The more she talks, the tighter her grip gets, and the heavier my heart sinks. I can’t even imagine how differently these past few weeks would’ve been had Tanner not cut me off at that one Friday family dinner.
This woman has made her sons the center of her whole life.
I’d forever be the villain if I dared to break her son’s heart.
“No repayment’s needed,” I assure her.
Or would have, had she not shouted out: “MOVE YOUR BOOTY! YOU GOT THIS! YOU—Oh, shit on a windshield, this damned game is so close, I’m about to vomit.” Her eyes are wide and crazed as she studies the field. “We’ve gotta get ourselves a touchdown orelse.” Then she proceeds to cup her hands around her mouth to shout and whistle at the team some more.
I notice our older son Marcus has since left us to go hang with his high school friends elsewhere in the bleachers, further down closer to the field. He’s blossoming faster than I can keep up with. I don’t even know all his friends’ names. Is he dating someone? Shouldn’t I know? Where the hell’s my head?
“Don’t worry,” I assure Nadine just as her hand returns to its vice-lock grip on my poor thigh. I’m going home with a bruise in the shape of my mother-in-law’s hand tonight, I just know it, and if that isn’t the perfect poetic justice to my awful behavior lately, I don’t know what is. “Tanner has his lucky clipboard and I’m here, so it’s basically a mathematical certainty we’ll win.”
Boy, have I never so quickly eaten my words.
Not fifteen minutes later, Spruce High experiences the end of its first game of the season.
A crushing last-second loss.
Sadness pulses in every face around me. I feel glances, lots of them, either to inspect my face for crushing disappointment, or to blame me.
I’m not a superstitious guy.
But I already know it’s my fault.
I did something to offend the football gods that rule small Texas towns.
I caused this.
Joshua slaps shut his pad. “I suck,” he announces, oblivious to the game, tossing his pencil aside and sulking.
I stare at him. Then at the scoreboard.
Then finally at Tanner, whose heavy eyes are scanning the bleachers as if looking for something. He peels his hat off his head, letting it hang from his grip, then throws his eyes to the stars as if an answer awaits him somewhere up there.
You and me both, I think to myself, throat tightening.