Dirty Tackle: A Football Romance

by King,Imani

  “Okay, Mommy.” Those two words were spoken so solemnly that they hit me in the gut. I knew that it was just a couple of days away from where I might make her day forever, though, with some big news. Just a couple more days.

  “I love you,” I said to her.

  “I love you too.”

  Before she could see the tears in my eyes, I left the apartment. I made my way back to Shane’s condo knowing that he would appreciate being able to indulge in my mother’s famous spaghetti sauce. I focused on the path forward and not on the little girl that I had just left my apartment. It was just a couple more days, and everything would change for the better. At least, that was what I fervently hoped.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I don’t know if I would have gotten through all of the arrangements and made my way to the church for the funeral if I wouldn’t have had Maddy next to me. It seemed like there was a list of never-ending questions for things that needed to be addressed, and I barely knew the answers. Some of them, I had no idea. I was answering questions about the final wishes of a man that I had barely spoken to in a decade. Questions about his casket, where he wanted to be buried, the kinds of plants and floral arrangements he would have preferred, the words that would go on his headstone. I had no idea, and my father hadn’t left a will.

  Then there were the questions about what I was going to do with his house and his belongings, and his car. I didn’t know what to do. Through it all, Maddy had been by my side quietly offering words of advice. I hadn’t taken it for granted. She had been my rock.

  Now, as I stood at the back of the church watching it fill up with far more people than I would have expected to show for the old man’s last hurrah, my eyes found her standing at the front talking with the pastor. My family wasn’t even religious, but she had thought it would be a nice gesture to offer a religious ceremony. I figured my father was probably going to Hell anyway, but it was a small gesture. My last gift to him, not that the bastard necessarily deserved a shot at redemption. I had only done it because Maddy seemed to think it was the right thing to do.

  I was back at the back of the church talking to people that I hadn’t seen since I left Rosewood. They all expressed their condolences and then told me what a great job I had done on Sunday during the game. It was so obvious that they were all proud of the hometown boy done good. I hadn’t really thought about Rosewood all that much since I left it. The only thing that I truly regretted when it came to the town was leaving Maddy behind. She had been what had made my memories of the town great; at least, until the end.

  I had just finished shaking the hand of my old high school football coach when I saw Maddy’s parents enter the back of the vestibule.

  There was a young girl walking between them. If I would’ve had to guess her age, I wouldn’t have said she was more than ten years old. I was surprised. Madeleine’s parents were far too old to have another child, so I wondered who this girl was with them. They approached me, and I shook Mr. Thompson’s hand. I saw Mrs. Thompson looking at me quizzically. I had always wondered what Maddy’s parents thought of me. I knew her mother just from the brief interactions that we had in my mother’s salon. That was a long time ago, though, even longer because my mother had passed two years away before I had left Rosewood for good.

  “That was a great catch at the end of the game on Sunday,” Mr. Thompson said giving my hand a hard shake.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. Had Maddy said anything to her parents about the two of us being together now? Of course, even though I had professed the majority of my feelings to her, and she had admitted that she felt the same way, we haven’t really talked about what that meant for the future and our current status. I felt like we were together now, but did it mean we were in a relationship or just starting fresh and seeing where things went? That wasn’t what I wanted, but I didn’t know what Maddy wanted. It was a conversation that I knew was going to have to wait until after the funeral. There had been far too many distractions since our arrival back in town.

  I got down on my haunches and stared at the girl. There was something familiar looking about her. “And who are you, pretty lady?” I asked. I stuck out my hand in what I hoped would be perceived as a friendly gesture.

  She smiled at me shyly and stepped just a little bit behind Mrs. Thompson. She didn’t extend her hand to me, but she didn’t run away from me either.

  “Now Scarlet, mind your manners,” Mrs. Thompson said.

  She looked up at Mrs. Thompson and then stepped back in front of me. She stuck out her hand then, and I shook it gently. I felt like my hand was at least twice the size of hers. “I’m Scarlet,” she said. “I know who you are.”

  My eyebrows rose in surprise. “You do?”

  She nodded vigorously. “Grandpa watches you on TV on Sundays. Sometimes he swears at you, though,” she said.

  It should have been a comment that made me laugh, but there was one word in that sentence that struck me in the middle of my core. Grandpa. I glanced up at Maddy’s parents and saw them exchange a look.

  “Come on now, Scarlet. We should go sit down before things start,” Mrs. Thompson said. “It’s nice to see you again, Shane.”

  “Mommy!” Scarlet suddenly called out. I watched in shock as the little girl ran down the middle of the aisle and launched herself at Maddy.

  Something changed in that moment. I thought about how similar I thought she looked to someone that I knew. What a dumbass I had been.

  What the hell was happening?

  I saw Maddy’s eyes find me as I stood there frozen and stiff. She looked terrified. It was all the answer that I needed. The Thompsons moved around me quickly further into the church. I found myself shaking hands with the people who had come up behind them, but I couldn’t have recalled one of their faces or what they said later. All I could think about was that Maddy had a daughter. A daughter who looked to be about eight years old. That could only mean one thing.

