Chapter 10
ANNIE – MID-SEPTEMBER
Massively Unattainable
Daddy, Nelson and I are set up in the lounge with Monday night football snacks – Daddy has a beer and me a mug of hot chocolate. I haven’t dared have an alcoholic drink since Nelson was born.
I never knew I was a worrier before having a baby but now I overthink everything.
Is he breathing if I can’t hear him? Is his heart beating if I can’t see it?
Do I do things the right way or the best way for him?
Do I spend enough time with him? Am I, me alone, enough for him?
Is he going to grow up lopsided without a daddy?
I’m lying on my tummy on the rug in front of the television, rolling sensory balls Nelson’s way and watching his face light up multicolor as the toys flash.
I have moments of clarity, where I know he has a good life.
A beautiful life out here on the ranch. Then others where I doubt every decision I’ve ever made.
When I wonder what I did so wrong to make Auston not want to stay.
The thing is, I’m only human, and as much as I’m not a woman in the market for a man or interested remotely in introducing anyone new to Nelson’s life, there’s nothing I can do about the hormones I am biologically preprogrammed with.
So when the broadcast shows clips of the Bears arriving at the stadium in Florida and Tanner looking sharp in a dark tailored suit, white shirt unbuttoned at the neck, shoulder pads accentuating his broad shoulders and the cut displaying his very fine hind and thighs, I forget how to roll a ball along the rug.
He’s wearing a different pair of sunglasses to the ones he wears when he takes me out driving. A flashier pair. He looks like the guy I’ve read about – the one who dates models and plays golf with Grammy award winners. Wholly hot. Massively unattainable.
And boy have I learned my lesson about trying to be the girl who breaks the mold.
I come to sit, back to the sofa and legs spread with Nelson between them as the Bears line up in the tunnel. They don’t get the flashy pyrotechnics to run out at an away game but it’s a sellout crowd and in our lounge, all three of us are rooting for my brother, and Tanner.
It’s bizarre watching them through the screen, untouchable, when they’re family and friends at the ranch.
It’s always been a trip to see my brother’s fame but I also know how hard he’s worked for it.
I’m proud of him, even while feeling like the lesser sibling sometimes.
But watching Tanner feels different to that, as if I’m viewing an entirely different version of him than I see in real life, where he’s the guy with a famous sister, the man who gives me driving lessons and feeds my kid s’mores on the sly.
“Go, Bears,” I say, clapping my hands, which Nelson follows.
Jacksonville starts with possession and earns three quick first downs before the Bears’ cornerback, Trent Daniels, intercepts a deep pass.
“Let’s go, boys,” Daddy says, shuffling to the edge of his seat as our offense comes onto the field.
On the Bears’ first drive, our running back makes twenty yards and a new set of downs. Then we see the kind of play I have to wonder is even in the rule book.
Lamar throws a questionable pass that Tanner somehow manages to take hold of.
The angle knocks him off balance and he looks as if he’s going to ground but remarkably, stays on his feet and pushes across the field through the defense, then he flicks the ball through his legs, under his body, and I have no idea how but that ball winds up in my brother’s hands, who rushes it right into the end zone.
As Daddy, Nelson and I are jumping around our lounge, on screen Colton is mauled by his teammates. When everything settles, he and Tanner are helmet to helmet, presumably congratulating each other on making up their own play book.
At home, we all settle onto the sofa and my phone starts to vibrate. Assuming it’s Sas messaging from the family zone in Florida, I pick it up. But the name on the screen makes the room spin, as if I’m having an out of body experience.
Auston
Can we talk?
I shoot my gaze to Daddy but if he’s seen the name on my screen, he has the good grace to pretend he hasn’t.
If this was anyone else – though unlikely, since hardly anyone messages me these days – I might call them straight away.
In times gone by, I would have snuck out of the room and found a quiet spot to call Auston.
But I’m staring at my phone like it’s growing a disease.
I’ve been staring at it for long enough that I miss the Bears’ next touchdown that makes them 13–0.
I have such a delayed reaction that Daddy is giving me a look like what’s up with you? So I clench my fist and tell him, “Go, Bears!”
Then I decide that I am entitled to have some fire in my belly, too, and for once, I’m not going to let Auston dictate how things go or shy away from him.
