My Foolish Heart

by Susan May Warren

  “Yes, actually, I did. Just like you told me to do, Miss Foolish Heart. I did something she liked. And we had dinner.”

  “That’s great, BoyNextDoor.” But even she heard the wavering in her voice. “Now, just keep it up.”

  He laughed again. “Miss Foolish Heart, how can I thank you?”

  “Live happily ever after.” She laughed too, and it sounded wretchedly fake. She prayed her listeners wouldn’t see—er, hear through it.

  “The fact is, I didn’t think she’d like a guy like me,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Baggage, I guess.” He drew in a breath. “She’s not the only one disabled. I lost part of my leg in Iraq.”

  Oh. Oh . . . “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m okay now, but I remember, after the attack, realizing that my leg had been blown off, I just wanted to die. I only saw myself for what I wasn’t. How I was less of a man. It took me about six months to realize that maybe I could be more of a man than I had been. My injury made me work harder and think about my life and how I wanted to live. It made me see that God had spared me. And it made me reach beyond myself. I did that today. Reached beyond myself and into her life. And I think . . . I think she likes me too.”

  She saw him then, a guy with a crew cut, maybe on some military base in Texas or Georgia, his leg propped up on a sofa, his upper body thick with muscle. Blue, solemn eyes, filled with determination.

  “I am sure she does, BoyNextDoor. Now don’t be afraid to give her your heart.”

  He took another breath. “Let’s not rush things.”

  She laughed, and across the line, he did too.

  “I’m not done with you yet, Miss Foolish Heart.”

  Something about the way he said it slicked the moisture from her throat. Oh, this was bad.

  “Call anytime, BoyNextDoor.” She disconnected and went immediately to commercial.

  His avatar appeared on the forum, requesting a chat.

  No, no, she had a show to run and . . . She hit Accept.

  MissFoolishHeart: I’m fine. Just thinking about your story. I’m so sorry about your leg.

  BoyNextDoor: Thanks. Although, if you knew me before the attack, you’d know that this probably saved my life.

  MissFoolishHeart: Oh?

  BoyNextDoor: I grew up in a small town, followed by a small college that seemed a bit too tame at the time. So I sort of decided to make my own rules. Then when I went full-time in the military, I ended up living a life I wasn’t real proud of. Really embarrassed myself and God, frankly. He got my attention in that ditch. Now I live each day grateful for grace.

  MissFoolishHeart: Still, it sounds terrifying. How did you live through it?

  BoyNextDoor: 2 Timothy 1:7. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” I kept repeating that until a medical unit found me. I determined that if I lived, I wouldn’t let fear take over my life but would instead let His power and self-discipline pour through me.

  MissFoolishHeart: And love?

  She gritted her teeth. Sometimes her fingers got away from her.

  BoyNextDoor: That too. In fact, God’s love is perfect, and He puts that into us, so we can love the way He loves. Most of all, because of His perfect love, I can trust Him, whatever happens.

  MissFoolishHeart: Trust. I don’t know. How do you trust a God who seems so unpredictable?

  BoyNextDoor: He’s only unpredictable to us. Even as night came and the pain invaded every cell in my body, I kept thinking, God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. Which meant that even in this dark place, He knew what He was doing, and no matter what happened, it was good.

  MissFoolishHeart: How can it be good for you to lose your leg?

  BoyNextDoor: I don’t think God is as interested in my leg as He is my heart. And I wasn’t exactly the man I could be at that time. He woke me up in that ditch, made me realize that He’d saved me from destruction so many other ways. Sure, it took everything inside me to learn to walk again, but I’m not the man I was before I lost my leg. And that’s a good thing.

  MissFoolishHeart: So you can walk?

  BoyNextDoor: Yes. And run. And even, when no one is looking, dance. But it’s not pretty.

  MissFoolishHeart: I’d like to see that.

  Shoot, she should delete that.

  But she waited, her cursor blinking.

  BoyNextDoor: I wish you could.