  My mind refused to accept that simple truth, though. She wouldn’t keep something like that from me. The pretty little girl who was wrapped up in her arms couldn’t possibly be my daughter.

  I felt as if the ground was shifting underneath me just as I found the pastor at my elbow saying something about the ceremony being ready to start. I watched as Maddy pushed the little girl back toward her father. She appeared to be having words with her mother. I could tell by the look on her face that she was angry. She wasn’t the only one.

  I passed her as I made my way up to the front pew. She followed me. I motioned for her to move into it in front of me, and then I sat down next to her.

  The service was a blur. I was one of the pallbearers along with a couple of my father’s buddies from high school. It had been somewhat of an amazement to me that my father still had any friends at all. But the good thing about this was that it meant that I left the church before everyone else as we carried the casket out to the hearse that would take us to the cemetery.

  I got into my car to follow it, and Maddy got in next to me. I tried to focus on the road, but it was impossible as the silence stretched out between us. I couldn’t let it continue any longer.

  “You never mentioned you had a daughter,” I said. There were so many other questions that I had for her, but this seemed to be the safest place to start.

  “Yes. Her name is Scarlet,” she said.

  “So I gathered when I introduced myself to her,” I said. I still didn’t quite trust myself to look at her.

  “What is it that you want to ask me, Shane?” she said. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that she stared straight ahead out the windshield. I couldn’t get a read on her expression at all.

  “I can’t deal with this right now,” I said. My hands tightened on the wheel until my knuckles were white. I felt the surge of anger inside of me again. “After this is over, you and I are going to have a talk. And you are going to tell me everything.”

  She nodded slowly. We still didn’t look at each other, and we
rode the rest of the way to the cemetery in silence.

  As I stood next to the gaping hole in the earth, I thought about what it meant to be a father. That idea was so foreign to me, and I hadn’t had the best role model in the world. Still, he had been my father. I watched as they lowered the casket into the earth listening to the monotone voice of the pastor as he said the last words that sent my father someplace else in the universe.

  I felt a heaving in my chest. When I felt Maddy’s hand on my arm, I shook it away. I didn’t trust her anymore. Something had changed between us when I had looked into that little girl’s eyes. Something that was entirely unexpected, but something that I knew had shaken me to the very core of my being.

  I wasn’t going to let her touch me until we had had a conversation about what the hell was going on the little girl I had met.

  After the service was over, I turned to her. “Perhaps you should ride with your parents from here on out,” I said.

  I saw the stricken look on her face, but there was nothing but coldness inside of me. I couldn’t find it in myself to feel anything for her or her feelings at that moment. She nodded slowly. I turned and strode toward my car. I needed some quiet and peace, because I had a feeling my life had just been completely flipped upside down.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I spent the majority of the reception after the funeral avoiding Maddy and her parents like the plague. I felt the weight of Maddy’s gaze on me every so often. It would prickle the back of my shoulder blades. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck started to stand up. It felt as if every nerve in my body was electrified in some kind of way. I was hyper aware of her, but even more so of the little girl that I couldn’t help but watch as she moved about the room.

  Scarlet Thompson appeared to have the social skills of a butterfly. She flitted from group to group, and I watched as each group lit up from the inside when she approached. She seemed to know everyone in town, and this was what told me I would have known sooner about this particular secret if I had bothered coming back to Rosewood to visit. But I didn’t think that I had left anything behind. Turns out that joke was on me. I had apparently left something very important behind. I couldn’t help but wonder if everyone in the room knew the truth except for me.

  I was absently talking to one of my old high school teachers when I felt a small tug on the sleeve of my suit coat. I looked down to see Scarlet gazing up at me. For a moment, I felt as if my heart had stopped. I knew that I was looking into the face of a person that, amazingly, I instantly loved.

  I hunched over and thought about what I would even say. The entire dynamic of my life was changed now.

  “I’m supposed to say that I’m sorry for your loss,” she said solemnly to me.

  “Thank you,” I said hesitantly. I had no idea how to have a conversation with her knowing who she was to me, and it was almost as if the little girl sensed my awkwardness because she continued on.

  “You must be really sad,” she said. She slowly swung back and forth causing the hem of her dress to move like a fabric bell. She was so beautiful. It made my heart clench to think that somehow, someway, I had a hand in creating this lovely creature. The thought was earthshattering.

  “I am sad,” I said. I was sad for far more reasons that I had even known existed that morning. I watched as she pulled her lower lip into her mouth, and it appeared as if she was hesitating as to what she was going to say next. It was a habit that I knew she got from her mother. Maddy did the same thing whenever she was reluctant to say something.

  “I don’t know who my daddy is,” she said. “That makes me sad.”

  I felt the rush of anger then. She didn’t know who her daddy was because her mommy had decided not to tell her. Her mommy had decided not to tell her daddy that she existed either. How could someone do that to someone else? The betrayal cut so deep it felt hard for me to breathe.