Me
I’m watching the Bears. You can call me after the game or tomorrow around eleven.
No hurt, no animosity, no feeling. Because the only reason I’m replying at all is for Nelson’s sake.
Yet I don’t manage to get back into the game and when I settle Nelson into his crib at halftime, I ask him, “What does your daddy want from us, huh?”
Nelson snores in response and that tiny little noise calms my nerves a smidge because he’s content. With or without Auston in his life, I simply want my baby to be happy.
The Bears’ defense works hard in the third and fourth quarters and Lamar too often gives over possession, but remarkably, we secure a narrow win.
“A win’s a win,” Daddy says, grunting as he pushes up to stand. “Bedtime.”
“I’ll follow you up, I’m going to get a drink first,” I lie, already hating that I am, once again, keeping secrets with Auston.
Daddy kisses my brow and tells me to sleep well before heading on upstairs, while I make my way out to the porch. Auston’s name lights up my phone.
I answer but my throat is suddenly so tight that I can’t speak. I hate myself for reacting to him with anything other than disinterest.
“Annie? Are you there?”
And I hate the way the sound of my name on his lips makes me feel like my heart is in my mouth.
Somehow, I find the strength to ask, “What do you want, Auston?”
A second feels like eternity… “How are you?”
Auston has this quality to his voice – a rasp, a low, gravelly husk, and I’ve always found it insanely sexy.
The very first time he came home from college with Colton for spring break, he was a sophomore and I was a high school freshman, and by comparison to the boys at school, Auston was bigger and older. He looked it and he sounded it.
From that very first day I laid eyes on him, I crushed so hard it was distracting.
The reason I know I’m wiser now is that my pulse rate might have soared but I am fueled by rage instead of romance. “How am I?”
I want to yell at him, Tired. I’m fucking tired, Auston, because I’m raising our baby alone.
My mama has died and I’m doing my best to support her legacy.
I’m back at school so that one day I can look Nelson in the eye and tell him I did that, I got us the life we deserve, and I am a smart woman who has learned from her mistakes.
“You’ve ghosted me for a year and a half, while I’ve had our child, and you want to know how I am? Well, I’m fine, Auston. So is Nelson. If that’s the only reason you called, frankly, you can go fuck yourself.”
Okay, maybe I could have been more grown up but gosh darn that felt good. My mama was a saintly woman and I don’t even think she would be mad at me for cursing in the circumstances.
“I deserve that.” He sighs. Both his reaction and his words surprise me. But neither more than him saying, “I’d like to meet Nelson.”
“Why?” My voice breaks but I recover. “Because you’ve been booed by even the Archers’ home fans for the first two games of the season and now suddenly you decide to be a better man?”
I’m a bull being provoked by a matador. Nelson has brought out a fighter in me that didn’t exist before him. A fierce need to protect him.
“No. Because I’m his daddy.”
“Na-ah. That is a badge of honor bequeathed on a man who has earned it. You may be his father but you don’t get to call yourself a daddy to a baby you’ve never even laid eyes on.”
“So let me. Please. I’m asking, not telling. It’s your call. But I’d like to see him, Annie. I’d like to meet my son.”
That feistiness I feel starts stoking the backs of my eyes like they’re fire. “When?”
“I’m on a season schedule, so I thought you could bring him to St Louis. You could stay with me—”
“Wait while I consult my book of reasons to make life easier for you.” I roll my shoulders back on the porch, hearing literal and proverbial crickets.
“No, Auston. We don’t owe you anything. This is on you.
I won’t stand in the way of you meeting Nelson.
But if you can’t make the effort to come see him yourself, that tells me everything I need to know about whether you deserve to. ”
“I only have one day off a week, Annie.”
“Then use it. It’s late, Auston, and while I’d like to help you work through your emotional turmoil, I’ll be woken up by a baby in a matter of hours, so I’m going to bed. Let me know what you figure out.”
“Annie, wait—”
I hang up and put the phone down on the porch rail, bracing myself as I drag the night’s air into my lungs.
Of course I’m too wired to sleep as I lie in the dark silence of my bedroom.
Though I never want to waste another moment on him, Auston is spinning through my head.
I ask myself repeatedly, am I doing the right thing by my son?
Should I make the effort for his sake? Am I putting Auston to the test for Nelson’s sake alone? God, I hope so.