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The Letter

Page 15

by Marie Tillman


  He also wanted to talk to everyone. While I always felt more comfortable blending in, staying off the radar, he was outgoing. At home, he’d become friends with the UPS guy, the baristas at the café down the street, and nearly every neighbor or teammate he ever had. When traveling, he was no different. He chatted with everyone from the people in the ticket line ahead of us at the Louvre to the Irish fisherman sitting next to us at a pub. We took a long train ride through Germany, and we’d barely settled into our seats before Pat engaged the German couple sitting across the aisle from us.

  “Do you speak English?” he asked.

  “Yes, a bit,” the husband said.

  They chitchatted for a minute about where we each were headed. Before long, Pat asked, “So what was it like before the wall came down?” and followed it up with a lengthy discussion about East and West Berlin.

  People seldom minded his questions; he was open and earnest, and strangers saw that right away. The couple were impressed with his knowledge of German history and politics, and they talked easily for hours. At first, I sat behind my book, listening. Gradually I put it down and became more active in the conversation myself. I knew Pat would record all of it in his journal later that night. He wanted to process and remember everything he was soaking in.

  * * *

  My first few days in Buenos Aires, I felt more free and alive than I had in a while. Discovering the sights and sounds of a new place made me realize how my surroundings at home often fell into a hazy background I paid little attention to. For instance, I had already become so used to the little birds that filled the trees outside my house that I barely noticed them anymore; but here in the streets of Buenos Aires, everything came at me full force. I took a step back just to let it all sink in, vowing to take the same approach to my home when I returned.

  To get myself in the traveling mood, I had brought along an anthology of travel essays. Pico Iyer had written an introduction to it that I loved. He had noted that “travel…guides us toward a better balance of wisdom and compassion—of seeing the world clearly, and yet feeling it truly. For seeing without feeling can obviously be uncaring; while feeling without seeing can be blind.” Another favorite line I’d underlined was “That is why many of us travel not in search of answers, but in search of better questions.”

  As I wandered the cobblestone streets, Iyer in my head, decisions seemed much simpler. Gone was the anxiety over what to do with my life. To anyone observing my recent actions, it might have looked like I didn’t know which way was up. “She moved again? She left her job and took off for South America? Someone help that girl!” But that was just perception; that wasn’t reality. Somehow, here, now that I’d taken a step away, my life became clearer. I knew I didn’t want to take a job I didn’t feel passionate about. I knew my work had to contribute to some greater good. I also knew I’d find my way to it. I had some money saved up, so I didn’t need to worry about finding something immediately. And I could craft my world into what I wanted it to be.

  After the initial shock wore off, I realized that traveling alone could be very freeing. I could wander and decide for myself, with no one else’s opinions or thoughts to consider. I sometimes set out for a destination and then changed my course along the way. Or I arrived at my destination only to realize I wasn’t really interested in looking at modern art anymore but would rather find a café and people-watch the afternoon away. In the evenings, I returned to my modest, but comfortable hotel.

  I remembered how Pat and I had tromped through Europe on our shoestring budget years before. I wouldn’t have had it any other way; I loved keeping our accommodations simple, immersing ourselves in the world around our hotel’s walls. Still, now I appreciated having a comfortable place to stay and a soft bed to sleep on.

  Once when Pat and I had driven up the West Coast en route to Vancouver, Canada, we’d spent one night sleeping in the back of his Jeep. What’s more, Pat had been training for a triathlon at the time and didn’t want his bike to get wet from the weather. So even though he’d played with the NFL two seasons by then and was making decent money, we shared the back of his car with his bike for a cramped and sleepless night. I had wanted to be a good sport, so I’d stretched out as best I could, mindful of not getting my hair stuck in his bike chain. It was a memory, for sure, but I think now I would have suggested—maybe even insisted—we spring the fifty dollars and stay at the motel down the road.

  * * *

  In the two short weeks between when I’d booked my flight and when I’d left for Argentina, I’d amassed from friends a list of acquaintances in Buenos Aires. My old self—never wanting to put people out and always a little shy and uncomfortable around people I didn’t know—never would have reached out to a stranger. This time, though, I figured, why not? In the time since Pat had died, I had been in a variety of uncomfortable, public situations; there had been the hearings, of course, but there’d also been events like standing before thousands live and god knows how many on television when the Cardinals retired his jersey. But the one good thing that had come from all of it was I had finally shed the last of my shy demeanor. Somehow in the midst of all the chaos, I’d become more comfortable with myself and more willing to seek out new people and new experiences. Perhaps it was practice, or perhaps it was the realization of how short life can be.

  One friend-of-a-friend living in Buenos Aires was a Swedish woman named Sigried. Over a year before, she’d taken a trip down there, fallen in love with the tango, and decided to stay and learn to dance. I loved the romantic notion of it all and was excited to meet up. After emailing back and forth, we decided to meet at a little bar in her neighborhood. I was eager to find out more about her decision to leave her life in Sweden and move to Buenos Aires. Though I’d been in town only three short days, I could already see the allure of the city and was fantasizing about moving myself. I couldn’t imagine really doing it, but maybe after seeing Sigried, I’d feel differently.

