Old Fashioned

by Steiner, Kandi

  Mary was Patrick’s wife, and other than seeing her playing her role as the dutiful wife behind him all these years I’d grown up in Stratford, I didn’t know much about her. One thing I did know was that since the fire, she hadn’t set foot near my mother — probably because Mom was horrified that Mary didn’t take her side on it.

  Patrick, Mary, Dad, and Mom used to run in the same circle in high school. They were close friends, from what I’d picked up in passing conversations between Mom and Dad, but somewhere along the way, that had changed.

  Still, Mary knew my Dad didn’t smoke, yet she’d looked at my mom with the same sympathetic eyes the entire town did after the fire — like she felt sorry for her, like Mom was in denial.

  Mary’s eyes looked like she’d been crying, and she sniffed, nodding at me as she passed. “Jordan,” she said.

  “Mary,” I replied, still confused.

  “Good game tonight. Sorry about the loss, but you’ll get them next time.”

  I forced as close to a smile as I could muster, and then she got in her car I hadn’t even noticed parked among the others, and she was gone.

  Mom was on the porch, and she pulled me in for a hug with a knowing look as soon as I was standing with her.

  “Tough loss,” she said.

  I nodded. “What was Mary Scooter doing here?”

  Mom’s expression was unreadable, but she patted my shoulder — reaching up high, since she was so short in comparison — urging me inside. “Oh, no reason, really. She’s just going through some things. We used to be best friends, you know.”

  “I know, but…”

  “It’s nothing,” she assured me. “And please, don’t say anything to Mallory about her being here. Okay?”

  Mary was Mallory’s mom — and ever since the big fallout between her and her family after she and Logan made their relationship official, they hadn’t talked. At least, not to my knowledge.

  Even when Mallory told them she was pregnant, there had been no reciprocation.

  I nodded, though I didn’t like keeping secrets. For Mom, I’d do anything. And if she was saying it was nothing to worry about, I believed her.

  We made our way inside, Mom heating up leftovers from dinner while I made a drink. Everyone was gathered at the house — Noah and Ruby Grace, Logan and Mallory — but thankfully, everyone was leaving me alone for now.

  It was a family tradition of ours, to have dinner at least once a week at Mom’s, and any time that dinner fell on a Friday night during football season, they’d have dinner without me, come watch the game, and then we’d all gather here again after the game for me to heat up leftovers and for all of us to catch up.

  Tonight, though, my appetite for anything that wasn’t whiskey was nonexistent.

  Later, Mom stared at the untouched plate of food in front of me, worry in her eyes as I sipped on the old fashioned I’d made. It was a bit strong, but already I felt myself cooling off, my temper settling.

  It was me, Noah, and my mom at the table. Logan and the girls were in the living room, all three of them watching a documentary on Mars that Logan had been waiting on to air for weeks. I watched the screen from the dining room table in a numb state of being, all the adrenaline draining from my body to leave me feeling completely wiped.

  “So,” Noah said, sipping on his own glass of whiskey. He swirled the ice cubes around in it before setting it back on the table. “You wanna talk about tonight?”

  Noah was the oldest of my brothers, but still four years younger than me. I remembered being wide-eyed and fascinated by him growing in our mother’s stomach, back when I was the only kid in the Becker household. I had no idea what would come with being an older brother, only that my father had told me I would be responsible for him, that I would have to look after him, protect him, have his back.

  And I had, from the very minute he was born.

  Noah and I had our differences, though, and of all my brothers — I’d fought with him the most. He was bullheaded and always felt like he had something to prove. Especially after Dad died, he was hell-bent on being man of the house. I had to literally wrestle him to the ground and kick his ass for him to calm down and see that we all had that title — and that it would take the entire team.

  He was also the only one of us who really looked like Dad.

  He had the same blue eyes, the same reddish-tone to his bronze skin. He was stout like Dad had been, where Logan and Michael were both lean and tall. They had Mom’s eyes, and her smile, too.

  “Not particularly,” I answered after a minute.

  Mom reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “It’s one loss. One loss does not a season make.”

  I softened, squeezing her hand in return before I forced myself to take a bite of dinner. I knew if I didn’t at least make an attempt, I’d break my mother’s heart, and if anyone had a soft spot in me — it was her.

  “I agree,” I told her, taking a bite of sweet potato. “But, we should have won. We would have won, in my opinion, had a certain situation been avoided.”

  “You talking about Parker getting hurt?” Noah asked.

  “He wasn’t hurt.”

  Mom frowned. “He limped off the field. I saw the new trainer take him back to the locker room.”

  I ground my teeth together, forgoing my next bite and reaching for my glass, instead. “I know. But I saw it in his eyes even before he was taken back. He wasn’t hurt, he just wanted to be rubbed down by Sydney. And like a fool, she fell for it.”

  Noah and my mom exchanged glances.

  “I know I sound like an asshole,” I admitted. “But, I told her not to take him back, to put him back on the field, and she refused. She dug her heels in like a stubborn woman.”

  “Jordan Solomon,” Mom chastised.

