34. Odin
CHAPTER 34
ODIN
A few hours later, all three of my brothers showed up to retrieve me. I didn’t even call them, but since they arrived in my car, I guess Thora had already seen them and gone.
“Hey, man,” Gunny says, sinking into the couch beside me. I don’t even have the television on. I’m just staring into the fireplace, trying to figure out where I went so wrong. Thora thinks I pity her, but the opposite is true. I revere her. I find her to be extraordinary.
That feels like a bougie word, but it’s the best I can think of. And I’ve spent hours just sitting here thinking about it.
I grunt at my brothers as the twins squeeze in on my other side.
Gunnar stretches and puts an arm around my shoulder. “Sooooo Thora stopped by…looked pretty pissed.”
I nod and cross my arms. Alder and Tucker trade farts, probably trying to get a reaction from me, but I’m used to their antics.
Gunnar sighs. “We wanted to talk to you, actually. And since you weren’t with Thora and you don’t really leave the house, we tracked your phone. ”
Tucker nods. “Did you know I always know where you are, bro?”
I shrug, still not looking over at him and Alder. I’m sure Dad has our whole family tracked just in case, but I don’t say so.
Gunny sighs. “We’ve been thinking about you and your bum leg, man. And our careers.”
I frown and spare a glance at my brother. “What do you mean?”
He retracts his arm and pats my thigh. “You know hockey is different from football. I signed with the Fury two years ago.”
“I know that.” I still think it’s weird that hockey drafts guys while they’re still in college and waits around for them to finish before they start with the pros. And then it occurs to me that I think that’s weird because guys can get injured. Seriously injured. Like me. “What are you saying?”
Gunny nods. “I’m leaving school.” He points to the twins. “We all are. The twins got drafted in January. We don’t want…” He drifts off without saying we don’t want to wind up like you.
I pinch my lips together.
Alder winces. “We just…want at least a million bucks if we’re going to get hurt anyway.”
Tucker grunts. “Maybe you’re only getting a million.”
They start to argue about who is getting the better offer, and I hop up to my foot and extract myself from the couch.
“Odin, wait.” Gunnar looks serious. “We wanted you to know that, like, this isn’t all in vain. Or whatever.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. “Gee. Thanks. Can you take me home now?”
Alder grunts, and I stare at him. “Mom said to drop you at the boathouse.”
They start to walk toward the door of the ski house. Tucker asks, “Do you need to do anything? Burn the sheets? Scour the countertops?”
“I stripped the bed, jagoff.” I pull the door shut behind me, and Alder types in the code to lock up.
“What the hell am I going to do at the boathouse?” I climb into the back seat of my own car. Tucker drives, and Alder sits up front with him. I don’t want to interrupt their twin vibe. They’re lucky they got drafted to the same team, so they can stay joined at the brain.
They’re just all-around lucky… unlike me.
Gunny sings along to the radio for a few bars and then says, “I’m assuming you’ll explain to Mom how you fucked up with Thora. Or maybe she’ll make you work out with her. I don’t know, man. I’m just following orders.”
It’s a weird, fast drive back into the city. I fall asleep for half of it and wake up with my face pressed against the window as my brother pulls off the highway onto the bridge toward Washington’s Landing, where Mom keeps her fancy boats.
She used to take all of us out with her. Now, she mostly rows alone. But she’s waiting in the parking lot as my brother rolls to a stop. I leave my bag in the car and grab my scooter from the back as the guys wave to Mom, who blows them kisses and then turns to me with a weird smile. “Come see what I have for you.”
She heads down the ramp from the parking lot to the boat house, and I follow her, trying not to let the scooter roll away from me on the slope. Mom gestures at a boat propped on slings in the middle of the room. “Ta-da!”
I furrow my brow. “It’s a boat.”
She grins. “It’s an adaptive rowing boat! I talked to your trainer and?—”
“Mom, they’re not supposed to just talk to you. What the hell? Don’t I have privacy or something? ”
She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t discuss your particular situation. I asked what sort of rowing someone might try after an Achilles repair. This boat has a regular seat for me, and I set one up for you with just one foot pad. We’ll each use two oars…”
I tune out as she babbles about how we will both hop in the river and splash our way around the island ten or twenty times. I don’t bother to point out that I can’t help her carry the boat to the dock, but she surprises me by unlocking little wheels on the boat slings. She’s whistling her way down the ramp before I can respond, and she hoists the boat into the water on her own, reminding me that my mom is still jacked.
