy told him as he and Sylvia rested hands on his shoulders as they knelt down next to him.
He looked up at his dad and saw his eyes watering over, and between that and the look on his face, Max sensed that he understood exactly what he was going through, being a veteran just like himself.
"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to," Sylvia assured him, "You healing is all that matters."
It helped to know that they had his back. He was already aware of that, but sometimes, reassurance made all the difference. Knowing he had nothing to worry about here in his own home reminded him of an old quote he'd lived by as an enlisted man: "When you're going through hell, sometimes the only way out is to keep going."
That served him well, and would continue to. If he was going to heal at home, he would have to rely on his family, so it made more sense to level with them.
"Okay," he began, "I'm not ready...but I don't want to hide this anymore."
He lifted his arm and began to pull off his winter glove, all sorts of emotions blasting through him as he broke down his own proverbial barrier, all the while reminding himself that his secret was already out and he was merely building trust with his new family by leveling with them. And then it came off.
He held up his prosthetic hand for everyone to see, and despite appearing to know about it a minute before, the surprise on their faces made him reconsider, but regardless, there was no going back now, the genie was out of the bottle, and just like that, the flood of emotional chaos evaporated as he let go of a very big secret he'd kept.
"Whoa..." Ajay breathed.
Opening and closing the fingers created a faint whirring sound. He even rotated it to show that he could at least get some use out of it.
"...you're a robot!" Ajay whispered.
Max snickered a bit, caught off guard by the remark.
"No, I lost my hand and got a mechanical one to replace it," he said.
"Oh Max..." breathed Sylvia, who was in shock.
Goofy looked like something broke inside of him at the sight of his son missing a limb, and he didn't seem to know what to say.
"Is that what happened to your leg, too?" Macy asked, looking scared.
Max sighed, then pulled up his right pant leg to reveal a prosthetic calf attached to his foot that still had a sock over it.
"Oh my Lord," his father deadpanned as the back-to-back revelations hit him like bullets.
He looked like he was about to lose his balance, so Max reached out and helped him settle down on the couch next to him, then held one of his dad's hands with his mechanical one while placing his good hand on top, and asked, "You feel that?" as he moved his prosthetic fingers, "I still got movement, so I can still get around on my own."
Tears fell from his father's eyes onto their hands. The prosthetic's mechanical movements drove home the absence of the hand it replaced, and tapped into Goofy's greatest fear he had lived with since his Max was first deployed: the fear of losing a child. This was a small taste of that happening.
Wiping his eyes, Goofy then hugged his son and told him, "You're one resilient warrior. You do us all proud, and I'm honored that you went through so much for all of us. I just wish the price you paid wasn't so heavy...but I'm glad it wasn't as high as it could have been."
Max noticed the rest of the family had joined them in another group hug, and he basked in it, content with just having his new family here with him. His experiences over the last 8 years had taken much from him, but it was all behind him now. When he'd heard his brother and sister speak to him over the phone for the first time, the realization that he had a family hit him like a freight train and he'd burst into tears over it.
Now, here they all were, with the rest of their lives to connect, and nothing to come between them.
"New beginnings," he whispered as everyone separated, referencing what his dad said earlier that morning.
Goofy smiled again, the grief from before fading away as he replied, "We got all the time in the world to catch up."