by Eden Butler
Across from Kona, sitting on the love seat was Cass and a different girl from the one he’d brought to the barbeque a few days ago, this one a redhead. The pretty boy singer was starting to become a fixture here, something I knew bugged Ransom and, it seemed, Kona as well. Mack had mentioned how much time Cass spent at the lake house, how it seemed to make her father grumpy, but at the moment both Kona and Keira seemed distracted—Kona by the game and Keira by Kona.
The referee’s whistle sounded and the commentary switched to the lead out music, making Kona nod to himself and then shift his gaze directly at Keira. I tried to seem more interested in Mack’s bracelet and not the lick of tension that moved around the room when Kona came toward us, but it was damn hard. Even Makana slowed her fingers, shifting her eyes to the right as Kona moved away from the sofa and right at his wife. He stopped, resting a hand on the back of her chair and leaned down, pulling on her chin so she’d look up at him.
They didn’t speak. They didn’t have to. Kona brushed his thumb over her face and then he stole a kiss so sweet, so intimate that when he walked into the kitchen, both Mack and I were sporting similar blushes.
We shared a smile, but I did catch the look on Keira’s face while she continued to strum—part sadness, part quick pleasure, neither of which lingered long on her face.
Kona didn’t bother Keira as he moved out of the kitchen but I knew he was watching Cass, who had seen the entire exchange, out of the corner of his eye. But then Kona returned to his seat with a beer in his hand and the moment passed. When another cheer sounded from folks watching the game, I laughed, shaking my head at the way Makana rolled her eyes.
“Football,” she grumbled, taking her fingers from the thread to wave her hand as though the idea of the game was stupid.
“That’s right.” She looked up at me long enough to grin. “You like rugby now. I’d almost forgotten.”
“Well, just until competition starts.”
“Of course,” I agreed, beaming a little at how Mack had taken to dance. She was one of the youngest I had on my competition team and she treated the process—the practice, the refinement and the fierce competition - for what it was: damn hard work. “So, once competition gears up you’ll abandon rugby?”
“Well,” she started, leaning forward to whisper, “I can still watch the matches online.”
“That won’t distract you?”
“No way. I can multitask.” Her shrug came easy, and Mack returned my easy grin with one of her own as she continued braiding.
“That is so dumb,” Koa said, leaning on the table as he narrowed his eyes at Mack’s bracelet.
“Shut up, pilau buggah. I don’t say nothing bad about your dumb video games.”
“Because there’s nothing dumb to say. Gaming takes skill.” Koa flicked Makana in the side, laughing when she swung at him.
“Does not.”
“Does.”
“It doesn’t, lolo ass!”
“Hâmau!” Kona fussed, shooting Mack and Koa a glare that kept them both quiet.
These two little knuckleheads were a handful, but I’d loved them the second I’d walked into the lake house to help Keira out with watching Koa. He and Mack had gotten bigger, a little nastier to each other at times, but they loved each other.
Still, they were kids and even though I hadn’t been their nanny for a long time, I tended to get in their business and correct them when they needed it. With the game distracting Kona and Keira being in her own world, I thought I’d distract them enough to stop fussing. I helped Mack tie off the bracelet and start another while her big brother watched, immediately bored when his sister began to braid the thread. “Koa, tell me about your trip to Barataria Bay. You catch anything?”
The boy nodded, sitting next to me as he pushed his phone onto the table ignoring it when it vibrated to roll his eyes at his little sister and smile at me. “Makua caught more redfish than I did but I ate more oysters when we went to dinner.”
“Gross,” Mack mumbled, shaking her head at Koa when he growled at her. Boys.
“Anyway?” I offered, resting back to look him in the eye. “You had fun with your dad?” He nodded, grabbing his phone as though he didn’t want to go into details. Keira had mentioned the trip earlier when we arrived in way of explaining why Koa’s normally dark skin was a little pink around his cheeks and nose.
