i have been thinking about this for about five years and all i did was circle back to one of my first interpretations of the black sails/treasure island ties: max as silver's unnamed wife in treasure island.
madi leaves first. augustus is replaced with a new governor, but max still holds a fairly stable position in nassau, even after the change in regime. anne and jack are captured, and max hears of jack's execution in port royal, but anne's name isn't mentioned, and for a time max keeps expecting her to show up at her door.
silver spends a good part of his time around her —at a table in her inn, at the bar, in her office— but they rarely talk. she sees herself in his endless, haunted waiting, and that's what prompts her to start looking for a way out. when max floats the idea of leaving, silver holds onto it like a lifeline.
they don't choose bristol, per se, but the opportunity to buy the tavern comes up and they grab it. silver still has hands at his beck and call, and we know several pirates follow him to bristol. i can imagine that idelle, augustus, maybe eme as well, they stick by max's side. by then max has spent almost half of her life in that island. she doesn't cry when they depart.
with anne gone, marrying silver to protect her co-ownership of the tavern is just practical thinking. max has a few relationships through the years, but as far as she knows, silver remains alone. a decade becomes two, then three. max builds a new life but silver never moves on.
i think what brought me back to this reading was the steinberg interview (FD58: Interview with Jon Steinberg) where he talks about how "she is by sort of sheer force of will starting her own version of the story in which she is not operating according to the terms (...) set out". she doesn't have a name in treasure island because she wrote herself out of the narrative. silver is the one dragging the story with him everywhere, unconsciously keeping it alive.
when silver leaves in search of the cache, max knows that she will never see him again. people start calling her a widow. the pirates stop frequenting the tavern. some of the young women who wait her tables and cook in her kitchen become mothers, and their kids call max "aunt". maybe a book peddler at the bristol port sells her a copy of treasure island. maybe the idea that silver survived brings her some relief. maybe halfway across the world, anne survived too. in the end, max gets to die of old age in a warm bed, in a safe room, surrounded by love.
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