When he called Mrs. Murray to tell her the good news, she told him how happy she was to hear it, what a nice Christmas he’d have with everyone together, and he told her he owed it all to her for putting the idea in his head. She laughed her gratifying laugh and said it was nothing, she was happy she could help.
“If that’s your idea of ‘nothing,’” he said, “I’d like see what ‘something’ looks like to you.”
“It looks like a lazy football player handing in an English paper after he’s already graduated.” And they both had a good laugh at that.
A few days before Christmas Eve, Caryn called in the middle of the night. She had insomnia, too, he’d probably given it to her, and she also didn’t beat around the bush. “Is it true Joe’s coming?”
Mitch told her that it was.
“Then I’m coming, too.”
“You can’t,” he blurted. “There’s no room.” He already had Cindy staying with Tracy. He no longer had to check himself from thinking, and Tim.
“That’s fine, I got a hotel.”
“Where?” There were only a few B&B’s in the area, and a flea-bag motel below the Food Lion, next to the old county jail. He could not see Caryn in that establishment. “You hate it here. You’d rather live in Bethesda with all your fancy stores.”
“I never said I wouldn’t visit! I’ll be at that nice inn at the college.”
“Well,” he stalled, searching for other obstacles. “What about Steve? You’re just going to abandon him on Christmas?”
She found this particularly hysterical. “He’s Jewish! He’ll be thrilled to do his old movie-and-Chinese-food thing. Anyway, we can handle a few nights apart. This is your dad. Alyssa’s grandfather. You think I’m going to miss out on meeting him now that I finally have the chance?”
“I didn’t know you cared.”
“Well, I do.”
He wasn’t sure he was comfortable with that. “Alyssa’s coming alone with Journey,” he said. “I know.”
“I hope she hasn’t broken up with her guy.” Might as well fish, while he had her on the phone.
Her initial pause betrayed something much more complicated than her answer, which was “No.”
“No, what?”
“No, they haven’t broken up. But I guess it’s time I told you. She asked me to. I was going to wait until the New Year, but you sort of forced everyone’s hand with this whole Christmas thing.”
“Tell me what?”
“Her guy is not a guy. She’s a woman.”
“A woman.”
“Her name is Joan. She’s a graphic designer.”
He felt her waiting in her own dark, mid-life dream house, across the state line in Maryland. Back in New England, he would wake sometimes from a deep Monday sleep and feel her there warming his back. Even when he was mad at her for causing a fuss over some petty domestic thing, he never really minded her curling up into his body and breathing into the space between his shoulder blades. How else were they supposed to spend any time together in season? In the end, it was all their marriage was.
“You think it’s a phase?” he asked.
Caryn sighed, and in his phone-heated ear, he felt an echo of that old animal warmth. “I have no idea. That’s not for us to ask. It’s our job to love and support her through this and everything else.”
“Is that what the yogis say?”
“It’s what I say. It’s just what’s right, Mitch.” He hated when people said his name like that. It made him feel as though they weren’t sure of him, as though without his name he might’ve been somebody, anybody, else.
“It’s easy for you,” he said. “You’ve known about this, obviously. You’re with those liberals all the time.”
“Mitch,” she repeated, crushingly. “I’m liberal. For years I’ve been a liberal. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“No wonder our daughter’s gay.”
She ignored this. She must’ve been able to tell he’d come around, whatever he was saying right now. “You’d be a liberal, too, if you just took the time to think about it. Didn’t you vote for Obama, even?”
“That was different. That was about sending a message. But I was never voting for a Clinton. I don’t care if she’s a woman, or a man, or a transgender.”
“So you went for a bigot instead!”
“Joan, huh? Kind of an old lady name.”
“Trust me, she’s young. And honestly? I don’t even know why I called.”
He let that one hang there. He was glad she had. No one called anymore; it was all just little blue puffs of data, pretending to be people, cluttering up his phone.