  “Sorry, Mom,” I said quickly. “Male or female, it was a stubborn move and a blatant disregard for authority. She took him back, anyway, insisting she needed to assess the full injury, and then after the game, wanna know what happened?” I grinned, though I was far from happy about it. “He admitted it. A few of the players had dared him to fake an injury to get her to rub down his groin, and she fell for it.”

  Noah snickered and Mom swatted him across the chest.

  “This is nothing to laugh about. First of all, that’s awful that they did that to her. But, Jordan,” she said, shaking her head as her eyes found mine. “Sydney doesn’t know these boys like you do. If Parker had truly been hurt and she let him go back into the game, that would have been on her.”

  Mom looked older in that moment, as if the story I’d just told had somehow aged her. I knew the reality was that the last ten years had — ten years of raising four rowdy boys without her life partner to help. She’d recently cut her hair even shorter, the edges of it curling over her ears, and almost all of the soft brown was replaced by a silvery-gray. Her eyes were still a bright hazel, though — a swirl of green and gold.

  “It’s kind of funny,” Noah argued after a moment.

  “Regardless of whether it’s funny or awful, it cost us the game. And I hear what you’re saying, Mom, I really do,” I said earnestly. “But, I have to figure out how to handle it and establish my expectations when I walk into that locker room on Monday.”

  “Hey now,” Mom said, pointing her finger into my chest. “You don’t know if you would have won that game had that Parker kid gone back out onto the field. For all you know, he could have fumbled the ball and made the score worse. There were other errors made far before he got hurt, like Rodgers throwing that interception that gave the Raptors their first touchdown. And that was probably caused by your offensive line not giving him time to make a smart throw.”

  A genuine smile found my face for the first time that night, because I could remember a time when Mom knew nothing about football and couldn’t have cared less what the score was at the end of the night. But when I told her as a junior in high school that I thought I wanted to become a coach, she took a serious interest,
and she was at every game, learning the rules, cheering me on, and — on my favorite nights — giving coach an earful of what she thought should be done to win.

  Mom was our biggest fan, no matter what we did. And I knew it was a rare and special gift.

  I sighed, still smiling, because her words were sinking in as they always seemed to do. “Do you ever get tired of being right?” I asked her.

  She smirked. “Never.”

  Noah ran his finger over the edge of his glass, brows furrowed as he thought. “You know, I see where your frustration comes from. You saw what Sydney didn’t see, because — like Mom said — you know those boys better than she does. Keep in mind, this is her first year on the team.”

  “It’s also her first year back at work after being a stay-at-home mom for years,” Mallory added, joining us at the table.

  “What’s wrong? Not interested in how we got a robot to Mars?” Noah asked.

  Mallory rested her hand on her small, but rounding, belly. “All the orange makes me nauseous.”

  “Trust me, sweetie. Everything is going to make you nauseous for about another month, at least,” Mom chimed in. “Let me make you some tea.”

  Before Mallory could argue, Mom was already up and in the kitchen.

  “Seriously, though,” Mallory said, her attention on me. “I don’t know if you know Randy Kelly, but he’s a prick. And she was married to him. Don’t you remember that she was one of the smartest girls in school? She was years ahead of me and even I remember her sweeping the award ceremonies. She already had college credits when she graduated high school, and she graduated with her master’s degree at twenty-two.”

  “What are you saying?” Noah asked.

  Mallory shrugged. “I’m just saying. She wanted a career, and yet she never had one. She got pregnant before she ever had the chance to be a trainer like she’d wanted to be. And now, she’s finally working, finally has the chance to prove herself — and all that after a divorce where you guys know as well as I do that she was painted as the villain.” Mallory’s eyes caught mine just as Logan came up behind her and squeezed her shoulders. She placed a hand over his. “Wouldn’t you feel like you had something to prove — not just to the team full of boys you work with, and not just to this town, but to yourself?”

  It wasn’t a question she expected me to answer, and thanks to Mom delivering tea, I didn’t have to. Ruby Grace joined us at the table and the conversation turned fully away from me and onto the upcoming wedding.

  I sat quietly the rest of the evening, chewing on what Mallory had said, considering Sydney in a way I hadn’t until that moment. I’d known she was married to Randy, of course, and that she had a kid. But I’d never considered the sacrifices she’d made — just like the ones my own mom had — nor had I considered what she must feel like as the only woman on a staff of men.

  I’d pointed out that she could be a distraction, and now, I wanted to laugh at myself because I realized that was far from news to her.

  She knew she’d be dealing with boys, that she’d be proving herself to men, that she’d be fighting an uphill battle from the moment she walked through those locker room doors.

  And I’d been the General of the opposition.

  More than that, what Mom and Noah had said sank in more and more the longer I sat there sipping on my whiskey. Sydney didn’t know those boys as well as I did. And if Parker really had been hurt, she would have been responsible for letting him back on the field — even if it had been my call.

  I sighed, disappointed in myself, and more than that, frustrated with where to go from here. I understood why Sydney took Parker back to do a full assessment. He was limping. He was claiming he was hurt. He was showing all the signs of not being okay to go back onto the field. It didn’t matter that he was faking, to a responsible and professional athletic trainer, he was hurt.