“Kona said he just wanted to spend time with Koa before the end of the season, but I think he’s trying to make up for being an ass Friday at the barbeque,” Keira had told me, the whole time flicking her gaze to Kona who had walked around on the patio, those ever-present buds in ear as he talked on the phone.
“Did it work?” I’d asked, getting only a half-hearted shrug in return. There had been no one with us then, except for Ethan who stood near the fireplace mantel looking at the family pictures lined up on that block of cedar. “Keira,” I’d started, keeping my voice low as we loaded finger sandwiches onto a tray. “What’s going on with you two?”
That had stopped her from pretending to be focused on prepping the snacks for her guests. She looked around the room, moving her head to the right as Kona walked further away from the patio door. “He’s keeping something from me.”
Nothing could be more out of character. Keira and Kona had been inseparable since reconnecting thirteen years ago. A lot of parents came through my studio, most of them begrudgingly. Many of them sniping at each other. Kona and Keira had never been that way. They doted, they snuck off to make out, they embarrassed all three of their children with how they carried on.
Secrets? Not speaking? Bickering? Those were all warnings that I knew had Keira worried.
Ethan had winked at me, started toward us in the kitchen then, but stopped short when Koa stood in front of him talking without taking a breath.
“You have any ideas?” I’d asked Keira, keeping my voice low.
“None that make sense.” She moved the sandwiches to the center of the cutting board, slicing them into halves, then quarters. Not once had she smiled. Not once had Keira given me any indication that she thought of anything other than Kona and their problems as she worked on the sandwiches mindlessly.
“Keira, he’d never…”
“I don’t think it’s that.” She scooped up the bread crumbs from the island and dusted them into the trash bin between her feet. “And I have no damn clue what it could be.” She exhaled. “I just know it’s bad.”
“He’ll tell you.” I touched her arm and my throat locked up when I saw that Kiera's eyes were misty. Keira never cried. Nothing ever got to her, not that I’d ever seen. “Sweetie,” I’d said, taking her hand. “He’ll tell you, you know he will.”
“That’s the thing, Aly.” One quick sniffle and Keira cleared her throat, pretending like there weren’t tears on her lashes. “The only thing I know anymore is that my marriage is hurting.” Her voice was strong, like she was more pissed off than upset. And when that large shadow lingered in the door, interrupting our brief conversation, she’d turned away, busying herself with storing the condiments and deli meat back into the fridge.
“Hey,” Kona had said, leaning against the doorway. “Brian’s sister and her kids want to come over. That…that okay?” Keira barely glanced at him in answer, nodding once as Kona stared at her. It took him several seconds, time he spent watching her, focusing on the way she moved around the kitchen, how she’d worn no expression on her face before he exhaled, ignoring me completely. “I’ll tell him,” he muttered before he’d disappeared.
“He hear you?” I’d asked her, standing next to Keira as she stopped buzzing around long enough to watch Kona sit on the sofa next to Koa, patting the boy’s head as he leaned against his father.
“Who knows?”
The kiss Kona had given Keira had clearly stumped her. Her strumming lessened and she stared off toward the kitchen, focusing on the front of the house and the shoes that lined near the foyer table. Kona’s. Koa’s. Makana’s. All sandals, a
few pair of tennis shoes and boots that were starting to take over with the clip of coolness in the air. Keira wasn’t really looking at anything, I didn’t think, and when the Dolphins intercepted the ball, and Keira seemed to hear the ruckus, she closed her eyes, blocking at anything but the quick movement of her fingers over the strings.
Until Kona’s sudden curse silenced the room.
It was three seconds. I counted because the silence in the room seemed louder than the noise of the game. “Shit, he’s down?” Brian said and I immediately abandoned Mack’s bracelet, knocking Keira’s knee once before I hurried into the TV room.
“What is it?” I asked Kona, not thinking, standing at his side, willing the players on the screen to move, begging Ransom to get the hell up. “Kona?”
“I don’t know.”
Keira came into the living room. There were already tears collecting between her lashes and I took her free hand, not daring to move my gaze from that screen.
