My Foolish Heart

by Susan May Warren

  If the pom-pom girls had shown up, they would be rousing the crowd with a few rallies, warming up for the game with some antics on the field.

  And the players—they’d be in the locker room, listening to her father—no, listening to Caleb.

  She closed her eyes, imagining them as they ran onto the field, even as Ernie announced the starting lineup, then asked everyone to stand for the national anthem.

  Issy rose, put her hand on her heart. Sang along.

  Kickoff, with the Brewsters receiving. They fielded the ball, brought it back twenty yards, and as the crowd cheered, a swipe of pain went through her.

  She should be with her father. Listening to the game with him. Wouldn’t that be a triumph?

  But the thought still took her breath, still clamped a fist over her throat, her chest.

  I’m sorry, Daddy. I’ll visit. Soon. Tomorrow, perhaps.

  The Brewsters inched the ball forward with a couple running plays, then fumbled on a handoff, and Knight’s nose guard jumped on the ball.

  “C’mon, Knights!”

  They executed a sweep, moved the ball a few yards.

  Next time at the line, Ryan kept the ball, moved it forward again. If they could keep this up, they would inch it all the way to the goal line.

  A screen pass out, and Bryant dropped it. She could almost see the kid, hard on himself as he lined up on defense after the punt.

  The Brewsters gained a few yards up the middle on a quarterback keeper but nearly fumbled on an option play. On the next play, the defense caught the quarterback in the backfield and the Brewsters had to punt.

  Back and forth, the Knights would inch the ball forward on solid but predictable running plays, then try a pass without reception. The Brewsters would gain a yard on something basic but lose it on a play straight from the Presley playbook.

  The first quarter ended scoreless, the crowd restless.

  Issy dialed the care center. “Hey, Jacqueline. Can I talk to my dad?”

  “Hi, Issy. Sure. He’s listening to the game right now.”

  “Me too.” Her attention caught as Caleb’s team pushed the ball to a first down.

  “Hello.” His voice came across the line wheezy and soft. She turned down the volume.

  “Hey, Daddy. What do you think of the game?”

  “He needs to change it up.”

  “You’re talking about Caleb?” He had to be, because Seb had been running flashy but limp plays all night.

  She waited for his words.

  “Quarterback Chaos.”

  “The trick play from the state championship? But I can’t tell him how to call his game.”

  “It’ll work.”

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  “Quarterback Chaos.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell him. I miss you, Daddy.”

  She hung up, picked up her cell. The Quarterback Chaos. Caleb had his own plays, of course, but he might take this one, a sort of gift from her father. And she remembered it well enough to pass it along.

  Her phone call flipped to voice mail. “Caleb—call me. My dad had an idea.”

  At eight minutes left in the half, she left another message.

  When the Brewsters fumbled and the Knights picked up the ball, ran it back to the forty, only to miss the field goal, she called again.

  She listened with the phone in hand as the Knights drove it all the way to the red zone only to be held at the five-yard line. She dialed again when the kicker for the Knights set up for his field goal. The ball squirreled through the slippery grasp of the holder, and a Brewster picked it up and ran down the field untouched for a six-point lead.

  Issy pounced to her feet, yelling at the phone. “Pick up!”

  But he probably hadn’t even brought his phone to the field.

  The rain teared down the window, the sky pellet gray. She stared outside, her hand on Duncan’s head, rubbing.

  If she wanted Caleb to win, she’d have to go to the school.

  * * *

  The basics. Just teach them the basics. Caleb heard his own strategy echoing back to him and wanted to put his fist into the wall. With the basics, they’d moved the ball forward every time.

  But not enough for first down yardage. Not enough to score.

  And now the Brewsters, despite their sloppy ball handling, had points on the board.

  Dan had followed him into the gym, where they’d been relegated for their halftime pep talk and now stood against the door, arms folded, the rain shiny on his blue slicker.

