She turned off her phone and lay back on the couch, curling up on her side, hands folded together under a throw pillow. She had made a mess of things with Clare. The least she could do would be to get through the next few weeks without doing anything else to disappoint her. Emma may have been her first love, but Clare had been the first woman she’d lived with, the first person she’d considered having kids with. The first person she’d imagined herself proposing to.
She didn’t want their break-up to be in vain. If she was going to sacrifice their relationship at the altar of professional soccer, she had damned well better make sure she made the national team, which meant no distractions of any kind. As Clare had said, football dictated her life right now. At least for a little while longer, she owed it to herself to let it.
Chapter Seven
If LA felt like a foreign country compared to Seattle, then Minneapolis felt like a different world. It wasn’t the multitudes of tall blondes that always threw Emma. Seattle had plenty of those, especially in the Ballard neighborhood, which locals still sometimes referred to as “Little Scandinavia.” No, it was the higher rate of obesity in the Midwest that she noticed every time she traveled to her mother’s homeland. Seattle’s culture revolved around REI and coffee. The point was to look like you had just finished climbing a mountain as you sipped your coffee, even if you hadn’t set foot outside the city in weeks.
Since her mom had returned to the land of her youth, Emma had noticed she’d become increasingly sedentary. Now every time she came to visit she made it her personal mission to get her mother exercising. This Christmas was no different. The afternoon Emma arrived, she pestered her mom until she agreed to go for a walk around Lake Harriet, conveniently located across the street. Emma and her brother still called their mom’s lake view property the “new house” even though she’d lived there for two years. It was hard to picture her there on her own, but her schedule at the University of Minnesota children’s hospital meant she rarely had time to be alone. Besides, one of her sisters and a handful of college friends still lived in the Cities, while June, her other sister, was only an hour away in Rochester.
Apparently being on her own was even less of an issue now that Roger, her recently divorced “friend” from college, had started hanging around. It had only been a few months, but already he was on his way to being upgraded to “partner” status, she confided shortly after Emma arrived.
“You can’t call him that,” Emma told her mom as they bundled up in down coats, balaclavas, fleece-lined mittens, and other assorted winter gear.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re misappropriating the only term people in same-sex relationships can call each other in what, like thirty-seven states still?”
“You know same-sex marriage is legal here, don’t you?”
“It is in Seattle too, Mom. Washington was one of the first states to approve gay marriage by popular vote.”
“And Minnesota was one of the first to vote down a ban.”
Emma stuck her tongue out as she picked out a second scarf. “You’re never going to convince me that Minnesota is better than Washington, so you might as well give it up.”
“I know, you’re nothing if not loyal to your home state. But I have hopes you and your brother will come around,” she said in the flat, nasal accent that had reemerged in full since she’d moved back to her home state.
“You’re the one who complains about the weather here.”
Her mom pulled on a hat with ear flaps and buckled them together under her chin. “I’d forgotten how hard it is to get out when the temperature is thirty below. I’m nowhere near old enough to do circuits of the Mall of America.”
“Dress warmly and keep moving,” Emma told her. “How bad can it be?”
Ten minutes later as they walked the trail around Lake Harriet, Emma realized that her mother, a native Minnesotan, may have been right.
“What did you say the temperature is?” she asked, teeth chattering despite the multitude of layers adorning her wildly shivering body.
She thought her mother said, “Fifteen below, not counting the wind chill.” But the ear muffs on top of the scarf on top of the wool beanie made it difficult to be certain. At least her ears were warm. Ish.
Whatever the temperature, it was cold enough that Emma suggested they turn back on the spot. Even then she worried that they might die before they could reach the house. The air was so cold it hurt to breathe, which she had experienced before when running in Boston. But they weren’t running. They had too many layers on to effect more than a medium-paced walk.
“Okay, you were right,” she admitted a little while later as they disrobed in the mud room between the house and garage. “It is too cold to go for a walk.”
Instead of saying I told you so, her mother only hugged her and suggested warming up in the kitchen with hot chocolate.
“How was residency camp?” she asked a few minutes later as she putzed around the kitchen. “Was it good to see your friends?”
Emma sat at the breakfast bar, elbows on the countertop. “It was a little long, to be honest, especially considering we didn’t play a match. I can’t remember the last time we went this long without a friendly.”
“How’s the new coach?”
“He’s, um, good. I think.” Unlike some of her teammates, Emma was reserving judgment for now. She didn’t feel like she’d seen Craig in action enough to form an opinion—which Phoebe and Steph claimed was the problem to begin with.
“You can tell me how you really feel, honey. I promise not to leak it to the press.”
Emma shook her head, smiling at her mother. “Honestly, I don’t know yet. He’s different from Marty, that’s for sure. I think we all felt that the month-long residency camp before the World Cup was overkill, especially when we were trying to play our pro seasons too. But Craig’s approach is the exact opposite so it’s been difficult to get a rhythm going. It takes a ton of training time—and match time—to develop the kind of chemistry we’re going to need going into the World Cup.”
Her mother placed a steaming mug of hot cocoa in front of her. “Did I hear there was a new player at camp? Perhaps a certain midfielder from Northern California?”