  At if I had conjured her up, Maddy appeared behind Scarlet. She put her hands a little girl’s shoulders and turned her toward her. “Scarlet, honey, I’m sure Shane is busy right now. Why don’t you go back to Grandma and Grandpa?”

  I didn’t want her to leave, but I didn’t know what else I could say to her. Was I supposed to be the one to tell her that I was her dad? I didn’t know the protocol. So instead, I watched as she drifted away back over to the Thompsons.

  “Shane, we should talk,” Maddy said. Her voice was low and strained.

  “A conversation that I think should have been had a long time ago,” I said. It was difficult to keep the snarl out of my voice. “Your timing sucks, Madeline. Surely, you can wait until after my father’s wake is over.”

  The expression on her face was if I had struck her, especially when I used her full name. That was good. I wanted her to feel some pain. Because maybe then she would begin to start to understand the pain that I felt in knowing that I had a daughter.

  I had a daughter.

  This idea just didn’t even comprehend in my world. The idea that I could be someone’s father. I was far from a role model for ideal parental behavior, but I thought that I would have to be better at the job than my dad. Hadn’t I learned everything that I didn’t want to be from him? But I had missed so much. Clearly, Scarlet was already in elementary school. She was turning into a young woman already, and I had missed everything.

  The idea of having a child had never really occurred to me. It wasn’t something that I ever considered because I never had any kind of relationship with a woman that would have brought the idea into question. The only woman that I probably ever would have considered it with was Maddy because of the depths of my feelings for her back then. The irony of it all wasn’t lost on me.

  “Of course,” she said. “I suppose I should stay with my parents tonight.”

  “I think that would be best,” I said. I spun on my heel and walked away from her again. This betrayal was far too deep to be something that I could just let go after a few hours. Madeleine was going to have to be the one to wait for me now.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Everything had gone to hell. I was furious with my mother for bringing Scarlet to the funeral. My mother had tried to explain herself to me several times, but I cut off every attempt. The last time, I got a warning and a snappish response from my father to let her finish, but I cut him off too. Poor Scarlet had no idea what was going on between the adults around her. She had watched us like someone watching a tennis match as we spoke in low hushed tones between us at the funeral reception.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” I said under my breath to my mother for what seemed like the tenth time. At this point, it was more of a rhetorical question. In my opinion, she hadn’t been thinking. Or if she had, it was about nothing but pushing her own meddling agenda.

  “I thought that we could sit in the back, and he would never know we were here,” my mother said. “I didn’t expect him to be right inside the door when we arrived. What were we supposed to do? Ignore him?”

  I started to say something else, but Scarlet tugged on my sleeve. “How much longer are we staying, Mommy?”

  I had expected to be at the funeral reception for the duration so that I could be there for Shane, but it was clear by the murderous look on his face that he wanted nothing to do with me. I felt like I was going to explode and cry all the same time. This was the worst case scenario in anything I had ever considered; Shane finding out before I had a chance to tell him. And the one who had thrown me under the bus had been my own mother.

  I should have expected her to do something like this. She had agreed far too easily when I asked her to stay in D.C. and watch Scarlet. It had been obvious that she wanted to come home and go to the funeral with my father. I never in a million years dreamed that she would have brought Scarlet to the funeral, though, without clearing it with me first.

  We rode in silence all the way home. I sent Scarlet up to my old room to get ready for bed.

  As soon as I was alone with my mother, I whirled on her. �
��You have ruined everything for me!”

  “I’m sorry, Maddy. I didn’t mean for him to find out like that,” my mother said sounding contrite.

  “I never even had a chance to explain. He knew. He knew as soon as he saw her. He’s not stupid. He could’ve done the math in his head and figured it out, not to mention she ran right to me calling ‘mommy’ in the church. Besides, what did you expect her to do when she saw me there? This isn’t her fault. This is your fault.” My anger knew no bounds.

  “You’re being rather harsh to your mother,” my father said as he entered the room. He had a glass of whiskey in his hand. “She wasn’t trying to do any harm, Maddy. She had the best of intentions.”

  “It might not have been her intention, but nonetheless, that is what happened!” I didn’t understand what thought process occurred to my parents that made them think that bringing my daughter to the funeral of her unknown grandfather would be a good idea.

  “I think that you should take a walk or something until you cool down, and you can have a conversation like a logical person. It won’t do for you to continue yelling at your mother right now, and there’s a good chance that your daughter will hear you. She knows that something is going on, Maddy. It’s high time that you quit trying to keep the truth from her. It was inevitable that it would come out, and we all knew it.”

  “But it should have been my choice,” I said as I felt the bile rise in my throat. I felt ill, and I couldn’t say anything else. I knew that whatever words came out of my mouth were going to be dripping with a kind of venom, and I wouldn’t be able to take them back. I left the house and slammed the door behind me. As I started to trudge down the stairs, I saw the large shadow of a form detach itself from the big oak tree in the front yard and start my direction.