  Caleb’s gaze slid off Dan, onto his team, their stained jerseys, their soaked breeches, the way they didn’t meet his eyes, and he realized . . .

  They’d already quit.

  Bryant straddled a bleacher, his head down, probably reliving all those dropped passes, feeling them slip through his hands. And McCormick, sitting on the floor, his hands over his updrawn grass-stained knees, grimy and sodden, wore a snarl on his face.

  But Ryan. Ryan stood with his back to the team, his hands braced against the wall as if pushing back frustration or perhaps anger.

  They needed a game changer. Something . . .

  “They’re killing us out there. Just like I said they would.” Ryan turned, his voice low, but it bore a ragged edge of fury. “We look like fools.”

  “We don’t look like fools. We’ve got good ballhandling. You haven’t fumbled once—”

  “Bryant can’t catch anything I throw at him.” He spun to face his teammate. “What, you got bricks for hands? Grab the ball!”

  Bryant raised his head, something sick in his eyes.

  Caleb kept his voice tight, schooled. “Ryan, the ball’s slick. And it’s our first game out. Ideally, we’d have another week, even two, before we’d have a game.”

  “It wouldn’t matter. We’re running the same five plays and guess what—they know them all. We’re a bunch of—”

  “That’s enough.” Caleb watched the shift of energy in the team, the way Ryan’s words stirred them.

  An angry, united team could put points on the board. But an angry, divided team would end up in a locker room rumble.

  They needed inspiration.

  “You’re beating yourselves out there, guys. You can win this. We’ll change up the game, run it more—”

  “It won’t matter! They know our plays, and we don’t know any of theirs.”

  “Which they can’t complete,” McCormick said, glancing at Caleb.

  “That’s right. They’ve lost every drive on a turnover. Good, solid playing will—”

  “No. I quit.” Ryan gripped his helmet in his hand. “I’m joining Brewster’s team.”

  “If you leave, you’ll never play for me again.” Caleb kept his voice calm. “And you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

  “You’re not going to be my coach.”

  “Are you willing to stake your future on that?”

  Ryan stopped. Drew in a breath. Stared at him.

  Caleb looked at his team, needing their coach to win this round. “Ryan, I can’t figure it out. I’ve taught you good football, given you a thousand second chances. We’re not beaten out there. Six points is nothing. Yet you want to throw it in. Why? What did I ever do to you?”

  Ryan glanced at the ground. “You’re weak.”

  Caleb frowned.

  “Or maybe you’re just afraid, but you never get onto the field with us. You make Coach Dan show us all the plays, how to hit, how to handle the ball. You’re a clipboard coach, not a real coach. I’ve seen Brewster out there. He’s running with them; he’s playing with them. He’s one of them—he plays football. You . . . you talk about football, but I’ve never seen you play it. Maybe you don’t even know anything beyond these five plays. And most of all, you don’t know what it’s like to get kicked around there on the field.”

  Dan had shifted on the other side of the room and now lifted his eyes to Caleb’s. He saw their conversation in the pastor’s gaze. We have to be willing to acc
ept His love and grace. And only then are we able to turn around and do it for others. Daily grace, for you, for them.

  Daily grace. The courage to get back up. The courage to stay in the fight.

  Maybe it was time to reach out, knowing who he was and what he’d come to do, and wash his team’s feet. “Actually, Ryan, I do know.”

  He drew in a breath, then sat on the bench and raised his pant leg.

  “It’s a transtibial prosthesis with a flexible keel foot. Just above my ‘ankle’ it narrows into a solid piece of stainless steel. A sock covers the suction cup that covers the end of my limb.” He rolled the sock down for his players to take a look.

  Then he sat back and met their eyes. A few blinked, looked away. A few more stared at it as if they were the spectators of a train wreck. McCormick looked like he might burst into tears.

  Ryan wore a stoic expression as if he’d been socked in the solar plexus and, instead of crying out, held his breath.

