Will they end up like their father, angry and impulsive and vindictive?
Or is there more of you in your child?
And if so, is that even a good thing?
It was enough to drive a person mad — which, I was convinced, was a permanent state of being for most mothers. We just knew how to handle our insanity, how to live with it and somehow get our shit done. You had to learn to quiet the fears and anxieties, to fake it till you made it, to do whatever it took to make ends meet and keep your home a safe place for your child.
Some days it was easy.
Some days it was impossible.
And every day, as a newly single mother, I worried.
“This is gonna be our year, Mama,” Paige said, splaying her tiny hands over the laces of the football in her hands as she watched the Tennessee Titans press conference. They were her favorite team, and she idolized Mike Vrabel like he was her father.
In a twisted way, I wished he was.
“You think so, huh?” I asked, smiling at her from the kitchen where I was browning hamburger meat for dinner. I hadn’t had the energy to do more than whip up a box of Hamburger Helper that evening, not after my first day of work. And it wasn’t that Paige would mind — she was a kid, she didn’t care. But it seemed I was always on a cycle of mom guilt, thinking I should be doing something better.
Or everything, really.
So, the fact that I hadn’t come home and made a fresh, balanced dinner weighed on me a bit as I stirred the meat.
“I know so. Look at coach,” she said, gesturing to the TV before her hands were on the football in her lap again. “He looks…” She stopped, struggling for the word.
“Confident?” I suggested.
“Yeah! And the rookies we drafted, the way the team worked together last season.” She looked back over her shoulder at me with her crooked smile. “I can feel it.”
I smiled back, tracing her features. I knew all mothers thought their child was the most beautiful kid in the world, but with my Paigey, it really was true. She had a full head of bouncy curls that would have made me and my sister both hate her and love her had she been our friend as kids. Her skin was a smooth tawny, her cheeks peppered with freckles that were like stars under her almond-brown eyes. She had a gap between her two front teeth that grew back in fully last year, and somehow it only made her cute factor go up.
She was only nine years old, and still, I knew I’d be in trouble once she started dating.
Another flare of anxiety over her having her heart broken seared through my chest, but I subdued it, draining the pasta noodles in the colander in the sink. “Well, if you believe it, then I do, too.”
I also knew that all mothers thought their child was the smartest kid to ever exist, and once again, I was no different. Of course, with Paige, it was only pertaining to one subject: football. She watched games and listened to podcasts and studied football terms like it was her full-time job. She learned words that most kids her age couldn’t pronounce, let alone understand, all in the name of being an expert in the sport she loved.
“You’ll see, we’re going all the way this season,” she said, turning her attention back to the television. Then, a long sigh left her chest, and she whispered so low I almost didn’t hear. “I can’t wait to play football.”
I furrowed my brows, torn as always with how I would explain to her that the likelihood of that happening was slim to none. She’d been watching football with her father every Saturday, every Sunday, and every Monday night since she was born. Somewhere around four years old, she started saying she wanted to play football. At the time, I thought it was cute, something she’d grow out of, but it turned out football would be one of the staples my daughter was built on.
She was hell-bent on playing football someday, and as a mother, that terrified me.
Again — normal.
Before I could decide if I wanted to respond encouragingly or realistically, my cell phone rang.
“Hello, sister,” I answered, putting her on speakerphone as I mixed the fake, processed, powdered “cheese” with the noodles and hamburger meat. “Paigey, come sit at the table for dinner.”
“But, Mom! Can’t I just eat it in here? Coach is still talking!”
“Yeah, Mom,” my older sister teased. “Coach is talking.”
“Hush,” I told her on a laugh, but when Paige hopped up and clasped her hands together, begging me with her signature pouty lip and big eyes, I was helpless.
I sighed.
“Fine,” I said, scooping a good helping into a bowl for her. Paige hopped up and down in victory. “Set up the TV tray though, and use your napkin, Paige Marie, not your jeans.” I gave her the mom look when she bopped into the kitchen, making sure she knew I was serious before I handed her the bowl. Once she was set up in the living room, I took my sister off speakerphone, pressing the device to my ear, instead. “Gray hairs, Gabby. I swear I’ll have them before the year is up.”
My sister chuckled. “Oh, come on. So your daughter is obsessed with football. It could be worse. She could be obsessed with boys like we were.”
“Don’t jinx it,” I said, smiling when Paige tossed the football up in her hands between bites, her eyes fixed on the press conference. “How are you?”
“Oh, same old same here. It was a long night at the hospital, we had a three-car accident that was pretty nasty. I was dead on my feet by the time I got home this morning.”
My sister, Gabriela, was older than me by five years. It was just a wide-enough gap to keep us from ever being in the same school together, but not too wide to where we couldn’t share clothes. She was my best friend — thanks to our life traveling around with a mom in the military. Where the few friends we did make were left in the dust each time we were re-stationed, our bond never died. It only got stronger throughout the years, and Gabby was the only person I ever felt comfortable talking to about anything deeper than the weather.
Besides Randall, but I’d learned my lesson the hard way that not even he could be trusted.