  The commercial ended, the intro to her show spooling back up.

  MissFoolishHeart: Don’t be a stranger.

  BoyNextDoor: Not to you.

  As she went off-line, Issy hated herself just a little for wishing he could truly be the boy next door.

  13

  “You put this all together? I’m impressed, Seb.” Bam paged through the business plan, enclosed in a file folder and printed out with Lucy’s ancient ink-jet printer last night. “But why didn’t Lucy bring this in herself?”

  “She’s up to her neck all day at the donut shop. She said she already met with you and I told her I’d run it by. She’ll make an appointment with you after you’ve reviewed it.”

  And he’d wanted to plead her case without her around. She had enough stress in her life already, not to mention fatigue. Seb had dropped her off from their date way past her bedtime at the late hour of 9 p.m. after they returned from dinner at the Trout House. His second first date with Lucy—the perfect way to spend a Sunday evening.

  At the restaurant, they’d watched an otter gambol around the dock as they sat outside on the deck, cordoned off with thick white ropes. He missed Lucy’s long hair, but the wind would have made a shambles of it, and the short hair only accentuated her face, made her eyes appear twice as beautifully large.

  They’d pulled him in all during dinner and he barely twined together reasonable conversation.

  He forced his focus back to Bam. “As you can see, World’s Best Donuts could easily turn a substantial profit with the addition of another window. It would double the foot traffic and pull customers off the street. And she can probably do it for less than five grand.”

  Bam set the folder on his desk. “The problem is, she’s three months behind in her loan payments, and she has a contract for deed on her place. I’m not sure the holder of the contract will go for more debt.”

  “If she can get the window in by Labor Day, she’ll make enough to cover her back payments and meet this new loan payment. You know, with the autumn colors up here, she can make enough to pay the entire thing off before November, when the tourist season ends.” Seb scooted forward in his leather chair, flipped the pages. “I made a payment schedule here. It’s nearly risk-free.”

  “Nothing is risk-free, Seb.” Bam sat back. “But you’re right. It’s a solid plan. I’ll take it to my board and see what they say.”

  “The sooner the better, Bam. She needs that window, and now. Gary Starr and his crew could get on it this weekend.”

  “Gary does good work.” Bam tossed the proposal onto his desk. “What’s the plan for practice tonight?”

  “I’m planning on drilling the team on the play we taught them at the last practice.” It had scored at least twenty-one points during his last season as quarterback, and he’d even felt the old magic as he and P-Train ran the play for the boys. “I think they’ll be ready for Friday.”

  “Listen, I didn’t want to say anything, but I’ve been working with these guys, and I’m worried they can’t make the tackles. They’re hitting with their weak side—if Knight’s team knows how to slough off the defenders, they’re going to walk all over us. We need more practice on fundamentals.”

  “Of course we do. But we’ll get it after Friday, after they name me coach. Right now, I just want to have fun and win.” Seb sounded confident, smiled broadly, but . . .

  He had noticed their sloppy tackling. Noticed the fumbles, the missed passes. And his team tired fast. He might have spent more time on conditioning—but he�
�d do that later too. After Friday’s scrimmage, they still had two weeks before the first conference game.

  Plenty of time to whip the boys into shape. And think of all the amazing plays they’d have in their playbook.

  “Your call, Coach. I can’t make it to practice today—school board meeting. But I’ll be there tomorrow. And of course, I expect the entire town will turn out for the game.” Bam raised a dark eyebrow, added a smirk. “By the way, I saw you at the Trout House last night. With Lucy.”

  “Yeah. We had a date.”

  A date that ended with him kissing her on her porch, Lucy wrapped in his arms.

  Bam shook his head. “Maybe it’s none of my business, but Lucy Maguire is not the girl you left behind. She’s not in your league, pal.”

  Seb blinked at him. “I’m trying hard not to hurt you right now.”

  “I’m just saying that Lucy hasn’t exactly done anything with her life since high school.”

  “Running her own business doesn’t count?”

