by Mike Lupica
“Was it worth it?” Alex asked. “The choice you made? When you think about all the stuff you did miss out on?”
Her mom sighed and smiled.
“Been waiting your whole life to ask that question, huh?” she said.
“Maybe it took this season for me to ask it.”
“I look back now,” Liza Borelli said, “and think that maybe there could have been another way, if I had to do it all over again. If I could have worked harder on my marriage and still been able to become a doctor. Have the life I imagined for myself. But I didn’t see a way at the time. So I made the choices I did. Gave up a lot. To get a lot.” She shrugged. “Maybe a man wouldn’t have had to make the same choices. Who knows? What I know is that I’m happy. And a big part of that happiness—probably the biggest part—is that I’m looking at a pretty happy young woman.”
She leaned forward on the table and covered one of Alex’s hands with her own.
“Was this season worth it for you?” she asked Alex.
Alex took a few seconds to consider, but knew there was really only one answer.
“Heck yeah!” she said.
“My girl.”
EPILOGUE
So that’s how it all went down.
I left out some stuff, but nothing all that important.
That’s how I got to play quarterback. It’s how we won the championship and how I won over some people along the way.
Even if I couldn’t win over all of them.
They wanted me to make some kind of speech or whatever at the end of the night, but I told them I’d done most of my talking on the field. Then Jabril got up and told everybody that maybe more football players should woman up. My mom gave Jabril a high five for that one.
But I knew it wasn’t about that in the end. Just about being good enough to do the job. No matter who, or what, you are.
In the end, I did say one thing. Because Sophie made me, threatening to do some vaults over the coffee table if I didn’t. So I stepped into the middle of the living room, where I’d watched all that football with my dad, never believing I’d get to take the field myself.
Until I started dreaming.
“You know what I can’t wait for?” I said.
“More cake?” Sophie guessed.
“Next year,” I said.
Wait till you hear about that one.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Lupica (www.mikelupicabooks.com) writes for New York's Daily News and appears on ESPN's The Sports Reporters. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Heat, Travel Team, QB 1, and Fantasy League. He lives in New Canaan, Connecticut.
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