“If you still lived here, I’d make you a glass of my famous sangria.”
“Ugh,” she dragged out the groan. “Don’t tease me like that. It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair is that I can’t walk two doors down and plop on my sister’s couch anymore.”
“You could,” she argued. “If you moved here with the rest of us.”
I grew silent at that, casting a glance toward my daughter before I made myself a bowl of Hamburger Helper and stepped out onto the back lanai. I still kept an eye on her through the sliding glass doors.
“You know it’s not that simple,” I said once I was outside.
Gabby sighed. “I know, I know. I wish it were, though.”
I didn’t have to elaborate, because Gabriela was the only one I’d ever opened up to about everything that had happened between me and Randy. Mom and Dad knew we were divorced, but they thought it was just because the love had faded over time and we’d been fighting a lot.
Gabby knew the truth — the bruises, internally and externally, that prompted my final decision.
The only reason Randy had even granted me the divorce I’d asked for was because he didn’t think it would last, and because it happened on his terms. I’d threatened to hire a lawyer, to get my parents involved, to show people the photos I’d taken with the marks he’d left on me. So, to keep his reputation safe, he agreed to the divorce.
On the condition that I would never leave Stratford, so that Paige would be close to him.
So that I would always be in reach.
My heart squeezed. Growing up, Gabby and I were all each other had. With Mom in the Army and us moving every few years, we had grown up changing schools like most girls changed which Barbie doll was their favorite. After Mom retired, we came to Stratford.
I was a junior in high school at the time, and Gabby was just starting college after taking some time off. For a while, we called this town home, but when
Gabby got into nursing school in Texas, our parents moved with her — mostly because Mom had been offered a full-time Army Policy Analyst position in Austin.
Under different circumstances, I would have gone, too.
But when it all happened, I was newly married, starting a new life of my own.
And I was pregnant.
That’s another thing they don’t tell you — how when you start a family of your own, the family you grew up with suddenly shifts to second place.
“So, how was your first day?”
I blinked, shaking free from my thoughts as I shoved a bite of our cheap dinner in my mouth. “It was… something.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Not bad,” I clarified, taking another bite and speaking around it. “Just… interesting. It felt good to be at work, to feel that part of my identity come back, but… well, let’s just say my boss gave me a less-than-stellar welcoming.”
My sister’s voice hardened, and I could picture her brows folding together. “Who do I need to kill?”
I chuckled. “Easy, no need to bust out the nunchucks,” I teased, referring to the time in sixth grade when she’d handed a kid his ass after he tried to put his hand up her skirt. She’d ripped his stupid toy nunchucks from his other hand and knocked him upside the head with them. “He was just predictably sexist with the intro, that’s all.”
“What do you mean?”
I rolled my eyes. “He went on about how he’s worried about me being the new trainer because I’m a woman. He thinks he’ll have trouble with the team being distracted.”
“He said that?”
“In not so many words, yes.”
“Well… don’t hate me, sis, but… he’s probably not wrong.”
I sighed. “I know he’s not, but the point is that it shouldn’t be me he talks to about that. It’s not my fault I’m a woman, and I shouldn’t be held responsible for the teenage boys on his team getting distracted.”
“Did he say anything to them about it?”
I shifted, poking at the noodles in my bowl until I had five of them stacked on my fork. “Well, yes, actually. He did. He set his expectations for how they should treat me before practice.”
“Was he condescending then?”
I frowned. “No,” I admitted. “Actually, he spoke about my accolades, and said they were lucky to have me.”
“Wow,” she said, mockingly. “What a jerk.”
“Anyway,” I said, ignoring her. “After that, it went fine. No injuries during practice, but I did meet with a few of the players who had injuries last season, to see where they’re at in recovery. And I got my tables all set up. You wouldn’t believe the equipment they have, Gabby,” I added. “It’s like a professional football team rather than a high school one.”
“Well, that’s what happens when you win two state championships in a row.” She paused. “Who’s the head coach again? Anyone we know?”
I flushed, though I couldn’t be sure why, and I was damn sure happy my sister couldn’t see it. “Jordan Becker.”
“Becker…” my sister repeated. “I don’t think I knew him.”
“He was in my grade, younger than you,” I explained. “But, his dad is the one who died in the fire at the distillery.”
“Oh, shit…”
I frowned. “Yeah.”
“No, I mean, yes, that’s terrible, but what I said oh, shit to is his headshot.” My sister whistled. “I just Googled him. Hot damn, sis. Your new boss is hotter than a Texas parking lot in July.”
I snorted. “You’re ridiculous. Although, I will say, you’re not the only one who thinks so. You should have seen the Mom Parade at practice.” I rolled my eyes, popping another bite of hamburger in my mouth as I thought back to practice that afternoon. “There’s not even a reason for any of them to be at practice, but they’re all right there in the bleachers, offering coach lemonade and telling him what a great job he’s doing after every drill. One of them even dunked a towel into their ice chest and offered to put it on his neck.”
Gabby laughed. “I don’t blame them. Hell, I don’t even have a kid and I’d find a way to fake it so I could be there to watch that man sweat.”