  I arrived at the bar a few minutes late and found a tall, thin girl, with long blonde hair almost to her waist, waiting outside. I hesitated as I walked up, thinking it might not be her, but then again, her hair and stature made her stand out from the Argentinians milling around her.

  “Sigried?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She smiled. “You must be Marie. So nice to meet you.”

  I guessed that she was a little older than me, but she looked youthful in her fitted, leotard-like top and flowing skirt. She was going to dance class after our drink and was dressed accordingly. I followed her into the bar and out to the back patio, where the buzz of conversation from the other patrons livened up the space. It was springtime in Buenos Aires, but not too hot yet, and the air on the patio felt refreshing. We each ordered a glass of Malbec and chatted easily for over an hour. Sigried had worked in a fairly demanding job as a journalist in Sweden when on a whim she had decided to take a sabbatical and go to Argentina. Like me, she had needed a break from the routine of her life and had been urged on by a feeling that there must be something more than the daily grind of her job back home. She had instantly fallen in love with Buenos Aires, and tango in particular, and had spent her monthlong sabbatical dancing her days and nights away. Before her time in the city was over, she had decided to move and had found a small house to rent. She went back to Sweden to quit her job and gather her things, then returned to Argentina to live. She now worked as a freelance writer for an American website, reporting mostly on women’s issues in South America. The dollar went pretty far in Argentina, and Sigried was able to maintain a nice lifestyle that left her plenty of time to dance.

  Sigried made it all seem simple and perfect, and I wondered if I could ever do the same thing. There had been many times after Pat’s death when I had thought about leaving everything behind, packing a small bag and traveling the world, but something stopped me. I had responsibilities at home, the first few years the investigations into his death were always looming, and now even though I wasn’t running the dai
ly operations at the Pat Tillman Foundation, I did feel it was important for me to oversee its activities and stay involved. It didn’t seem right to leave.

  After we finished our drinks, we said our good-byes and Sigried told me a couple of places to try out tango. I walked back to my hotel, thinking about how she had just taken the leap and left her old life behind. I wondered if she would stay, or if, in time, she would feel the pull of her friends and family back home.

  * * *

  Juan and I arranged to meet in the lobby of my hotel. I hadn’t seen him since we had graduated from high school nearly fifteen years before, but despite his receding hairline and slightly hunched frame, I recognized him right away. He still had the same look of mischief in his blue eyes and the adorable smile, which spread across his face when I stood up to greet him. So much time had passed, and it wasn’t clear how to summarize all that had happened. We hugged and sat down in the lobby sitting area, talking about where all our mutual friends had ended up—who had three kids already, who lived where. At one point he leaned in and made direct eye contact with me. “So how are you?” I’d gotten used to this question by then, and the variety of ways I might answer it.

  “I’m still dealing with things,” I said, “but I’m doing okay.”

  “Come, then,” he said, “let me show you my city.” I had my own private tour guide in Juan. He shared all of his city’s history, took me to known tourist spots, like the Plaza de Mayo and Casa Rosada, and off the beaten path to a little café where his parents used to go before he was born. We spent the day seeing every corner of the city, and ended up at an outdoor café in Palermo Soho. I told him all about the Swedish tango dancer and how I was obsessed now with finding a place to take tango while I was there.

  “Ah, then we must go dance,” he said. “I will pick you up tomorrow night. There is a perfect local place you must see.”

  “Really?”

  “Hm,” he said. “You must see the real tango. Most tourists go to see a tango show, but the shows are all in the traditional style.”

  “What do you mean? It’s different now?”

  “Yes, very. It used to be a lower-class thing, done in a traditional way,” he said, adopting his tour guide voice, “but now it’s changed. Young people love it now, and have changed its reputation. They changed the dance a bit, too. You’ll see.”

  The nightlife in Argentina doesn’t begin until well after my usual bedtime, but I’d found myself enjoying the late nights there and not worrying about sleeping half the day away. Juan picked me up at my hotel around eleven-thirty the next night and we took a taxi to San Telmo. We stopped in front of a nondescript building and Juan paid the taxi driver as I wondered if this was the right address. I hadn’t been expecting a big glitzy club, necessarily, but this was just a small community center with lessons upstairs and tango dancing downstairs. As far as I could tell, I was the only tourist around.