  “I lost it in Iraq. I was transporting injured soldiers to a field hospital when a bomb hit our vehicle. We lost the soldiers inside the medevac unit and the driver. I alone lived. I spent the night in a ditch, in the cold. I had to tourniquet my own leg, and I passed out long before help came. I woke up in the base hospital where they were transporting me to Germany. It wasn’t until I was there that I found out I’d lost my leg, although I’d suspected it as the hours drew out.”

  He rolled his pant leg down again. “I was an all-state running back in high school and helped my team win a state championship. But I never knew what it really meant to pick myself up off the turf until I had to get out of that bed on one leg and learn to walk again.” He got up. Picked up his clipboard. “So yeah, I know a little about being kicked around on the field . . . and off.”

  Ryan looked away, but his jaw trembled.

  “I didn’t show you that because I want your pity. Actually, I kept it from you because I was afraid of being weak. But . . . I was wrong. Ryan, I was wrong. I should have shown you. No one is rooting for you more than I am. No one believes in you more than I do. And no one knows what it’ll take to win more than I do.”

  Ryan met his eyes.

  “But maybe it is time for a little trick of our own. A play they’ve never seen before. A pass to the quarterback. Ryan . . .”

  “Yes, Coach?”

  “Can you catch the ball?”

  * * *

  Seb stood in the dank locker room and hated the way he saw himself—the old self, the Sebanator—in his players. The cocky way they marched into the school, banging their fists on the lockers, followed by an equally arrogant Bam, who glared at Seb as he and DJ passed by. Even the fact that the school board had granted Brewster’s team the use of the locker room instead of the gym for halftime seemed arrogant.

  Seb stood in the center of the room, thick with the hot breath of his players, sweat stenching the air while his boys high-fived each other, and searched for words. He wanted something solid to bequeath them. A legacy of truth. The kind of legacy Coach Presley left him. So he folded his arms and spoke in a voice he’d heard Coach Presley use. “Calm down, everyone. Six points on the board doesn’t clinch this ball game. If you get cocky, we’re going to lose.”

  “We can beat them, Coach!” Michaels said.

  “Maybe we can; maybe we can’t. But we can be proud of what we do if we leave everything we have out there on the field.”

  DJ nodded. Bam’s lips tightened in a knot of disapproval.

  But the truth welled up inside him, and Seb added emotion to it. “You can’t be proud of what I saw out there—a fumble, a touchdown that you got lucky on? They practically put it in the end zone for you. All you had to do was fall on it. That was a freebie. You didn’t earn it. Get out there, remember your basics, and play good ball. Be the players that make the Huskies proud.”

  Bam then stepped up with a note to the defense before the team broke and headed out to the field.

  Seb watched as each player slapped the giant H by the door on the way out. Bam smacked the letter, then DJ, who looked back at Seb.

  DJ’s glance stirred the past, revived the echo of the crowd, the earthy smell of the turf, the clip-clop of cleats on the cement hallway. The Huskies, charging onto the field to clean up the other team.

  Seb reached up to the H, pressed his hand on it. Good-bye, number 10; good-bye, cheers and days of triumph.

  Good-bye, Sebanator.

  He’d decided during the first quarter that he wouldn’t fight to be the Huskies’ coach. Regardless of the win. Something about the entire competition, the way he—and the board—had handled it, didn’t seem right.

  “Coach?” The school board president propped the door open with a foot, coffee in one hand, a donut clasped in wax paper in the other.

  “Hey, Mitch.”

  Mitch glanced out into the hall and drew a breath. “I gotta talk to you.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Did you know that Caleb Knight has an artificial leg?”

  Seb nodded. “I’ve known for a couple days. Why?”

  Mitch stared into his coffee. “I saw him show his team his bum leg. Just sat down, right there in the gym and pulled up his pants leg. I nearly had a heart attack.”

  The donut in his grip might have had more to do with that. Seb’s gaze fell on the green coupon clasped between his fingers. Buy one, get one half off at World’s Best Donuts. Way to go, Lucy. You’re still in this game.