Emma shot her mother a look. “You know you did.”
“And how was that? It was your first residency camp together, wasn’t it?”
She had never been able to hide much from her mother. Not that she wanted to. Even before her father’s death, they’d always seemed closer than her other friends were with their mothers. Her mom claimed that dealing with sick and dying children at work every day gave her a perspective most parents didn’t have, but all bias aside, Emma thought she was simply a better mother than most.
“It was hard in some ways,” she admitted, “but good in others.”
“Difficult how?”
“Well, you know, she doesn’t seem like she’s changed all that much.”
“And that’s a problem because…?”
Emma sighed and muttered, “Because she has a girlfriend.”
“Ah.” Her mother sipped her hot chocolate. “Sounds like little has changed in the Emma-Jamie saga.”
“It’s been ten years, though. Shouldn’t something have changed by now?” Emma lamented. “Oh, before I forget, she said to tell you hello.”
“That’s sweet. Tell her hello back.”
Not for the first time since the day #Blakewell blew up, Emma considered sending a quick text to Jamie. But Jamie’s reply had seemed fairly clear. See you at camp, she’d written. Not, Talk to you soon or any other open-ended statement. Apparently once the champagne wore off, she’d regretted the impulse to trade numbers. Emma shouldn’t have been surprised by the hundred and eighty degree turn. That was what happened when you flirted with someone already in a relationship.
“Anyway,” she said, leaving her phone in her hoodie pocket where it belonged, “even if she didn’t have a girlfriend, it’s not like anything co
uld happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because we might end up being teammates. Remember the Tori fiasco?”
“I do, but you and Jamie are adults, not teenagers. Besides, you’re both professionals. You wouldn’t allow your personal life to affect the team.”
“It doesn’t matter how mature or professional we are. An inter-squad relationship can be really distracting, which is why the federation frowns on them. At our level team dynamics have to come first.”
“Oh, honey.” Her mom shook her head. “You create more obstacles for love than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“This is not an obstacle I’m ‘creating,’” Emma said, frowning. “Do you know how long it’s been since the ’99ers won the World Cup? Fourteen and a half years, Mom. Rarely does a day go by that I don’t think about what happened in Germany. When we walked off that field in second place, I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest and trampled by a thousand pairs of cleats. Canada might be my last chance at a World Cup title. There’s no way I would do anything to jeopardize our chances.”
“Honey, you have two gold medals, a national championship, and countless other titles to your name. Are you telling me that you won’t feel like your soccer career is complete if you don’t win a World Cup?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. We’re the United States. We’re supposed to be the best in the world, and yet someone else has won the last three World Cups.” As her mother stared at her, Emma shook her head. “You don’t understand. I don’t think you can.”
“I do understand. You’re your father’s daughter, Emma, which means nothing you do will ever be good enough in your own eyes. Be careful not to apply those expectations to anyone else. That’s the quickest way to push away the people you love.”
“I don’t expect other people to be perfect,” she said, tapping her foot against the stool she perched on.
“Really? When’s the last time you had a partner anywhere in the picture?”
“That’s more about timing than anything. With my travel schedule, all I want to do when I’m home is curl up and watch TV.” As Dani liked to say, to her Netflix and chill meant just that, literally.
“Other women on your team don’t seem to have that problem,” her mom pointed out.
“That’s because most of them are in relationships with people they met in college. Starting something new is almost impossible when you’re on the road as much as we are. But speaking of partners,” she added, hoping to guide the conversation away from her profound lack of work/life balance, “does Roger know you’ve vowed never to remarry?”
“No,” her mom admitted, ducking her head in a way Emma was pretty sure she’d never seen.
“Does that mean you might change your mind?”
“I think it’s fair to say I’m no longer quite as wedded to the idea of permanent widowhood, yes.”
Emma smiled at the pun before reaching over to touch her mother’s hand. “Good. Dad wouldn’t have wanted you to be alone for the rest of your life. He would have wanted you to be happy.”
“You think so?”
Emma nodded. “I do.”
“He wouldn’t want you to be alone either, you know.”
She pulled her hand back. “Mom, I’m twenty-seven. I have plenty of time to find someone and kick out a house full of babies.”
“A house full, huh? That’s what I like to hear. But don’t wait too long. I want to be able to get down on the floor and play with my grandbabies.”
Emma sipped her hot cocoa. “You should have thought of that before you moved to the land of cheese curds and cold-ass winters. As if I’m ever bringing my babies here.”
“Young lady,” her mother said, laughing. “As long as you’re under my roof you will show Minnesota a little respect.”
“I’m kidding. I can tell you’re happy here.”
“I am happy here, hypothermia-inducing temperatures aside.” Her mom squeezed her hand, and they sat in the warm kitchen, sunshine filtering in through the snow-covered branches outside.