  “Let’s watch a little first,” said Juan. We found seats at a small table not too far from the dance floor, and I was mesmerized. Men, women, and children of all ages crowded the floor, moving in unison through what looked like very elaborate routines. Some couples put their own spin on the dance and were quite theatrical, while others easily, casually moved around, enjoying the music and their partners. I was struck by the feeling of family and community in this room. We had nothing like it back home. It wasn’t a bar or a club with loud music and half-drunk teenagers, but a place for everyone in the community to come together and enjoy themselves. Babies sat perched on grandmothers’ knees while their parents twirled around next to teenage couples clearly on dates. After almost an hour of watching, Juan and I went upstairs to take a beginners’ class. He had done a little tango over the years and was a patient partner as I stumbled over myself. The moves were even harder than they’d looked when I’d been an observer downstairs. As a kid, I had taken years of dance lessons, and eventually it all came together and I started to feel less awkward. Regardless of how I looked, it was fun. I let myself enjoy the music and the time spent dancing with my old friend.

  And as I danced through the early morning hours, in a community center in the middle of Buenos Aires, I thought about how happy Pat would be if he could see me.

  Chapter Nine

  Thanksgiving fell right after the trip to Argentina, and I hoped the travel high would see me through what was always a difficult holiday. I went home to the Bay Area and spent my first night visiting with Christine and Alex. We sat around their living room after they put their boys to bed, drinking coffee and talking about the holiday and the weeks ahead. Alex had left his post as director of the Pat Tillman Foundation not long before, crossing back over to the for-profit sector. Though we’d hired a replacement, we were concerned that she wasn’t working out.

  “I think we need to start searching again,” Alex said, frowning. No doubt he was trying to figure where he’d find the time for interviews among the responsibilities of his new job and his young kids.

  “I’m not working right now,” I said, surprising myself. “I can do the job for a while.”

  Christine and Alex were quiet a minute, and so was I. Obviously, it made sense, and we all realized that. I had the time. And I’d been involved in the foundation from the beginning.

  But there was another side. I’d avoided being the public face of the foundation in the years since we’d started it for good reasons. Though I was always involved behind the scenes, feeling great responsibility to use the money we’d been given in an honorable and intelligent manner, mine was very much a hidden role. What public appearances I had done had left me feeling horrible. One of them was an event at the Pro Football Hall of Fame not long after Pat died. The organization was inducting several new members, and they wanted to make a special presentation for Pat. I’d let them use his Class A uniform and his Cardinals uniform, which they’d encased in a glass exhibit in a section of the museum that told a bit of his story. The Hall of Fame group flew Alex and me out and took very good care of us for the duration of our stay. They were sweet, and the honor would have meant a lot to Pat.

  On the day of the presentation, I waited backstage as the former players who were being inducted milled about. One came up to me and said, “Thank you so much for your sacrifice.” I know military families hear this all the time, and they do indeed sacrifice, but it seemed like an odd statement. I thanked him, but what I wanted to say was “I didn’t want this sacrifice. I didn’t make a choice to lose my husband this way, and if I could, I would take him back in a second, sacrifice be damned.” It was a two-second encounter, but it left me shaken. Only minutes later, I was called onto the stage to be presented with a commemorative plaque. I stepped out into the sunlight, and thousands of people in the crowd got on their feet. It was bizarre; I hadn’t done anything, and yet everyone was applauding, for minutes on end, while I stood there awkwardly, wanting badly just to run offstage.

  Pat used to talk all the time about the difference between being rewarded for something you worked hard for and being rewarded for something that came easily. One reason he always lived simply, even after he was making good money as an NFL player, was that it didn’t make sense to him that he was disproportionately compensated for something he loved to do. Yes, he worked hard, as most professional athletes do, but lots of people worked just as hard for far less. His uncle Mike had worked as a mechanic for an airline all his life, yet his compensation was nothing compared to Pat’s. It hadn’t seemed fair to Pat then, and this outpouring of recognition didn’t seem right to me now. I hated being in that spotlight for as long as it took people to take their seats so I could say a brief “On behalf of Pat’s family, thank you.”

  People had all these feelings about Pat that needed to go somewhere, and I was a living representation of him. But I wasn’t the one who had gone to Iraq, who had gone to Afghanistan. All I’d done was step out on a stage when someone told me it was time.

  From that event onward, I ducked the spotlight as much
as I could. I needed to move on with my life, and running a foundation with Pat’s name attached would be like inviting people to put whatever they felt about Pat onto me. And at the same time, the investigations were in full swing, and it would have been impossible to attend foundation functions and not get questions about how I felt about the fratricide, questions I didn’t care to answer.

  Alex knew all this and understood. Christine knew it, too. And yet, things had changed. Years had passed since that Hall of Fame presentation. The fratricide investigation was behind us. Now I was less raw. Now I just might be ready.

  “I think you’d do a great job,” Alex said, choosing his words carefully. “But only if you think it’s the right time for you to do it.”

  “I agree,” said Christine. “You should think about it a bit. Let’s keep talking about it. Take a few days and see how it sits.”

  “Right,” Alex agreed. “There’s no huge rush. We don’t need to figure this out tonight.”

  We finished our coffee, and I drove back to my parents’ house. I lay in bed awake for a long time, thinking about how quickly I’d suggested I take over, and how right it had felt once the words were out of my mouth. I didn’t need any more time to make this decision. I’d been in the process of making it for years.

 

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