by Lilly Wilde
I don’t ask why. I figure he doesn’t want me to know. Though I’m curious, I won’t push. I’m still not sure why he sought me out. But I don’t say that, either. Instead, I listen and chime in when there is a lull in the conversation. When it appears he’s run out of random topics, I decide on a safe one—or at least one I hope doesn’t dredge up any sadness.
“What would you be doing if you weren’t a football player? Or have you ever thought along those lines?”
“I haven’t. Not once. I love the game. I don’t know who I am without it.”
“You’re pretty amazing. I could literally watch you play all day.”
Branch arches a brow and chuckles. “You could, huh?”
“Did I say something funny?”
He passes a bottle of beer to me. “Thought you didn’t like football?”
I nudge his leg with mine, pursing my lips to hide my smile. “Okay, so I lied. I would have said anything to be in opposition of you.”
A smile slants the corner of his mouth. He knows as well as I do that he was a freaking jerk. He downs the last of his beer and looks out across the yard.
Well, since he’s here and in obvious need of a diversion, I figure I can ask something I’ve often wondered. “The way you play. It seems as natural as breathing for you. Is it?”
He twists the cap off a fresh beer, taps the neck of it against mine and takes a long pull. “Everyone seems to thinks so.”
“But that’s not true?”
He chews the inside of his cheek for a moment, as if he’s considering how to best explain to me. “Most times it feels that way…like it’s an extension of me. I know that sounds crazy, but when I step onto the field, everything just clicks. It’s like the world makes sense and the sole purpose for my existence is to play. I mean, I actually feel it the second it happens—it’s as if something that was lying dormant wakes up and takes over. I can read the players, predict their moves. Like someone is on my shoulder whispering it all to me.”
I stare at him, easily recalling the plays where he effortlessly threw a pass, the ball soaring through the air as if it had taken flight. Or when he ran down the field himself, maneuvering through defensive lines without so much as a single touch by the opposing team, even when they were directly in his path. The only explanation is that it’s a gift. An innate talent.
“Wow.”
“Some people have to work at something for years that comes so easy for me. When I first realized I was pretty good, it was all I could think about. I couldn’t get enough of it. Being good at something makes it easy to love, I guess.”
“And that’s how it’s always been, something that makes a part of you come alive?”
A grimace mars his expression. “Not exactly. There was a time when football became less of a love affair and more of an escape. Back then it was from the fights at home, and some years later from the guilt of leaving Mama and Jace in Blue Ridge.”
Branch sets the empty bottle on the step in the space between us. I watch the emotions he doesn’t want to show play out on his face. I don’t say anything because I sense this is a difficult topic for him and he’ll say more when he’s ready.
“It fucks with my head a lot. Leaving them behind.” He looks down, and reaches for the bill of his hat, pulling it lower over his face. “I guess it wouldn’t have if Mama had somehow moved on with her life. But she never really did, she swayed back and forth for years. And it was all centered around my dad.” A cynical laugh escapes his lips. “And I resent the fuck out of that guy…probably more than I should,” he adds. “He could have made it easier for us back then.”
“But you two seemed fine when we had dinner at Jim—” The plan was to distract him but here I am bringing it up again.
“Yep, we’d just reconnected actually. Before then, it was radio silence. He was right here in Blue Ridge but he may as well have been hundreds of miles away. He was one of those classic absentee parents. I didn’t really accept that until one day when I was Jace’s age.”
“Why then? Did something happen?”
“More like didn’t happen. Although he and Mama weren’t together and were constantly at each other’s throats, he still came around from time to time. And of all the days I waited on him to show up, there’s one that’s as clear in my mind as if it happened yesterday.”
I take a look over my shoulder at the porch that’s perfectly staged to attract perspective buyers—two wooden rockers, large planters and an eye-catching wind chime. Then I glance at the front yard—the flower beds and the picket fence, and try to imagine Branch’s life here. It only makes me that much more curious as to why he’d visit a place for which he obviously harbors ill feelings.
“What happened?”
Branch leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees, his gaze still cast downward. “We had a day planned…to go fishing. Like any boy anxious to spend time with his father, I was excited. I even ditched my friends that day, just to be with him. I packed a lunch, came out to this very step, and waited for hours. Mama came out every few minutes to persuade me inside, saying he wasn’t going to show up, that he was never going to show up for anything anymore. I mean, she raked him over the coals every chance she could. But I refused to believe her. So I waited. And waited. I ended up eating every bit of that lunch I’d packed as I sat here…waiting. The sun went down. And I was still here. But he never fucking came.”
He doesn’t say anything further. He just shakes his head and exhales a breath.
Say something, Ragan. Okay, but what? I can pop off the quick comebacks when he’s the asshat ball player whose every word is loaded with innuendo. But when he’s just a regular guy carrying on a regular conversation about something so personal, and obviously painful, I react as if I’m shell-shocked. “I hate that happened to you. No child should ever experience that type of disappointment.”