Emma understood why her mother had returned to Minnesota. Her parents had never lived there together, which meant this place held memories for her mom of a time before her dad. Emma was a little envious of her mother in that respect. Being back in Seattle was sometimes difficult precisely because it was the city she’d grown up in. Golden Gardens had been the site of sunny beach afternoons and cool evenings around a bonfire, of swimming and sailing in the cold waters of Puget Sound. Seattle Center, on the other hand, was problematic. Whenever she went to a WNBA game at Key Arena, she entered and exited on First Avenue so that she wouldn’t have to walk past Fisher Pavilion where hundreds of mourners had gathered to celebrate her father’s life and legacy shortly after he died.
Here, though, there were no memories of her father to contend with, positive or negative. They had visited Minnesota when she was growing up but only in the summer and never this particular corner of the Twin Cities. The holidays, often difficult for families who had lost someone, were a little bit easier here in this new house and a neighborhood where, as far as Emma knew, her father had never set foot. He still featured prominently in their holiday reminiscences, of course, and her mother always offered up a prayer for him at Christmas Dinner, but his ghost didn’t lurk in the shadows of every room. They missed him, but not like in the beginning.
The first Christmas after he died had been, predictably, the hardest. Emma had been in Thailand at Thanksgiving for the U-19 World Cup, so Christmas 2004 was her first major holiday at home without him. Christmas Day was hard enough, but then she awoke the following morning to the news of the tsunami in Asia and the holiday took an even darker turn. She spent hours watching online footage of the destruction of Phuket, Thailand, where the US side had played all of its group matches only a month before, and somehow it seemed unsurprising that the earth had shifted and the ocean had risen up to obliterate the incredibly beautiful, vibrant beach community she had fallen in love with.
And yes, maybe she had been a tad angsty, but she was back in Seattle for the first time since August and she missed her dad—and Jamie—like crazy. School and soccer and the national team had kept her too busy to think about who might be missing, but that week she’d had nothing but time on her hands—a situation she’d vowed to avoid if possible in the future.
A few years later when the earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered its own deadly tsunami, she’d found herself reliving those first dazed days after the 2004 tsunami that was somehow indelibly connected in her mind to losing her father and, to some extent, Jamie too. Similarly, the 2011 tsunami would forever be linked to the national team’s loss to Japan in the World Cup finals. That one had been easier to take in theory because at the end of the day, soccer really was only a game, and how could the US players begrudge the Japanese women the most joyful moment of their lives so soon after some had lost homes and loved ones in the tsunami? How could they be sorry that a grieving nation finally had some good news to latch onto, an inspiring story of overcoming the odds to help them rise from literal ashes?
Except that she was sorry. Placing second to Japan was far worse than watching from the stands as the US lost to Germany in the 2003 World Cup semi-finals; worse even than being on the bench when they were blown out by Brazil in the 2007 World Cup semi-finals, her first major tournament. She would forever regret Japan’s victory in Germany because, as she’d told her mother, it meant that she might not ever know how it felt to be a World Cup champion. Was that selfish? Perhaps. But as the national team psychologist had said more than once, they had a right to their feelings about any loss, win, or tie, even if it wasn’t how they thought they should feel.
In a year and a half, barring injury and natural disaster, she would have another shot at the title. And while her father’s absence from her life was permanent, apparently Jamie’s didn’t have to be. January camp was only a couple of weeks away. Maybe they would find a way to salvage s
omething from the ashes of their former friendship, too.
Assuming Jamie wanted to. Blowing her off via text at the holidays was hardly an encouraging sign.
“More hot chocolate, honey?” her mom asked.
“Sure. Thanks, Mom.”
“You’re welcome. It’s good to have you home.”
It was good to be there, too, though it didn’t feel entirely like home. One good thing about Minnesota was all the sunshine. The scenery wasn’t bad either, even if it was too cold to enjoy in the winter except through a double-paned window.
Emma’s brother Tyler and his fiancée, Bridget, flew in from DC on Christmas Eve. Emma and her mom met them at the airport and then whisked them off to Rochester where Aunt June was hosting a large family get-together. There were cousins Emma hadn’t seen in years except on Facebook, along with older relatives who stared and whispered about her as if she couldn’t hear them. She was used to having people watch her in public and at assorted events. But in her mother’s sister’s home on Christmas Eve? Not her favorite, frankly.
When her mom suggested they leave before the evening church service, Emma and Ty (self-avowed “heathens” that they were) agreed readily. They drove back to the Cities along the dark highway, the flat, snow-covered earth awash in starlight as they sang Christmas carols at the top of their lungs and laughed about the odder of their Minnesota relatives. Ty had grown into a lean-faced man with a gorgeous head of hair, just like their dad, and a similar drive to change the world. A political analyst, he had met his fiancée a year and a half earlier at the DC-based think tank where they both landed after graduating from separate East Coast institutions. Bridget wasn’t like the cheerleader and sorority types Ty had dated all through high school and college. She was pretty enough, but she cared more about the outcome of the civil unrest in Sudan than about her hair or make-up. She was a keeper, which was why Emma and her mom had both been thrilled when Ty called to tell them at Thanksgiving that he was going to ask her to marry him. This was their first time doing the holidays together. After Christmas in Minnesota, they were planning to head back to the Boston suburbs to ring in 2014 with Bridget’s family.
Game Time Page 15
