Read Rogue for Free Online

everything was blanketed white when they woke up. It was the first real snow of the year. Sam took one look at it and clapped his hands in delight.
    “Can we go to the park, Mom? We can take out the disks.” The snow was still falling, and the scene outside looked like a Christmas card, but Maxine knew that by the next day it would be a mess.
    “Sure, sweetheart.” As she thought about it, she realized, as she always did, that Blake was missing the best part. He had traded all of this for jet-set parties and people all over the world. But in Maxine's eyes, the best of life was right here.
    Daphne came in for breakfast with her cell phone glued to her ear. She left the table several times, whispering to a friend, as Jack rolled his eyes and helped himself to the French toast Maxine had made. It was one of the few things she could cook well, and often did. He poured on a huge amount of maple syrup and commented on how dumb Daphne and her friends were these days about boys.
    “What about you?” his mother inquired with interest. “No girlfriends yet?” He went to a dancing class, and a coed school, and had plenty of opportunities to meet girls, but he had no interest in them yet. His primary interest so far was in sports. He liked soccer best of all, surfing the Internet, and video games.
    “Yerghk” was his response, as he devoured another piece of French toast. Sam was lying on the couch, watching cartoons on TV. He had eaten breakfast an hour before when he got up. Everyone came and went at leisure on Saturday mornings, and Maxine cooked for them as they came in. She loved the domestic side of life that she didn't have time for during the week, when she was in a hurry to see patients at the hospital before she went to her office. She was usually out of the house well before eight o'clock, when the kids left for school. But with rare exceptions, she managed to have dinner with them every night.
    She reminded Sam then that he had a sleepover at a friend's that night, and Jack chimed in that he did too. Daphne said three of her friends were coming over to watch a movie, and a couple of boys might drop by too.
    “Now there's a new chapter,” Maxine commented with a look of interest. “Anyone I know?” Daphne just shook her head with a look of irritation and walked out of the room. Clearly, to her, the question didn't deserve an answer.
    Maxine rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, and an hour later, she and all three of her children were headed to the park. At the last minute, the two older ones had decided to come along too. She had plastic disks for two of them, and she and Daphne wrapped garbage bags around their bottoms, and slid down the hills with the boys, and other children, with squeals of glee. It was still snowing, and her children were still young enough to act like little kids once in a while, instead of grown up, as they wanted to be. They stayed out till three o'clock and then walked home through the park. It had been fun, and she made them hot chocolate with whipped cream and s'mores when they got home. It was nice to think they weren't so old after all, and still enjoyed the same childhood pastimes they always had.
    She dropped Sam off for his sleepover at five o'clock, on East 89th Street, Jack in the Village at six o'clock, and was back at the apartment in time for Daphne's friends to show up with a stack of rented movies. In the end, two additional girls had turned up. She ordered pizza for them at eight o'clock, and Sam called at nine “to see how she was,” which she knew from experience meant he might not spend the night at his friend's. Sometimes he couldn't pull it off, and came home to sleep with her or in his own bed. She told him she was fine, and he said he was too. She was smiling when she hung up, and could hear squeals of laughter coming from Daphne's room. Something told her they were talking about boys, and she wasn't wrong.
    Two extremely uncomfortable-looking