Branch lifts his Redhorns hat, runs a hand through his hair, and then flips the cap to the back. “If you love someone, if you really love someone, why would you do that? Why would you ever leave them waiting like that?”
His words squeeze my heart and I want to say the right thing, anything to give him an answer to a question I really can’t answer, but I sense his question is more to himself than to me, so I don’t reply. When I see he isn’t going to say more, I reach out and touch his hand, hoping it offers some semblance of comfort. “I’m sorry. I know firsthand about men who suck at fatherhood,” I say, thinking of Ethan and my own dad.
“Mama was great though, in some ways.”
“How so?”
“She was always there for me. As much as she could be anyway. Trying to fill in some of the gaps, encouraging me to excel in school…hence the degree in Communications and Business. Mama wasn’t too keen on the football thing back then,” he replies in response to my raised brows. “She was somewhat of a nature enthusiast, so when she was up to it, we had scavenger hunts in the park. We played a lot of games, too. There was one called dots and boxes that I remember playing when I was in grade school.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that.”
“It’s just some silly paper game, connecting adjacent dots on a piece of paper until one player is able to form a square. We’d write an initial in the square, and in the end, the person with the most squares was the winner.”
“Interesting.”
“I guess. She’d make a game out of just about anything. As a matter of fact, there was one time when there was literally no food in the house. And she even made that into a game—she said it was a scavenger hunt for spare change. We searched under sofa cushions, in junk drawers, under the bed—you name it, we searched it. We scrounged up enough to buy a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread. A dollar shy of adding a jar of jelly, though. But she made that into a game, too. To see how many bites we could swallow without a sip of water. She had a way of putting a spin on everything to make it seem like it was something great.”
I smile at his eupho
ric expression. “Sounds like she loved you very much.”
“Yeah. It does, doesn’t it?”
“At least from where I’m sitting.”
He nods, turns away from my inquisitive eyes and vanishes somewhere inside his head. “She’s a schizophrenic.” The words come soft, almost as if he was saying it to himself.
I didn’t expect that. Then again, I didn’t expect to ever see Branch again, unless it was on TV.
“She was always a little quirky but it got worse over the years.”
“Were there problems with her medication? I know that can often be an issue.”
“We didn’t know of her diagnosis back then so she wasn’t on meds. But her turn for the worse was more than likely a result of some marijuana that had been laced with something.”
“That sounds pretty horrible.”
Yep. And it was supplied to her by none other than Dad himself.”
“Your dad?”
“Yeah, but that’s a whole other story.”
“I didn’t know drugs could do that. I thought schizophrenia was caused by a genetic physiological imbalance.”
“It can be. But the use of drugs that affect the mind and mental functioning has been linked to schizophrenia. So the consensus is that psychoactive drugs like marijuana trigger symptoms in those who are susceptible.”
“I’m so sorry, Branch. That couldn’t have been easy for someone so young. Losing your dad and caring for your mother.”
He shrugs. “She’s my mama. Did what I had to do. She couldn’t hold down a job and Dad wasn’t the model payer of child support—or so I’d been led to believe but that’s another story, too. I’ve got lots of ’em. Anyway, I knew I needed to help, so I started working at Jimmy’s Garage. I used the money to chip in on the bills and then later to help out with my kid brother when he came along.”
“That was very noble, Branch. Most kids would have been all about themselves.”
“Don’t applaud me for that. I can be a bit of a selfish asshole.”
I smile in silent agreement.
“Not disputing that one, huh?” he asks. “I’m the stereotypical ball player but I guess you’ve figured that out already.”
“From a glimpse, it appears that way. But if you give anyone half a chance to take a closer look—which I don’t think you ever do—they’ll see what I’m starting to see. That there’s more to you than stats, arrogance, money, and bedding women. You’re not the stereotype. Well, at least not below the surface. I think you hide behind all of that superficial crap because it’s easier than taking a chance on someone.”
He throws me an inquisitive look. “Why would I want to do something stupid like that?”
“It’s not stupid and you know it. But it’s pretty clear you won’t allow yourself to see it any other way. From the sound of it, you’re letting everything in your past dictate your present.”
He looks at me as if I’ve uncovered something he’d rather keep hidden.
“Everyone won’t leave you high and dry, Branch.”
“If the ones who are most important in your life do exactly that, then it stands to reason that others who are of lesser importance will do the same damn thing,” he replies, his tone bitter.
“So because of what you think, which is insane by the way, your plan is to keep doing as you have—going from city to city and titty to titty? Is that what you really want out of life? Foregoing meaningful connections. Fucking random women. Never giving yourself a chance to grow or to find that one?”
He looks away, diverting his eyes from mine. “Who needs the one? Besides I love tits,” he adds with a grin.
He’s deflecting and the door he’d cracked open is starting to close. But for those fleeting moments, he was more relatable, almost comforting, when he slipped from behind the façade. But having sensed his discomfort with this topic, I change the subject. “How are things with your mom now? Better?”