  “Thing is, it puts the board in a bad position,” Mitch was saying. “Knight’s kept it to himself—didn’t tell the board. We had a right to know.”

  Seb had feared that. But given the same position, the same choice, he might have done the same thing.

  Nothing like being judged for your weaknesses.

  “I’ve seen him out there with his boys, Mitch. He can’t exactly get into a three-point stance, but he can show them the plays, and he certainly knows what he’s doing.”

  “I don’t know. His team’s not exactly moving the ball.”

  Seb had no words for that. Sure, his team could read the five basic plays the Knights ran, but if Caleb decided to pull a trick play out of his game book, they’d run Seb’s team into a snarl.

  “So I need you to do me a favor out there, Seb.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Win your game. If you win, it’ll seal the coaching job.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want it.” Seb looked at the H and tapped it one more time, pressing his hand into the smooth, cold paint.

  He took a breath, then moved toward the door. “I will always love Husky football. But I’m not a coach, Mitch. I don’t love the job. I love the game, sure, but I don’t have the patience to work with these kids.”

  “Please don’t tell me any more. We need a coach, Seb, and you have a history here. The boys worship you—”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t know what I’m doing, really. I know Presley’s plays, but there is a theory to coaching, and it’s not enough to run plays. The truth is, I came back here wanting to stir up the old glory.” Something about just saying it out loud freed the knot in his chest. “I am not the coach for the Deep Haven Huskies.”

  They walked outside. The fading sun had parted the clouds, turned the wet field to fire under the twilight.

  Mitch stopped him. “What a shame, because I’m not sure we have enough in the budget to pay a coach and a math aide.”

  Seb stared at him, deciphering his words. “So you’re saying that if I don’t win this game, I’m out of a job?”

  Mitch lifted a shoulder.

  “Nice, Mitch. The fact is, you can take your job—” He bit off the rest of his words. “Did you know I don’t even have my teaching certificate? So technically, I’m a bigger liar than Knight.”

  “Hey—”

  “No, you hey. Knight is a good coach. And he can heal this team. I know it.”

  “You just g
oing to leave? Quit?” Mitch shook his head.

  Seb’s gaze tracked to Lucy at the concession stand. She wore a blue Huskies cap on her head, smiling over the counter, handing out green coupons to the scraggly line at the window. “No, actually. I think I’ll get into the donut business.”

  Then he marched to the concession stand. “Hey, donut girl.” He smiled at her, and she looked up, her eyes bright. Yes, perhaps he didn’t need football at all to feel like a hero. He scooped up the majority of the coupons.

  “What are you—?”

  “Just keep selling donuts!”

  He trotted out to his team, now watching as Caleb’s team huddled on the sideline.

  “Bring it in, guys.” He handed the coupons to DJ. “New halftime warm-up. I want you to split up, run the bleachers, and make sure every person here has one of these coupons. Don’t come back until you’ve given your coupons away.” He nodded at DJ, who handed them out by the fistful to the team. “And make sure you run to the opposite bench!”

  “Is this another trick play, Coach? Are we trying to intimidate them?” Michaels grabbed his handful.

  “Yep,” Seb said, pounding him on his pads. “This is one game I intend to win.”

  * * *

  Issy sat in her two-year-old Chevy Aveo hatchback, running her hand over the blue polyester seat, smelling the new-car fragrance.

  She’d vowed to never drive this car.

  She closed her eyes, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. “I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.”

  Issy had managed as far as opening the garage door, sliding into the car with the keys. They dangled in the ignition.

  Turn on the car. Turn it on.

  She could do this. Sure, her chest tightened; her breaths fell, one over another. But she could do this, right? She just had to reach out, turn the key.

  Back out of the driveway.

  Go one mile down the hill, to the game.

  Park.

  And from there . . .

  What if . . . what if she had a panic attack, right there in front of the entire crowd? What if she fell apart on the sideline, crying, curling into the fetal position?