JEM IN THE NIGHT

Jonathan Andrews and Meradith Collingswald met when Jonathan was studying abroad at Cambridge. Neither planned on their courtship to turn into marriage, but somehow that's exactly what it did. The pair found themselves married and trying to decide where they wished to live. Meradith had been attending school to become a Barister while Jonathan was attaining his PhD in classical studies so he could become a professor in America. The pair decided to stay in London, where Meradith was from, to start their family, as her job would be much harder to transfer than his would be. As the couple settled into the routines, Jonathan researching different emproers of Rome and different ways the Egyptians practicied mummificatio, and Meradith taking on case after case they found they would be parents. It was a surprise and an excitement as they began to prepare. They weren't sure how they would manage to continue with their work and raise a baby but they had high hopes of it all working out.

Born April 4, 1985, Maxine Katherine Andrews would be the only child Jonathan and Meradith would have. As a little girl, Maxine, was doated on incessently. Her parents took her everywhere, if they wanted to go to Spain for a week in the summer the little girl was running around on the beach, if they had to travel for her father to speak somewhere, she was packed up with him. If her mother had a huge case and it took her out of London, it became a family trip. As long as the parents could both go, she was there. Rarely did she do anything with just one parent, other than lunch here and there. She was enrolled in the best private schools in Chelsea. Her parents had high standards and were sure their daughter would achieve those as well. She was taught French as early as kindergarden, and by fourth grade was nearly fluent. Many of her classmates wouldn't pass the test they would take getting out of grade school, but she would if her parents had their way.

Everything changed in the winter of 1995. Meradith had been out late working on a case, when she hit black ice on the road and crashed her car. She was pronounced dead on the scene. Losing her mother was going to change everything about Max's life, but little did she know at the time it would alter her entire world and would shape who she became in the future. After all affairs were in order, Jonathan tried to stay in London, but within six months he couldn't handle it and packed up his small family. They were going to return to the United States. His family was from Maine, but with his education and references he was given a professorship at Harvard in Boston. So to the US he and Maxine went. It was hard on the little girl, she didn't understand how hard it would be going from one country and standards to another. She didn't understand half of what her classmates said, what the hell was a hoodie?! Her accent was often commented on, and she always got confused when someone asked if she liked football and she would say Chelsea was her favorite team. That wasn't football here.

She was fifteen when she decided for sure what she wanted to do with her life, she wanted to be a barister, or Lawyer as they called it here in America. She wanted to be like her mother. It bothered her father a bit, knowing how much work went into the field but he also knew that if it was her dream, then he wouldn't stand in her way. He told her to get good grades and go to a top school. He told her if her grades and test scores were there, he'd do what he could to get her into Harvard but she told him she wanted to go to Yale. It had been the one school her mom always wished she had attended when she'd had the chance and so there she was, at 18 years old, freshly graduated from high school and about to enter the ivy covered halls of Yale University. She knew, that just because she got in for undergrad didn't mean she'd get into law school there, but she had hopes and she was the kind of student who, if told to read five pages read ten just to be safe. Jonathan knew she'd make it and he didn't worry a bit about her.

College was a time for exploring and finding herself. The summer between her freshman and sophomore year she dyed her hair black and went on a road trip for three months around the United States, where she found herself at OzzFest, Warped Tour and Burning Man. She then made a point the following spring to attend Carival in Rio, because she was over 18 and could drink there. Then the summer between sophomore and junior year she went with a couple friends to Europe and backpacked across the country, learning how to hitchike, take the Eurorail and enjoy hostiles. She found her French useful and fell in love in almost every country. She still hasn't told her dad about the boys she left behind that summer. She went to Mexico for spring break the following year, then after turning twenty one, she found herself going to Mardi Gras and paying to have her fortune told by a Voodoo Priestess. She was in love with the idea of life and everything it offered. She almost didn't go to law school, having a nervous breakdown and panic attack just before the LSATs, thinking she wasn't smart enough for this and she should go become a McDonald's employee. Her dad had to drive to her and talk her out of ruining her entire life. She excelled in law school, learning how to argue with her professors, which internships to take and what it meant to be offered a spot on a case in her second semester. She also fell in love for real in law school.

Alex Davenport was the boy that knew what he wanted. He was the one who would be a partner by the time he was 30, he had a plan and somehow Max fit into his plan. By the time they both sat for the BAR they were moving in together, discussing what their wedding would be like and how many kids they might have. They went so far as to plan their wedding for the year after law school, when he let the bomb drop, once they had kids she would no longer work and she would be expected to stay home and raise them. That's not what she wanted, she wasn't even sure she wanted kids. Their relationship turned toxic quickly and within three months they went from in love to broken up and her moving back in with her father looking for a job in Boston.