“Because you’re trying to crash my Christmas,” he said. If he couldn’t control this conversation, he could at least try to have a little fun. And it was sort of fun to annoy her. He felt like the guy he’d been when he was with her, the guy at the Pro Bowl, in his prime.
“I am coming,” she said.
“I know you are.”
“Christmas Eve.”
“See you then.”
He sat in the airport waiting area with a handful of his fellow Virginians. Unfussy people in sweaters and hunting jackets, clothes they’d worn since the eighties, even the items that were technically new. In his playing days he’d never realized how many old people there were in this country, how many fat people, and how many of the nation’s businesses catered expressly to their needs. His own business for instance. But he was one of them now, no longer deceptively-strong-and-fast-fat, just regular-old-American-fat, the perfect man to sell you a Tahoe.
At least he’d had a prime, a period he actually recognized when he was in it. He’d felt great for most of the years he played, but the entire time there were reminders it was fleeting. Now or never, guys said in the huddle. Cherish this moment, coaches told them after a win. Football was lucky like that, it carried with it a sense of its ending. Other people, the people on the benches all around him, hadn’t necessarily had that sense. They clawed their way through life, going for someday, hoping their best was still to come, hoping it wasn’t already behind them, at some humid high school party in a field. Football knew better. Football knew it was as good as it gets.
He got to his feet, looking for his dad in the small horde of people dragging rolling bags toward the carousel. It was a funny thing to look for a person he hadn’t seen in twenty years, a face he didn’t even know from Facebook. He watched one white-haired lady call out to another, watched college kids hug their parents. Before long an older man came into focus, a man with a ponytail in a denim jacket who was not exactly short, but gave the impression of someone who’d once been taller. He was standing by a potted plant and his face was turned away from Mitch, toward the window, displaying the back of his head. Mitch stared just long enough to give himself the creeps. It was his own private horror movie: the steady back of an old man’s head.
When it turned, the face was not bloody, or crawling with maggots, or lacking an eye or a nose. It was just the ordinary horror of Mitch’s own face, and Mitch’s own ponytail, twenty years, give or take, down the line.
They walked toward each other, propelled by some genetic, magnetic force. They knew each other, even though they didn’t.
“In the flesh,” Joe said, and Mitch felt better. He did know that voice.
“With some assistance,” Mitch said, indicating his goggles, so Joe wouldn’t have to ask.
“Those are really something,” Joe said. “You like them?”
“They do their job. They’re part of me now.”
Joe’s blue eyes brightened and he nodded, some word of Mitch’s chiming with a word he already had in his head. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s the best way to see it.”
They retrieved Joe’s pack from the carousel and went to get a coffee while they waited for the kids, who would arrive all together within the hour. Joe’s flight had involved two stops, including an overnight in Charlotte, and it was clear that he was tired. There were m
any moments of silence. Mitch found it most comfortable to look at the coffee counter and the various territories not occupied by Joe. A guilty feeling crept over him. What had he wanted—closure? The whole stupid thing had been his idea.
But then the kids arrived and Mitch introduced them, which meant having to claim everyone. These are my kids; this is your grandfather. Your grandkids. My dad. It helped.
Kaylie was sweet; Lori and Cindy had brought her up well. She hugged Joe without hesitation, said, “It’s so nice to meet you!” Even if it was all premeditated, rehearsed exactly this way in her mind, Mitch was grateful. Sometimes the only way to convince yourself was to act as if you already believed—and why not, when the intentions were good? She was nineteen and blonde, just as she was supposed to be, a sophomore at his own school, Miami. He liked visiting her there in her clean, well-lighted dorm, liked taking her out to the original La Carreta. She was an earnest Christian, like her mom, and she always dressed like she was going to be seen, hair brushed, clothes ironed. She’d never had a rebellious phase.