“Why aren’t they saying anything? Makua, is Ransom okay?” Makana had joined us, along with Koa and the others, staring wide-eyed at the screen. “Makua?”
Ransom’s young siblings idolized him. They’d seen him hurt before, but as the seconds lengthened and the commentary on the screen was quiet, a little somber, I realized that Koa and Mack had never seen Ransom down this long. To them he was invincible. He was a champion and champions don’t get knocked down. If they do, they don’t stay down for long.
Tugging on Kona’s polo, Mack whimpered, her chin wobbling as she looked at her father for some sort of answer, something that would make sense of her brother laying still, unmoving on that field hundreds of miles away. When her father only shook his head, Mack abandoned her efforts to get his attention and went to Keira, pulling on her belt loop, her voice cracking when she tried to speak. “Makuahine…Makuah…Mom! What’s wrong with my kunāne?”
“Baby,” Keira said, alternating between gripping her phone and pulling her daughter against her side. “We don’t know yet. We have to wait.”
The room had gone quiet. Brian’s niece and nephew, no older than Mack and Koa, had abandoned their phones when the adults in the room stood. Ethan came up behind me, only resting his hand to my neck. He squeezed it, the touch soft, reassuring but it barely registered.
“Come on…” I whispered, wishing Ransom could see the frown I gave him through the screen, saying prayers, begging with God, pleading, that he’d just get up. That’d he’d walk away from this one too. “Come on, baby.”
“Keira, sugar, what can I do?” Cass said, standing on Keira’s free side. He smelled of cigarette smoke and diesel fuel. I couldn’t make out what he did, if he touched her, if he moved at all. My eyes were shut tight, my focus lost in a litany of prayers I wished would be answered, but I did feel a looming, heavy presence in front of me, one that was unmistakable, enormous.
“You can back up. That’s what you can do,” Kona told Cass and I blinked, eyes wide when I realized Ransom’s father stared down at Cass like he wanted to break him in half.
“I’m not trying to step on any toes, here, man. Honest.” Cass lifted his hands, stepping back when Kona moved forward.
“Back. Off,” he repeated, voice low, sinister.
“Kona, please,” Keira said, jerking her gaze to her husband. “Now is not the…”
“He’s moving!” Koa shouted, stepping closer to the television, moving to the side when we all surrounded it.
“Mark?” Keira said when her phone chimed once. “Oh, Kenny. Tell me. Okay…” and then she left the room with Kona trailing behind her.
All around us the urgency lessened, though it didn’t quite leave completely. Ransom’s teammates had not moved, each one taking a knee, heads bowed as he was looked over. It was strange and frightening to see all those huge, sweaty men motionless, in a game where so much adrenaline pumped right along with the urgency to win. But Ransom had always been loyal to his teammates. They were a family and generally loved each other. This display of solidarity wasn’t a shock.
Holding my middle, arms tight, attention focused, I kept still, barely breathing as I watched that screen. Koa had been right, Ransom was moving, but he still lay flat on his back, his face and chest blocked from the cameras by the doctors working on him. One physician moved his hands to Ransom’s face, turning his neck while another went to his ankle, tenderly moving his foot side to side.
Around me, the small group seemed to relax. The announcers, desperate to fill the dead air, were babbling on about how it was a good sign that Ransom was moving. Koa and Mack sat back down and Cass took his girl from the room, out onto the patio. I’d somehow lost Ethan in the fear and anticipation but that, too, didn’t really register. I couldn’t move. There was nothing for it. My legs locked tight, my heart sputtered and my gut twisted. Then, the trainers and doctors lifted Ransom up and he staggered a bit getting to his feet, wincing when the camera zoomed in on his face.
I recognized the symptoms. God, how many times had I’d seen Ransom suffering from a concussion? There was no need to hear the news Kenny would give Keira and Kona, or listen to the speculation on the part of the announcers. Blood had begun to dry on Ransom’s upper lip. Some of it had splattered onto the turquoise collar of his jersey and smeared across the white and orange letters on his chest.
