Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Gabe
My family had continued to stay in the apartment downstairs from me, the one I’d kept for them.
No one was ready to go back to the family house yet.
The apartment was a place where we could all be together without being overwhelmed.
Though we still had memories here. We’d had a lot of family gatherings there in the large dining room, my mother had cooked in the big old-fashioned kitchen.
I’d planned to renovate it, but she wouldn’t have it, said she liked it the way it was.
It had a big stove and a big refrigerator and a dishwasher and that was all that mattered.
She didn’t care that it had a battered Formica countertop and worn linoleum tile flooring.
It was clean and functional. She’d called it her home away from home.
I stepped inside the downstairs apartment on Saturday morning after the funeral and everything was in place except her. My chest clenched in pain. The empty kitchen made me dizzy with the ache of longing.
But my dad appeared at the other end of the quiet room and his drawn face and sad swollen eyes made me stiffen my spine.
I went to him and gave him a hug. We’d been relatively numb the night before, especially after doing shots.
When my sisters finally chased the last of the visitors away, we’d all collapsed into our respective beds.
Joe was still upstairs in my guest bedroom and the others were down here in the three bedrooms.
Dad slapped my back once signaling the hug was over and we backed away.
“The others are in the living room. We’re going to leave now. I’m going . . . home.” His voice cracked.
“You sure, Dad? You don’t have to. You can stay here awhile—upstairs with me.”
He smiled, gave a sad chuckle. “Last thing you need is your old man hanging around your bachelor pad, son.”
“It would be fun. At least for a while.” I meant it, wanted him to stay, to hang onto him.
He shook his head. “No. You have some cleaning up to do, need to put your love life in order. Marie told me you had girl troubles.” He gave me a pensive look.
“She loved you very much. Told me it gave her great pleasure to know you’d found someone special, someone truly special.
Someone more special than football. She was convinced of it. ”
I nodded, too choked to speak. My chest too tight to breathe, the searing heat of my mother’s loss burning me up, mingling with my need for Mia. Mia. I wanted to bury myself in her now, lose my sorrow in lovemaking.
How was that any different than losing my sorrow in football? I didn’t know, but I knew it was. Better.
Joe came in the door then.
“How is everyone?” he said, walking up to me and Dad and putting an arm around each of us. He’d grown more serious than sad, taking on the mantle of the older brother like I’d never seen before.
Neither of us answered. It had been a rhetorical question.
“Dad says he wants to go home,” I said.
Joe nodded. “I’ll stay with him.” Dad started to protest, but Joe would have none of it.
“What? You want me to grieve alone, Dad?”
He finally relented. Joe looked at me.
“You gonna be all right? You playing next Sunday?”
“Yes.” Of course I was. Why wouldn’t I when I’d already played a game, continued to play football without missing a practice, as if nothing had happened?
“Maybe you ought to call that girl, what’s her name?”
“Denise?” I said, testing him.
He scowled. The old Joe from two days ago would have laughed, or slapped me on the side of the head.
“No. Mia.” Both he and Dad looked at me, waiting for the answer, expecting the right answer or I’d be in for it. A lecture at least, possibly shouting and swearing at what a fool I was. I’d seen it all before. Usually aimed at Joe. Not at me since before I met Denise.
“I’ll call her,” I said. I had no idea when. But it couldn’t be before the game next Sunday. I had enough weighing me down without complicating things. Enough to keep my mind off, to clear away so I could focus on football. Once again. Still there like an old friend.
“Football isn’t forever, you know,” Joe said.
I’d never known him to be a mind-reader or a sage, at least not since high school.
He went off the rails in college best I could tell and had been a wild bachelor ever since.
I’d been too wrapped up in my own life and career to know the details.
He’d always seemed happy-go-lucky, thrilled with a life of sowing wild oats. But maybe not.
Football isn’t forever. The words bounced off my consciousness like I had an immunity. When I didn’t say anything, he punched my arm. The old Joe I knew and loved.
“I know. But it’s here and now and that’s why I need to focus on it.” Before it was gone.
He shook his head. “Fine. I’ll call her.”
“What?” All I saw was red. his words penetrated deep into my soul and if I hadn’t taken a second to process his words I would have ripped his head off, brother or no brother.
“Yeah. I’ll have her come over and check on you after we’re all gone so I don’t have to worry about you.”
He was taking up Dad’s role and I supposed it was all right because Dad wasn’t up to it, not now.
He’d aged ten years in the past few days.
He was far from an old man at sixty-two, but he seemed old now.
Mom had only been fifty-seven. I’d always thought she was in robust health, but the doctors said she had Arteriosclerosis for a while.
We’d set up a fund for donations to the American Heart Association for medical research. The team helped.
A lot had happened in two days. Too much.
“Do me a favor and wait until after next Sunday’s game.” It was another Sunday night game. A big one against our main rival. Our records were identical, four and one. This was the biggest game yet, maybe the biggest of our regular season. The team needed this win.
Joe nodded, clearly looking victorious. I suppose it was a victory for him. I had no idea why I thought waiting a week would make a difference, big game or not. There would be another game the week after that and she could mess with my head for that game, and the next one and so on.
Or she could help heal my heart, help fill in the hole left by the losses in my life.
Time to give that option a try. What did I have to lose? Besides football.