I scratch my chin and stare as she sets the oars up near the boat. “How will I get in? This is all awkward…”
Mom braces herself on the dock and tells me to squat low and take her hand. I do and step into the boat with my good leg, which is not the leg closest to the water. “You couldn’t set up the boat in the other direction?” I grumble and clench my core as the boat rocks.
Mom steadies it with one foot. “Just sit down, kid.”
I lower my butt into the seat, acknowledging that this is already a fantastic workout just climbing aboard. Mom is in her element in the seat behind me. “All right, O. Grab your oars. You remember. Yes, now strap your left foot to the boards. I set the footpad as big as it goes. I hope it works okay for your monster feet.”
I grunt at her and get myself situated. I haven’t rowed with her for a long time, but we sometimes do the rowing machine for workouts with football, and I’m sure my technique is still good. Mom pushes us off the dock, and when I glance over my shoulder, she’s pretty much just holding the boat steady while I do all the work. She grins at me. “Doesn’t the burn feel good, baby? Do you miss it?”
I glower at her because she’s right. This feels amazing. My work at physical therapy has been very focused on small movements for my ankle. Then, I’m sometimes allowed to do seated upper body workouts, and if I’m very, very polite, Prachi lets me do one-legged squats.
But this is grabbing every part of my body except my right leg. I feel the movements in my hips. I feel my whole back working the oars in the river, and when I lean back, I feel the sun on my face as I dig in, which gets us going a little faster. “All right,” I admit. “This is nice.”
Mom chuckles and starts bossing me around like she’s the coxswain. She must have already worked out today because otherwise, I don’t think she’d be able to stand just sitting there holding her oars out of the way. We make a full lap around the island before she joins in, confident I’m not going to tip the boat with my uneven pressure.
We do two more laps before she calls it, and we approach the dock. There, we do the whole dance in reverse to get me out of the boat and the boat back up on the slings.
I lean heavily on my knee roller as I follow her. “That was pretty good, Mom. I’m sorry I was a jerk about it.”
She smiles. “Just wait until you can walk on that cast. One of the guys from the masters team is an orthopedic surgeon. He thinks you could be rowing fully, regularly, by October.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek. I haven’t let myself think about October or anything beyond finishing my spring semester classes. Even that’s new for me ever since my body broke.
“Mom, October is…I don’t even know where I’ll be living in August.”
She beckons me to follow her to her car and helps me get my scooter in the back seat. Once we’re both buckled inside, she turns on the air and says, “I was thinking about that, too. I know how much you love team sports. Did you know they have a crew team at Oxford? ”
My eyes fly wide. “Mom, what did you do?” Thora’s already furious with me for helping her fly to England. She will murder me if I show up there on the crew team. “I can’t just enroll at Oxford. I didn’t even finish college.”
Mom waves a hand and puts the car in gear, heading back toward the bridge to the highway. “You’ll finish your classes in a few weeks. Did you know the dean of admissions at Oxford was an Olympic rower, too?” I snort at my mother, who apparently has a PhD in meddling. Mom nods. “She’s a little younger than me, but we’re on the same online forums.”
“Mom. You are insane. I can’t just move to England and row boats now that I’m done playing football.”
She scoffs like I’m the one being ridiculous. “Why not? You love team sports. You’re an accomplished athlete. And you need a little time to figure out your next steps in the world. What’s the harm in a little master’s degree?”
“Okay,” I pat her hand. “Let’s pretend this idea isn’t utterly ridiculous. Why Oxford? Why aren’t you sending me to your old stomping grounds in Boston or something?”
She rolls her eyes, absolutely fed up with my apparent stupidity. “Two reasons, kid. First, you can compete for your university as a graduate student in the UK. Second, you can go win back your girl!”
Like it’s so easy. Like she’d ever consider being mine. But Mom’s idea does rekindle the curiosity Wyatt set off about a career in sports psychology. Who better to step into that role than someone who has walked that walk?
Mom drops me off at my apartment, where Wyatt’s room is totally empty, Gunnar is half packed, and I realize that I’m powerless against the river of change flowing through my life.
Maybe my mom’s idea isn’t so ridiculous. It certainly beats living in my parents’ basement while I figure out what comes next for me. Oxford is a big place. If Thora tells me to go pound sand, our paths don’t need to cross. And I can get to some of Wyatt’s games while I’m over there figuring out how to walk again.
I text Thora that I’m sorry, I’m here if she’s willing to talk, and I lock myself in my room to scrape together a passing set of grades for the semester that just ended.