Tyler was more suspicious. “Hi,” he said as Joe patted him on the back. He smiled, but there was something missing in his tone that put Mitch slightly on edge. Tyler had grown wild in adolescence, wrecking cars and neighborhood mailboxes, shoplifting the stupidest, most obvious bottles of malt liquor, and nearly flunking out of his freshman year of high school. Football and Aderall were his only salvation. He seemed happy enough now at his little D-III hinterland, even if it meant he wouldn’t go pro. But that no longer mattered to Mitch. What mattered was that Tyler stayed alive, passed his classes, got a job: a new, more modest set of hopes that looked increasingly achievable each month. Tyler had normal brown college hair, not long, not short, but in the presence of Joe and Mitch’s ponytails, it suddenly felt like a declaration of independence.
And then, of course, there was Maddie, Mitch’s baby, his favorite person, with dark hair just like his. She’d gotten into horses and there’d been talk of her coming to live with him and train with the college girls, until her mom found a stable in Florida and the whole plan fell apart. “I wish I could live with both of you,” Maddie had told him, so mature, already, at fourteen. “But if I left now it would break Mom’s heart.” She walked ahead of him to the car in her tall boots and backpack, a stuffed penguin charm clipped to the zipper. Sometime this week he would have to ask her why it was a penguin and not a horse.
“How’s your foot speed holding up?” Mitch asked Tyler, who seemed to be lagging alongside him.
In his backpack, Tyler faked a cut in front of him. “Race me and find out.”
“Easy kid,” Mitch said, coming to a stop. Why, on the few occasions he wasn’t totally tuned out, did Tyler always have to try so hard?
“That a Yes?”
“It’s a Never Going to Happen.” Mitch clicked the car open. “Now get in there.”
They organized themselves in the Suburban, Kaylie and Maddie in the middle, Joe up front, Tyler sprawled in back with his headphones. Mitch had gotten the car as a practical measure. Like every vehicle he’d ever owned, it was built for a driver his size. And it had room for his entire family, for just these rare occasions. Growing up alone with Cindy, he never felt he was missing anything, but looking back, he probably had been, since he was so obviously compensating now.
“When was the last time you were in Monacan, Grandpa?” Kaylie asked as they pulled into traffic. He had to hand it to her; she’d managed to absorb some family lore. But who had told her—Cindy? Cindy talked about that stuff?
“Oh, it’s been years,” Joe said. “Many years.”
At the light, Mitch glanced in the review mirror, trying to determine if they harbored any grievances. Maddie met his eyes immediately and smiled, sitting up straighter, like a puppy, proud of herself for being good. Kaylie appeared to be readying her next interview question while Tyler was lost in his music. What did they care about Joe? He was a novelty, never promised, never lost. Their grievances, if they had them, would only be with Mitch. He’d left them at vulnerable ages: thirteen, twelve, eight. Well, not them. He’d left their mom.
“Has it changed much?” Kaylie asked.
“More built up now, that’s for sure. Used to be you could drive for miles without hitting a light. Now it looks like nothing but lights.”
He’d still be with Lori if he hadn’t met Julie. That was the hard truth. And would that have been so bad? She’d believed in him, put her faith in him, and faith was no trifle to Lori. But her tireless sympathy had worn him down. In the years after football, when he’d been so lost—fat and useless and moody, and stupidly trusting expensive suits with his money—she wouldn’t even call him on it. “But you’ve always been big,” she’d say. And “He was an NFL-approved advisor—how could you know he’d rip us off?” And “God loves you no matter what.” She excused every damn one of his failures, even as she raised their kids to succeed. He had to be hard on himself, because she wasn’t. Even when he’d started sneaking away to see Julie, muttering falsehoods about investment opportunities back in Philly, spouting developer nonsense about “a real will to build,” he was the one who called himself a failure. Never her. “I just wanted you to be happy,” she’d wept, when it all came out at the end.
He was happy to see Julie when they got home, Julie who was also good, but not too good, who had in fact basically beat him up the first time she met him and then accused him (rightly) of not taking care of himself. What he needed was not God’s love. He needed someone to yell at him about therapy. He needed an elbow cutting into his back, big blue eyes like a kick to the chest.
