‘But … they’re being so horrible about you, Mom, and I just—’ He paused, pushing away the angry tears that had already gathered.
Lindy pulled him close, feeling sick at his anguish. ‘They are mean people, Max. They don’t matter. I used to mind and then I realised that they’re just sad in their own lives. And now I never look at them. Ever. And I want you – no, Ineedyou to do the same.’ She leaned down and touched her forehead to his. ‘Promise me.’
He looked up at her. ‘I promise. I won’t do it again. I swear.’
Finding out that people possess infinite ability to harm one another was a lesson he was way too young for. And finding out you have harmed your child despite your best intentions is a lesson no parent is ever ready for.
‘Do you still like doing Maxxed Out?’
‘Yah! I do, of course I do. You’re not going to stop the channel, are you? Cos I know we need it and I like it, I totally like it.’
‘We don’t need it, Max. Really. Daddy and I have loads of other things we can do.’
‘No, no,’ he was firm, ‘I want to keep doing it. I swear. I don’t mind at all.’
His vehement reassurances cemented it for Lindy. He was so young. She realised she’d done her best to hide her regrets about Maxxed Out from everyone, but especially herself.We work so hard at not seeing the one thing we don’t want to see. His pretence at enthusiasm pushed the door she’d closed on her fears further open.
Back at the house, Max immediately cornered Ailbhe and Roe to give them a detailed account of the climbing session. His words tumbled out over one another in his excitement, and Lindy remembered when he was this thrilled with a new toy to play with for Maxxed Out. He’d detail the new subscribers at the dinner table, his words slipping around each other in his elation. He’d known many by name back then. She hadn’t seen him this buzzed in a very long time. He’d been going through the motions because he thought they wanted him to. And even if he still thought he enjoyed Maxxed Out, it was probably because he barely knew life without a camera and a vast invisible audience. She had to talk to Adam. She couldn’t delay any longer. There was still time to repair things.
She found Adam in their bedroom, just out of the shower after golf. She was nervous. The mutation of Maxxed Out from low-key hobby to a fully fledged business had been so gradual that she’d never even thought to put anything legal down on paper. A lot was hitched to Maxxed Out. The house in Drumcondra was long gone, the money absorbed into their chaotic finances.
‘How was climbing? Did Max get into it?’
‘He loved it.’ Lindy stared out the window at the precise and arrow-straight horizon line that bisected the bright blue of the sky and the deep navy of the ocean. It was a metaphor so on the nose that she’d have dismissed it in a movie for being too obvious. The line she was crossing would be final. A lot was going to change. She had to shelve her own feelings of soul-sick humiliation to make a clean break. For Max’s sake, Adam must not know what she’d seen on the tapes. She sensed he was not going to go quietly in terms of Maxxed Out. He loved the status of playing the devoted, hot internet dad. If he realised she knew about his affair, he’d accuse her of ending Maxxed Out to get back at him. As much as she wanted to scream into his face, to raze him to the ground, she had to hold herself in check. There would be time down the line when Max was safe.
‘Awesome that he loved it.’ Adam snapped the waistband of his underpants and started to pull on his shorts. ‘Some climbing vids would be fantastic. If Jamie can hook a sponsor fast, we could even get away to the Alps, maybe, before the end of summer. I haven’t climbed in years.’
‘I don’t think so, Adam.’ Lindy kept her voice steady and continued to gaze at the horizon. Wherever you stood it was always about five miles away. You could try to move forward and close that gap but it would keep receding. It was how her life had felt for the last few years. Always beyond her control and out of reach. ‘I think Maxxed Out has to end.’
Now, she felt like she was catching up for the first time in forever.
‘What, Lindy? C’mon. Everything is going great. We don’t need to stop. We can’t anyway – we’re contracted to the hilt.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Max is more important than contracts and it is time to stop. For him. For us. We have to get back to being a family.’
‘Lindy.’ He looked furious. ‘You don’t seem to grasp that we’re not rich. We don’t own a home. We don’t have millions in ready money. We don’t even own the car. It’s all on the Maxxed Out dime.’
‘We have the proceeds from the house.’ Lindy turned to face him. ‘We’ll go back to normal jobs. It’s what most people do. The money from the Drumcondra house will be our cushion.’
‘Well, that money isn’t just sitting in an account. It’s tied up in investments.’
‘What investments?’
Adam was clearly uneasy. He turned and yanked his sweatshirt over his head, seemingly for something to do with his hands. ‘Different bits and bobs. I put a bit in Optimise with Tom. Little nuggets here and there into up-and-coming technologies.’
‘What’s a little nugget in Adam-speak?’ Lindy’s dread was building. Was there no fallback?
‘A few thousand. Sometimes more.’
‘What’s in the bank, Adam?’
‘It fluctuates. You don’t know how these things work—’
‘Neither do YOU!’Shit, shit, shit.
‘I’ve picked stuff up. The YouTube circuit has been very fruitful for the investment portfolio. It’s a full-time job justhavingmoney nowadays – where to invest, what to endorse. Do you go the altruistic route? How do you stiff the taxman? It’s a waste just having money lying in a bank account – it should be out there generating more.’
‘Are we in trouble with this, Adam?’ Lindy reached for a full breath but it was obstructed by a growing morass of fear.