“For the most part. Up until recently she was still holding onto her resentment of dad. I’m talking years and years of lies and hatred, but now they can’t seem to stay away from each other. She’s actually doing better than her doctor predicted. And as much as I hate to admit it, it’s partially due to Dad.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “It’s all just crazy.”
“Why did they break up?”
“I honestly think it goes back to before they even met. Mama had dreams of attending Julliard.”
“That’s the Performing Arts School in New York, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, wow. Incredible school.”
“She loves the arts. Especially dance. My grandparents had her in performing art camps every summer and in a few other programs pretty much year round since she was six years old. So from early on, that was the plan for her life. She wanted to be on Broadway.”
“That’s some dream.”
“Yeah. But she met and fell in love with my dad. Let go of her dream to follow his. They moved to Atlanta when he was drafted to play with the Seahawks. Six months later, she was pregnant with me and they decided to marry. A year later, Dad had a shoulder injury that wrecked it all. We later ended up in Blue Ridge for a coaching job Dad wanted but that only lasted for about two years. After that he had a few random jobs that didn’t pay much, so money was tight. The fights started around that time. Mama throwing Dad’s failures in his face and blaming him for stealing her dreams.”
“That’s sad. That she didn’t get to do something she was so passionate about.”
“Yeah. That’s why I tried to give something back to her, so to speak. Like you, she loves fine art. A few years back, I surprised Mama with a dream house full of it—paintings, sculptures, music on vinyl—the whole nine yards. As a matter of fact, you can drop by sometime and I’ll show you the pieces we have.”
“I’d love to see them. Thank you.”
“No problem. A fan owns a gallery in New York, and he selected everything. Actually, his ‘art tutorials’ are what enabled me to pick up on how good you are.”
“Hmm. I wouldn’t expect you to be the artsy type.”
“And you’d be right. Not that I asked him but I guess creative types like to share the knowledge. I didn’t really care to hear it—I just wanted something Mama would like. I have a couple of pieces at my penthouse in Dallas, too.”
“Are you sure you’re not an in-the-closet art connoisseur?”
He chuckles. “Positive. I had very little to do with most of the stuff in my place. Connie had someone come in and do it all. I only had a couple of requests—my TV and the Branch McGuire Wall of Fame.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“It’s just some sports memorabilia I’ve collected over the years.”
“I’m sure it’s Branch McGuire at his finest.”
“You think?”
“With an ego like yours…I know.”
His lips curve into a smile. “Maybe.”
“So back to my original question, why did your parents split?”
“In a nutshell—Dad’s career. It didn’t pan out the way they’d hoped and that led to endless fights about money. That was always a daily topic in the McGuire household. Drove me fucking crazy. I guess that’s why I always wanted so much money of my own. I didn’t want to worry about that shit. And I definitely didn’t want a woman looking over my shoulder undermining and nagging the hell out of me.”
My brows furrow. “Is that how you see your mom?”
“I see many sides of her.”
“Oh,” I say, and scan his face, trying to figure out why he has such a wide range of views of his mom.
He doesn’t say anything for a measure.
“I sense you don’t like my description of the person who brought me into this world.”
I shrug. “You have your reasons. We all do.”
“Mama kept a lot of secrets. And she manipulated me a lot. She still does. Maybe it’s my fault for letting her get away with it. I wanted to make her happy. I w
anted things to be a little easier for her.”
“Sounds like you had to be strong at a time when that strength should have come from a parent.”
“I guess you’re right. You know, ever since I can remember, I had to be strong for everyone. Mama, Jace, myself. I’ve never had the chance to break. I think everyone deserves that.”
Something else I can relate to.
We fall into a different kind of silence. It’s comfortable. And it feels…nice. Despite the grim circumstance that brought us here, when I glance at him now, he looks unburdened. Perhaps that means he can now face what he wasn’t ready to.
I take a sip of beer and lean against the railing. It occurs to me that this is the most at ease I’ve felt since Branch walked into the diner hours ago. But that lightheartedness instantly fades when he looks at me and asks, “So what’s your story?”
“NOT SURE YOU REALLY WANT to hear my story.”
He brushes his shoulder against mine, an innocent gesture that somersaults my insides. “You listened to mine.”
“Yeah but I didn’t know we were trading tales of woe.” Though I never shared this part of myself with anyone besides Ethan and Hayley, I find myself wanting to open up to Branch. I take a breath and step into the shadows of my past. “A year after giving birth to my brother, my mother ran off. Abandoned Noah and me and never looked back.”
His eyes widen, and once he’s given my words a chance to sink in, he asks, “Who does shit like that?”
“Oh, let me finish. It gets better. My mom’s an addict and she used drugs the entire time she carried me. So yeah, I was what they called a crack baby.” I look down at my feet and scrape the toe of my shoe over the pebble on the step. “Luckily Dad was around to keep it at bay, so I wasn’t born with any type of addiction, just a shitload of immune issues. Three years later, she had Noah. A year after that she was gone. She left for work one Friday morning and never returned. She finally had the gumption to call a month after and tell Dad she wasn’t coming back.”
