Chapter 14 #2
I slow, then stop, hands on hips, breathing hard, staring at nothing. The city keeps going around me. Nobody stops because a footballer is having an existential crisis on the sidewalk.
My wife is wonderful. We're expecting our first child. I still have lucrative endorsement contracts. Str1kecast Sports dangled a big payout in my face and I took it. Nothing about my current circumstances screams sadness.
So why am I so sad?
I turn back.
By the time I get home, my leg is heavy and my chest is hollow. I shower, hoping to wash off the sadness. It doesn't work. I eat something I barely taste. I stare at my phone.
Amy: How'd it go? I'm between meetings. Call when you can
I type back: Call tonight. I love you
I'm not dropping this on her in a text. I'm not letting her read about my sad life-ender alone in a Chicago hotel room.
Mum and Da are on one screen in Scotland, sitting together like they're about to judge a competition. Da looks tired, older than he used to, and that makes something in me even sadder.
Amy is on her phone in a hotel room, hair down, face clean and pink from scrubbing. She's wearing one of my T-shirts. Seeing that shirt in Chicago hits me harder than the medical news.
She smiles when she sees me, but I can tell she's bracing.
"You okay?" she asks.
"Aye," I lie.
"Right," Mum says briskly. "Tell us."
"Son," Da says in a gentler voice, "go on."
"Str1kecast has confirmed the schedule," I say. "They want me in the studio in June."
Amy's eyes flicker. A month before the baby's due.
She knew this already, but it doesn't help.
She swallows, then stays steady. Her belly's nice and firm now, rounder at week twenty-two.
It's April and Easter's next week. I've been informed that there'd better be some Cadbury eggs in the house when she returns, and damned if there won't be.
"June." Mum's eyes narrow. "And what about returning to the pitch?"
"I signed the contract before I went to the ortho, Mum. Ye ken that."
"Aye, but ye didna ken about your knee then. And now ye're giving up!"
"I'm no' giving up. I'm accepting reality. The doctor says elite performance is a long shot."
"Ye're entire career was a long shot!"
"One hit, Mum, and ma knee is unusable. One bad hit and I lose permanent function. The odds are no' - "
"Listen ta ye! Odds and acceptin' reality and losing - ye're speaking like a bampot who's given up before ye even gave it a go."
"Nay, I'm a man," I say softly, firmly, "who has conflicting responsibilities. Who needs ta look at the big picture."
"So ye've accepted it," Mum says, sharp and mocking. "You've chosen to sit on yer arse in a studio and talk while real men work hard and play."
Amy's eyebrows climb to her hairline.
"It's about what's realistic now," I say carefully. "Dr. Jelshi's clear. Elite play this season is no' happening. And long term is a long shot - "
"Long shot is not no' shot. Ye can work harder. Ye're no' trying enough. What're ye doin', Hamish? I've never seen ye just roll over like this. It's bloody disappointing."
Pain seizes my chest.
Amy's face goes calm. Adrenaline shoots through me, making it hard to breathe, because her expression isn't really serene.
It's the eye of the storm.
"Hamish working harder isn't the issue," Amy says.
"His knee healed. He did everything right.
The issue is what his body can safely do now, and whether the risk of world-class-level play is worth destroying it forever with one more hit.
His health comes first. Our baby comes first. Our life comes first."
Mum turns on Amy like a switch flipped.
"And who the hell are ye to decide that?"
"I am his wife." Amy doesn't flinch. "The mother of his child. And I'm the one who has to live with the consequences if he wrecks his knee again because you keep telling him he's a failure for something he couldn't control."
Da's eyebrows lift, impressed.
"Fergus!" Mum exclaims. "Have ye naught ta say about this?"
"Aye." Da nods once.
"Well?"
"She's right," he says simply.
"Fergus!"
"I said what I said. The boy's done enough. Let him have a future."
"But he's giving up!"
"Fiona," Da says sternly. "Enough."
Mum's face shifts. Anger, fear, and something raw are under the steel. Da's drawing a firm line and doing it in front of Amy and me.
But Mum does not give up that easily.
"Fine," she says, stiff. "Then the bairn will carry the family flame."
Amy's lips press together. My phone buzzes with a private message from her: I love you. Also I want to light a boat on fire with Fiona on it to honor your family's Viking blood
A laugh threatens but I swallow it.
"We support ye, son." Da speaks again. "We're so proud of all ye've accomplished. No' many men can go from pitch ta telly, and ye're doing it. Ye just keep going and going and going. It's a marvel ma spunk generated such a force o' nature."
"FERGUS!"
"Oh, aye, and yer egg helped, too, Fiona," Da adds genially.
Mum holds her head in her hands, moaning something about hadn't she been punished enough, God?
"Mum," I venture, the words bloody disappointing running laps inside my head. "Ye dinna need ta agree wi' ma choices. Like the wedding, ye're just going ta have ta accept that I'm ma own man and I do things the way I want, because it's ma life. Mine. Mine and Amy's."
"Drive the knife deeper in ma ribs, woncha, son?" she wails, Da patting her back like she's an unstable porcupine.
Da reaches for the keyboard and clumsily one-fingers his way through a chat message:
Yer fine. Fionas havin a spell. give it time.
"It's late here, so we're signin' off," Da says as if he didn't type the message. Da and Mum disappear.
"That went well," Amy says, just the two of us now.
"I didna see Da's reaction coming."
"I thought he was great. Fergus has a spine."
"Aye. Just... never heard that about me, and success, and pride. It felt like an elegy fer ma career in the game."
Amy's phone buzzes and she checks it, then makes a face.
"UGH! Emergency in Phuket. I—can I call you in an hour?"
"Go. I unnerstand."
The screen goes dark.
The condo is quiet, too quiet. I realize, sudden and sharp, that I have not slept alone in a long time.
Even when Amy falls asleep before I do, she's here. A warm presence, a breathing reminder that I'm not just a body built for sport.
But tonight, she's in Chicago.
I climb into bed and the sheets feel wrong, too cool, too smooth. The empty space beside me looks enormous, like the bed doubled in size just to mock me.
I get up, shower again, hoping the hot water will loosen my shoulders, which are currently touching my earlobes. It doesn't. I pull on joggers and a T-shirt, look at the clock - it's been an hour. I grab my phone and call Amy.
She answers on the second ring, hair damp now, eyes soft.
"Hey," she says. "How are you really?"
I try to speak and my voice catches.
"Hamish," she says gently. "Talk to me."
"I dinna want ta sleep alone," I admit, and it feels ridiculous and small.
"Do you want me to stay on the call?"
"Aye," I say immediately. "Just... stay. If ye can."
"I can. Of course I can."
I set the phone on the nightstand, angled so I can see her. She props hers up, too, and now we're two rectangles of light connected across a thousand miles.
We talk quietly.
I tell her the truth. Not the medical language, but how it feels. A kind of grief. The strange mix of relief and guilt.
She tells me she's proud of me. She tells me she loves me. She tells me the baby kicked today and she wished my hand was there.
My chest aches, but loosens a bit.
"Ye're ma home," I say, voice thick.
"And you're mine," she answers, eyes shining.
The heaviness is still there, but it's shared now, spread across two hearts instead of being alone in mine.
"I'm here," she whispers.
I watch her face on the screen until my eyelids get heavy.
"I'm no' asleep yet," I murmur.
"I know," she says softly. "I'll always be here."
I let myself drift with her there, my love for her and the bairn bigger than the sport that used to be my whole world.