Walking to the small golf cart that had pulled up, Ransom wobbled a few steps even with a trainer supporting him under each shoulder. But my focus remained on his face. There was more than pain transforming his features. My chest felt tight and my stomach ached because I felt it right alongside him too. It wasn’t my career or health in jeopardy. Modi, it wasn’t even my man’s career or health in jeopardy and the realization of that, as ridiculous as it sounded, left me a little staggered.
After a lifetime, it seemed, with several commercials playing and the people around me relaxing even further, finally, Keira returned, no longer on her phone. Behind her Kona motioned for Brian to follow him in the kitchen. But Keira stood in front of me, still looking worried, but less pale than she had just twenty minutes before.
“Aly…”
“Is he okay? Does Kenny know anything at all?” Keira shook her head, opened her mouth to answer but in my excitement, my sudden consuming worry, I interrupted her. “Do you think we can get an emergency flight? Maybe Kona can ask the owners…” and then Ethan reappeared, standing next to me. The flush of realization came before I looked at him, just as Keira’s eyebrows lifted and she recovered her surprise. “I…I’m sorry,” I said, not sure who I should apologize to.
“Aly,” Keira amended, grabbing my hand. “We really need someone to stay with the kids.”
“Of course.” Shaking my head, I waved my hand, dismissing her, feeling like an idiot. “Whatever you need, Keira.”
“Thank you, sweetie.” She grabbed me in a hug. “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”
For the next half hour Keira and Kona moved around the lake house with purpose, leaving directions for Koa and Makana, packing and leaving me notes and numbers I already had. Mack leaned against me as her parents pulled out of the drive, holding my waist in a death grip.
“Why don’t I help you clear things away?” Ethan asked and his voice surprised me. It was as though he’d come from the shadows, a light I’d forgotten to switch off.
“Yeah,” I told him, clearing my throat as I led Makana inside. “That’s a good idea.”
It would give me something to do. It would keep me from the worry over Ransom and how desperately I wished I was boarding that plane with Keira and Kona.
Broken
Not
Bent
Bound
Not
Bind-less
A prison of my own making.
Trapped inside myself.
Nine
A hundred times a day, I heard Aly’s warning.
“One day you aren’t going to walk away from the field.”
Today I didn’t.
&n
bsp; We are conditioned early. Set into our bones is that old, primitive voice that demands we prove we are the fittest, the surest, the bravest of all. We are warriors on that field, dancing to a song that lives inside our DNA. It’s the same angry, primal call that sends men into action, that makes us fight and bleed and crawl to victory because we must. It began drumming in my head the day Liam Johnson tried convincing me I wasn’t big enough to wear his brother’s shoulder pads. Six years old and nearly as tall as my mother, I wore those pads because Liam said I couldn’t.
That summer, I’d saved up enough allowance for my own pee wee pads and wore them in the tub, to bed at night, and at the kitchen table with my mother fretting over where those pads would lead me. She never mentioned that her worry concerned my father and how, at even that young age, I was already so much like him. That confession would come later. Since that summer, football equipment of some sort was always near or on my body.
Today I thought it might be last time. Today Aly’s long-ago uttered curse came true.
There was no light in the room except for the low watt bulb in the bathroom to my right. My ankle was wrapped and icing. X-rays had been completed and the doctors had examined me. The worse news came first—another concussion and the possibility of IR whispered in low tones as my coaches and Kenny, my agent lingered outside in the hallway. Injured Reserve. I knew what that meant. It was the beginning of an end and with how muddled my head had gotten after this third concussion and how jacked up my ankle was with the torn ligament, the beginning of the end was coming fast.
“Damn it, Aly.”
It’s a risk we all take the second we sign contracts. As a player, you give up your body to the beast. You sacrifice your health, your freedom and parts of yourself you don’t want anyone to have just for time on that field and the potential of the legend you hope to become. My career had demanded my blood, sweat and effort. It had cost me plenty.
It had cost me Aly.