  “You can do better. I don’t want to see you taken out at the knees again. Especially for a girl like Lucy.”

  Seb stared at him, a terrible roaring in his mind. “What do you mean, a girl like Lucy?”

  Bam gave a harsh laugh. “Do you seriously think you’re the only one who’s slept with Lucy Maguire?”

  Seb could barely form words. “Listen, Bam, we all did things years ago we want to hide.”

  “Lucy and I had a one-night stand a few summers ago.”

  The words punched Seb, then sank low, into his chest. He fought to find his voice. “You’ve been married to Joann for five years.”

  “We were separated at the time. I’m not proud of it.”

  Seb stared at him, a violent whooshing in his head. “I don’t believe you. You always had a thing for her—you never could believe that she chose me. What is this, some sort of payback? I thought you were on her side—”

  “She’s broken, Seb. You need to see that before you get hurt.”

  Through the window behind Bam, a thunderhead hovered over the lake, turning black. She’s broken. He met Bam’s eyes. “Has it ever occurred to you that I might be the reason for that?”

  His own words shook through him. Seb stood. “Just give her the loan, Bam.”

  He let the door bang as he walked out of the office.

  * * *

  Caleb was living a double life.

  Was it cheating on Issy to call My Foolish Heart? It sort of felt like it, although he wasn’t dating Miss Foolish Heart, just . . .

  Thinking about her. Thinking about her laughter through the phone line and her words of encouragement and the way she’d talked to him about his leg.

  Just telling someone had released the vise around his chest. His deception had begun to choke him. And he liked how she didn’t pander to him, didn’t act like he might be some tragedy.

  But then there was Issy. On Saturday night, she’d held on to his hand like it had the power to set her free.

  He couldn’t nudge that feeling out of his mind. Nor her smile, the way her eyes held him, untainted by pity or sorrow. At least for now.

  Yes, in a way his life tasted of cheating, although he wasn’t really dating Issy, and Miss Foolish Heart was only a voice on the radio.

  Still, he’d never been the kind of man to dish out his heart to multiple girls.

  One woman at a time, one for all time. Just like his father. And his brother Collin.

  The thought had nagged him all through the day on Sunday, as he’d attended church, as he’d parked himself at the Laundromat, then checked in with Collin.

  He might have also listened to the Sunday recap of My Foolish Heart as he did it. He heard his own voice, twice.

  Probably he liked Miss Foolish Heart too much. So maybe he’d just focus on Issy. And winning Friday night’s game.

  Which meant calling the boys in from practice before they got too winded. He needed them to feel strong this week. He’d deliberately moved their practices to the afternoon so they would get used to playing with the sun low and in their eyes. Now he blew his whistle to round them up from where they were running around the track. Ominous cumulus clouds hung over the field and a soggy wind lifted the collar of his Windbreaker. But the cool drizzle had always been Caleb’s favorite condition for practice.

  Dan huffed in, having taken a final lap with the boys.

  No wonder the team loved his assistant coach. He even got a couple back slaps as he gripped his knees. The man had lost a few pounds, it seemed, with all this practice.

  Caleb walked onto the field, his shoes squeaking on the clipped grass. “Bring it in, boys, and take a knee.”

  He would stand. He found his balance, leaning heavily on his good leg as the team pulled in.

  Ryan flopped down, lying flat on the field.

  “Ryan, either sit up or take a walk.”

  Ryan muttered something under his breath as he pushed to a sitting position, bracing one arm on his helmet.

  If he only had another quarterback. But the backup QB—Michaels—played for Seb’s team.

  “We have four days until the big game. Some of you are giving it your all—and like I said, this game is about heart. If you’ve shown up at practice every day and shown me all you got, you can expect to get some playing time on Friday. Frankly I’m not as much interested in winning as I am in seeing what you give me out there.”

  From the back, Ryan shook his head, pulling at the grass. “We’re not going to win.”

  Caleb glanced at Dan, who went and stood behind Ryan. Oh, to be able to haul this kid up, make him run until he showed some respect.