“Gross.”
“Don’t act like you don’t want to lick his chest.”
“Again, gross,” I said, but my cheeks flushed in betrayal. “He’s my boss, Gab. And not that there are any official rules against it, but it’s a very clear, unwritten rule that the head coach doesn’t date anyone on his staff. Plus…” My voice faded, eyes finding my daughter through the sliding glass door. “You know my feelings on men. One psychopath in my life was enough. I have zero intentions of ever dating again.” My voice faded. “And even if I did…”
Again, words were lost, but I knew Gabby understood. With Randy always around, watching me the way he did, the possibility of me dating anyone again was so close to impossible that I didn’t even consider it.
He still felt like he owned me, and I knew better than anyone that if someone tried to play with his toy, they’d pay the price for it.
Inside, Paige took her own dishes to the sink and rinsed them, putting them in the dishwasher before she went back to continue watching the conference.
I smiled, the only piece of my heart left swelling at the sight. “It’s just me and Paigey now.”
My sister was quiet for a long while, and I knew she wanted to argue with me. She’d wanted me to join a dating website as soon as the divorce between me and Randall had been finalized. But she knew as much as I did that there was no use trying.
I was permanently broken, permanently turned off from love, and permanently happy being single.
“You know, you could go for full custody,” she whispered. “Bring Paige here to be around her awesome aunt and amazing grandparents.”
“In a normal situation like this, maybe,” I conceded. “But, he’s the Police Chief of a tiny map dot, Gab. Everyone loves him — including highly influential people, like Patrick Scooter, and the Mayor. You and I both know the power he has…”
She sighed, though it sounded more like the huff of a bull about to buck a cowboy off at the rodeo. “I hate him.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I have to get going,” she said, a long pause hanging between us. “I love you, sis. Don’t be too hard on the guys on the team. You’re the first woman to be on the staff, in a small southern town, and in a sport dominated by men. Baby steps, okay?”
I smiled. “Okay. I love you, too, sis. Thanks for calling.”
After she hung up, her words echoed in my thoughts, and I glanced once inside at Paige before I pulled up Google on my phone. I typed in my new boss’s name, and when his stern face filled the screen — along with a Wikipedia article populating with all his stats — my stomach tightened.
Those eyes…
“Mom!”
I jumped, exiting out of the browser and shoving my phone in my pocket as my daughter bolted out into the yard.
“Can we go to the park and run drills?” she begged, holding up her football. “Pleeeease?”
“Maybe this weekend, okay? It’s a school night.”
She was tempted to pout, but knew better than to try that with me. Instead, she nodded. “Okay.”
“Why don’t you go run a bath and I’ll braid your hair after.”
Paige nodded, bounding back inside. My phone felt like a hot brick in my pocket, begging me to pick up where I left off, but I ignored it, taking my empty bowl inside to clean up the kitchen, instead.
As I ran the hot water, a pair of stormy eyes still burned in my mind.
Jordan
Ten days blew by in a whirl, as they often did when the school year started. For me, it was always a blur of practice and plays and drills and tapes. It was school days filled with working my players in their weightlifting classes, and evenings spent getting them ready for the first game.
It almost seemed like I’d stepped in a time warp, because he
re it was, Friday night.
The first game of the season.
This was what I lived for — the smell of the turf, the energy of hungry athletes buzzing in the locker room before it exploded out onto the field, the hum of the crowd anticipating what will happen. It felt like coming home to me, pacing the sidelines as I watched my team, clipboard in hand and a piece of gum in my mouth for me to chew on when what I really wanted to do was scream like a maniac.
I had learned that trick after my first three games as head coach.
Still, tonight’s game felt different than any game ever had before. Because as much as everything familiar and comfortable greeted me on that field, there was something else there, something quiet but menacing, soft but blatantly apparent.
Pressure.
The stadium lights felt like spotlights, all of them pointed at me as the residents of Stratford filled the bleachers. Everything in our town shut down on Friday nights during football season. You couldn’t find a place open to get groceries or grab a bite to eat because customer or shop owner — everyone was right here.
I crossed my arms on the sideline, clipboard in hand as I watched the team warm up. My assistant coach and defensive coordinator were on opposite sides of our half of the field, running drills, while the Red Rock Raptors swarmed the other half. I watched them just as much as I watched my own team, wondering if they would be contenders this year. They had given us a run for our money last year, with a group of juniors growing stronger — juniors who were now seniors and ready to lead their team to victory.
“Your boys look good out there tonight, coach.”
I smiled at the familiar voice coming from behind me, and when I turned, I was greeted by a crooked yellow grin.
“Let’s hope they play good, too, eh?”
Elijah Braxton was the town fixer-upper. Any kind of maintenance job that needed done, he could do it. He knew plumbing, electricity, woodwork, and more. Whether it was a broken refrigerator or a tree falling on your house — he was the man to call. He was known for being a bit of a grump — except for when it was Friday night football, of course — and a bit crazy, too. He always wore the same fedora hat, one he’d owned presumably all his life, and he talked to himself while he worked.
Old Fashioned Page 3