  And had it been our previous trainer, Perry, who’d done what Sydney had tonight, I would have appreciated him taking his job and the safety of our players seriously.

  I’d judged her too harshly, and placed blame on her for something that was entirely Parker’s fault.

  And, maybe, partially mine, too.

  “It’ll all work itself out, Son,” Mom said, leaning down to kiss my cheek as she passed by me and into the kitchen. I could tell when I glanced up at her that she saw the warring thoughts in my head even when I didn’t speak them out loud. “Now, eat up. You’re not allowed to leave that table until that plate is empty.”

  She patted my shoulder and continued into the kitchen, and I stared down at my full plate of lukewarm food as if it could somehow solve my problems.

  I knew I, alone, was responsible for that.

  I just had to figure out how.

  Later that night, home alone with the glow of my laptop screen the only light in my living room, I felt another rush of adrenaline.

  It had been more than a month of entries in Dad’s journal since he’d mentioned the Last Will and Testament he’d found while cleaning Robert J. Scooter’s office. Every night, I’d translated an entry from Latin to English, just to be disappointed that it spoke only of the new branding initiative or some other boring board discussion. It was frustrating, and more than one night of work on the journal had left me feeling deflated, like I was wasting my time looking for something that didn’t exist.

  But that Friday night, knowing I wasn’t ready to sleep, I’d translated two more entries.

  And what I found in the last one stole the last shred of hope I’d been holding onto that I’d get any sleep at all.

  Something has been eating at me.

  It’s been over a month since I found Robert’s will. I should have told Patrick about it, but I didn’t. The truth is, I haven’t told anyone — not even my wife.

  The scary part is that I’m not sure why.

  All I know is something is telling me to hold onto it, and — against every moral code I’m built on — I’m considering reading it.

  I know it would be wrong. I know what is inside that sealed envelope is private and important. I should hand it over to his family, over to Patrick for him to read with their lawyer.

  But… curiosity is eating me alive.

  And something else.

  It’s hard to explain, which may be why I’ve kept it all to myself, but… I feel drawn to this document, like I found it for a reason.

  It’s as if a ghost is whispering in my ear.

  But maybe it’s just the devil.

  Sydney

  It was an awful thing, to look around the park in search of blunt objects that could knock my ex-husband out, but it was all I could do in that moment.

  It was all I could focus on to get me through the bi-weekly bullshit parade I had to endure with him, where he told me all the ways I’d fucked up by leaving him, and I sat there and pretended to listen, all the while counting down the minutes until he was gone and it was just me and Paige again.

  I longed for sole custody of my daughter just as much as I hoped it would never happen. I never wanted to have to speak to Randy again. I wished so badly to leave him in my rearview mirror as a mistake I wished I’d never made.

  But the truth was, I wouldn’t even if I could.

  Regardless of what we had been through, if it weren’t for him, my daughter wouldn’t exist — and I couldn’t imagine a life without her.

  I also knew it would kill her to be told she’d never see her father again, because as much as he was a class-A prick to me, he was a damn good father to her and always had been.

  And so, twice a week, we met in a public space to trade Paige back and forth, and I endured my ex-husband’s crap in the name of my daughter.

  “Mayor Barnett approved a nine-percent raise for me,” Randy bragged, puffing out his chest as he assessed my reaction.

  Of which, there was none.

  “I knew he would, of course,” Randy continued, eyes skirting over the park a bit as if he was still on duty before they found me again.
“I mean, after all the trouble he’d found himself in with the Scooters… all the drama with his daughter not marrying that politician…” Randy clicked his tongue. “It’s been a mess to clean up.”

  I blinked, tracing my ex’s features and remembering a time when I found him attractive. I could close my eyes and go back in time to high school, to the older, more-popular boy noticing me. And though it was a bit foggy now, I could still remember when he’d flash that smile of his — a dimple on each cheek — and I’d melt into a puddle on the tile floor. I used to look into those eyes and find safety and warmth. I used to run to those arms bulging out of his uniform as if they were put on this Earth only to protect me and hold me and make me feel loved.

  I used to look into those green eyes and see my soulmate. I used to run my hands through that dark, coarse hair and get so turned on I could barely wait to get him home and undressed.

  There was a time when I didn’t even notice that his skin was white where mine was brown, a time when I thought it didn’t matter.

  Now, when I looked at that man, I didn’t see a man at all.

  I saw a monster.

  Randy had never been obtuse in the years he abused me. The times he did hit me were few and far between, and usually spawned by a fight that I could easily look back on later and say I’d played a part in. It was the control he’d exercised over me that had been the real abuse, and my skin crawled the longer I stood next to him, knowing that as free as I felt, I’d never truly be free of that control he had.

  “I’m sure it has been,” I finally responded. “Especially since the police department is having such a hard time shutting down Patrick Scooter’s little underground casino. Seems like if y’all could just do that, all of this mess would be gone.” I tapped my finger to my lips. “But I’m sure it’s not that easy, though, huh?”

  Randy’s mouth flattened. I was mocking him, and he knew it. My ex-husband was so elbow-deep in the dirty political shit of this town that he had proverbial flies hovering around him in a cloud — and it had been that way since he first joined the department.