She hugged them all, including Joe. Kaylie had brought chocolates, which she presented to Julie like an award.
“I just remember you said you had to give up sweets because they were too tempting for Dad,” Kaylie said. “So these are just for you.”
“Oh my God,” Julie exclaimed. “Come here.” Nobody was better than Julie when it came to receiving gifts, and when people discovered this about her, they tended to fall all over themselves to give her stuff. She made them feel generous, potentially psychic. Even Kaylie, who was supposed to hate her, who did hate her for a few years in the beginning, was no longer immune to her charms.
“What are your favorites?” Julie asked, peering at the key.
“Probably mint,” Kaylie said. “Or anything with dark chocolate.”
“Okay, you take the mint. I’m having espresso. Ooh, and the coconut.”
~
Joe hung back most of the evening, even when they went out for pizza and he was seated in the middle, with Mitch and Kaylie on either side. Conversation happened around him—went through him even—while he just sat there, eating, his ponytail caught in his collar, evidently not itching his neck.
Maddie was reminding everyone about the snowstorm the year before, which coincided with their December visit to Virginia. “And we were having a snowball fight and Tyler got Dad in the face and his goggles got all fogged up and he couldn’t see,” she babbled, working herself back into the moment. “And Tim called him a maniac. Remember? He said, ‘The Monacan Maniac’s on the loose!’ And then I jumped on his back and Dad said—he said—he said—he said—” Her giggles conquered her, cutting off her breath. She put her pizza down and tried to swallow a hiccup.
“He was like, ‘Where? Who?’” Tyler took over, closing his eyes, whipping his head around like a prehistoric beast.
“Because he couldn’t see!” Maddie finally managed.
“He thought Maddie was the maniac, an actual crazy person,” Tyler explained to Joe.
The restaurant volume was squeezing Mitch’s head, and most of the noise seemed to be his own kids. What had he done to make them want to tell his father this story, a story that made him look weak? “I knew it was Maddie,” he said. “I was playing along.”
“You were scared, though,” Tyler said. He had that old anarchy in his eyes, the element inside him that wanted to break things,
especially, it seemed, his dad.
“You almost bucked Maddie over your shoulder,” Julie said, reaching for another slice. “Luckily she knows how to ride!”
She was laughing. He had to shut his eyes. It wasn’t clear Joe was even listening. “Well—ha—I mean, yeah, I couldn’t see!”
The girls soon moved on to some other topic, but Tyler wouldn’t let it go. “You were scared,” he repeated a few moments later, and whether Joe was listening or not, this was Mitch’s limit. This was more than enough.
“You think that’s funny, Tyler?” Mitch barked.
Julie said his name. She wasn’t laughing now.
“Let me ask you,” he said, ignoring her, “was it funny when that girl broke her rib because you decided it’d be a good idea to drive drunk?”
Tyler’s face was dead as a knife. As if to give them privacy, the girls turned up the volume on their conversation.
“No, it wasn’t,” Mitch answered for him. “Some things aren’t funny. Was it funny when your mom had to have your stomach pumped? Was it funny when Tim got sick?”
Like a switch had been flipped, the whole table went silent. Mitch felt clumsy, and then he felt annoyed, like he did when someone fooled him in coverage, leaving him standing alone in the open field. He glanced at Tyler, who looked appropriately chastened, and then at Joe, who was finally done eating, his greased up napkin crumpled on his plate.
“Here,” Mitch said to Joe, pulling out his phone. “I’ll show you pictures.” As though they’d never stopped talking about the snow. “It was the biggest storm since ’09.” If Joe was going to be with them, Mitch needed him with them; he needed to catch him up on the past.
Joe listened now for sure. He asked questions, but they were basic, questions that gave away how little he’d been paying attention in all their phone calls over the years. “When did you move in?” he asked, which he should’ve known: 2014. “And where’d you live before you built the house?” A Lynchburg townhouse. Should’ve known that, too.
A Short Move Page 27