  Yes, if Caleb landed the job, Ryan might be sitting the bench his senior year. They didn’t have to win the first year. It took a while to build a football program from shambles.

  “Whether I end up as coach or not, I’m going to be assessing every single one of you for playing time in the fall—”

  “Teach us a play that we don’t know, Coach!”

  He hadn’t expected the words from Bryant, nor the look Bryant exchanged with Ryan, a sort of smirk.

  Perfect. Now Ryan had riled the team.

  “We can win with what we have. We just have to play solid ball.”

  Bryant shook his head, leaned back on his hands. “Nope, we’re not going to win.”

  Caleb tightened his jaw and drew in a breath. “Yep, you’re right. You’re not going to win.”

  A couple heads shot up.

  “In fact, Bryant, you might not even play.”

  “Coach—”

  “Because you’ve already lost. You believe it in your heart, then you believe it in your head. And that’s where you lose the game.”

  He debated a moment, then got down on one knee, on their level, facing them. Fire burned down his leg, but he wanted this moment to feed truth into them.

  For a second, he wished he could share his story. Tell them that when he woke up in Germany, he’d believed the voices that told him he would have to settle for less. That he couldn’t see his hopes and dreams happen. That it was okay to have an out.

  The words climbed up his throat, nearly made it to his lips. He could almost see their expressions, the shock and then the courage.

  Or . . . disgust. With Ryan leading the pack, they just might turn on him. A handicapped coach. Not the glory coach they wanted to follow.

  No, Caleb had to prove himself first. Had to show them that he could be their coach without their sympathy-induced loyalty. He had to win their hearts through pure coaching.

  “Guys, listen to me. No one wins by quitting. And if you play with all your heart, fight with everything inside, even if you lose—” he swallowed as he spoke out of the dark, pained places—“you can stand proud.”

  He had their attention. Even Ryan stopped fiddling with the grass.

  “I believe in you guys, and I believe you can win. If you give everything you have and leave it out there on the field, you’ll never lose.
I promise.”

  He couldn’t get up. Not without them seeing him fall, because with the soggy ground eating his good leg, his prosthesis dug into his stump and turned it to liquid fire. Instead, he motioned to the boys. “Bring it in.”

  The team rose and huddled in.

  And suddenly Caleb had the urge to pray. The words nearly came out on their own. “God, we ask for Your help to play our best. To give all our talents and our skills, our hearts, to playing this game. It’s not about the game, but life. And how we live it. But it starts on the field, so . . . protect us, and bless our efforts.”

  “And help us win.”

  He wasn’t sure who said it, but a murmur went through the huddle.

  He wouldn’t mind winning either. “And . . . help us win. Amen.”

  The team looked up, and something seemed to have changed because a few of them smiled at him. Genuine smiles that said perhaps, for the first time, they might have the makings of a team.

  “Thursday night, we’re having a barbecue at my neighbor’s house. After practice. I hope to see you all there.”

  They ran for the locker room as rain began to spit on the field.

  Caleb still had to figure out how to get off the turf. Or maybe he wouldn’t. He leaned back, caught himself on his hands, and straightened his legs. Oh yes. He breathed out fully for the first time in ten minutes.

  Dan started picking up footballs, dropping them into a mesh bag. He shot a glance at Caleb. “Great speech. And it was good to pray for the team.”

  “But?”

  Dan tightened the bag, then picked up the various water bottles littering the bench. “You might want to consider just one trick play. These guys have earned it. I was here for the run of the championship team. Coach Presley had some great plays. We could ask—”

  “I’m not using Coach Presley’s plays.” Caleb lifted his face to the rain. Cool, soothing. “This is a new era, a new team, and we’re going to have new plays.”

  “I don’t think Coach would care. He might be honored.”

  “I care. I need to prove to the school board that I can do this job. That I don’t need any crutches—like the legacy of Coach Presley helping me along. I can come up with my own plays.”