12. Declan
Declan
Do what makes you happy;
don't be afraid to color outside the lines.
~ Peggy Toney Horton
“It’s louder in here than in the Thunder stadium,” I shout to my sister.
She brought my nieces, Boston and Ariella, over to sign my cast since they have a late start to school today.
They’re currently running up and down the hallway shouting, “Echo!” “Echo!’ “Echo!” pausing to hear their voices ping back to them and then shouting it again.
“You’re welcome to host a sleepover anytime,” Maeve jokes.
“Would that include sleep?” I ask.
“They eventually wear themselves out. Or we corral them into bed for what I affectionately call the hour of questions.”
I chuckle.
“Girls!” I shout into the hallway.
They both appear in the doorway.
“What, Uncle Declan?” Ariella asks.
“Did you bring markers?”
“For the casp?” Boston asks.
“Cast,” Maeve corrects her.
“It has a T,” Ariella says, taking an authoritative tone with her younger sister.
I laugh to myself and then glance at Maeve. “Did I always have to have the final say?”
“Oh, are we soul searching while bedridden?” she teases. “You’re a natural born leader. You’ve never met a person you couldn’t teach or advise.”
Her words bring up the memory of Winona learning to throw—the way she leaned back into me.
I almost wrapped my arms around her to keep her there.
I don’t know the last time I’ve laughed as much as I do with her.
I can’t figure her out—or maybe it’s my feelings where she’s concerned that have me in knots.
Every morning, thoughts of Winona fill my head before she arrives.
And now that we’re down to four days a week of her coming over, the days she isn’t scheduled feel strangely empty.
It’s been three weeks of her filling my home with her quirky observations, straightforward approach, and unmatched kindness.
Three weeks, watching her move through my home, her blonde hair falling in waves down her back, bright blue eyes not missing a detail, her heart and attention fixed on me.
And in that short time, she’s managed to become the bright spot in my days.
The girls squeal.
“Ariella, you’re it!” Boston says.
They run past the archway leading into the family room, chasing one another down the hallway.
Maeve is staring at me, a questioning expression on her face.
“Yeah, well,” I run my hand through my hair. “Let’s get this signing going.”
“Good thinking,” Maeve says. “We’ve got to get to school.”
We call the girls into the room.
“I wanna draw a pig,” Boston says. “Like Peppa.”
“You can draw whatever you like,” I say.
Maeve’s eyes go wide like I just released the kraken with my lack of boundaries.
“I brought tape,” Maeve says, whipping a roll of painters tape out of her purse.
She goes to work, sectioning off two squares on my cast. “This is your space,” she tells Boston. “Stay in the lines.”
“Staying inside the lines is so overrated,” I say softly to my sister, thinking of Winona’s unorthodox approach to practically everything.
“Who are you?” Maeve asks me. “And what did you do with my brother?”
“I think I broke more than my ankle,” I say with a smile.
“Well … good,” she says, seeming to understand my unspoken confession.
Boston draws with her tongue popping out of her mouth, a focused look on her face that makes me smile. After she’s finished, she holds up the marker and then she runs me through her design.
“This is the pig. And she’s kissing your boo-boo. And this is B for Boston.”
“I love it,” I tell her. “Come up here and give your uncle a hug.”
Boston climbs onto my lap and snuggles in while Ariella takes the permanent marker from her mom and stares at her blank square. She looks practically distressed.
“Hey,” I say. “You can’t mess it up. I only wear this for six weeks. No matter what you draw, I’m going to look at it every day and think of you. And I’ll smile when I do.”
“I just want it to be perfect,” Ariella says.
“I know,” I tell her.
Man, do I know.
“What’s perfect is how much it matters to you,” I assure her. “But you can do anything. Look at Boston’s.”
Ariella looks at Boston’s doodle.
“It’s really perfect,” Boston says.
“Yep,” I agree, even though I can’t tell what any of it is except the letter B. “Perfect.”
“Make a beautiful mess,” I tell Ariella.
Maeve crosses her arms over her chest and stares down at me. I run my hand down Boston’s hair and she snuggles in, tucking her head under my chin.
“I don’t see you often enough,” I say, almost to myself.
“Everyone’s busy. We all are. Patrick, me, you.”
“Let’s do better,” I tell her.
“Okay,” she says, smiling.
“There,” Ariella says. “Done.”
She carefully caps the marker and hands it back to Maeve, and then she starts removing the tape from her space and Boston’s.
“What did you put there?” I ask, looking over the top of Boston’s head toward my cast.
“I drew you and me and Boston. And I wrote my name—in cursive. See?”
“I sure do. You have beautiful writing. I love it.”
“I love it too,” Boston says, tipping her head up and spontaneously kissing my chin. She wraps her little arms around me and gives me a squeeze. “I love you, Uncle Declan.”
“I love you, Boston.”
“Okay girls,” Maeve says. “Tell Uncle Declan goodbye.” She turns to me. “We’ll come by again soon.”
My phone pings. Maeve looks down at it.
“Winona’s here,” I tell her.
“Winona?” Maeve asks.
“She’s doing home health now. She’s my nurse’s aide.”
“Winona from storytime?” Ariella asks.
“Uh …” I don’t know any other Winona.
“Yes, sweetie,” Maeve says. “Winona from storytime.”
“Yippee!” Ariella says.
My sentiments exactly.
“Does she read you stories?” Boston asks.
“Not yet. Mostly she makes sure I’m getting better.”
“That’s so nice,” Ariella says.
The front door opens and Winona comes into the front room. “Oh. Hi. Maeve. How are you?”
The girls rush Winona and she extends her arms and crouches down, grabbing them and tugging them into her sides. They wrap their arms around her neck.
“I’m reading a chapter book,” Ariella tells Winona.
“Wow! That’s amazing. What one?”
“Magic Treehouse,” Ariella says.
“But I read Goodnight, Moon too,” Boston says.
Ariella leans into Winona and quietly says, “She memorized it.”
Winona laughs. “We all memorize before we actually read. It’s a good thing.”
She leans back, looking at Boston and then Ariella. “It’s so good to see you girls. I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“We didn’t know you would be here too,” Boston says.
Maeve tells Winona, “We were about to head out.” Then she asks me, “Do you need anything?”
“I’m just taking him to the practice facility,” Winona says.
“Oh,” Maeve says. “You didn’t have to come out just to drive Declan. I could take him.”
Winona and I answer her in unison. “It’s fine.”
Maeve looks between the two of us, and a coy smile spreads on her face. She stares at me intently. I don’t know if Winona picks up on Maeve’s intuition. But I know my sister.
She sees it—my inconvenient feelings for Winona. I never could hide from Maeve.
I send her a look that says, Stop looking at me like that in front of Winona. Or at least that’s what I hope it says.
Whether she reads me or not, she says, “Okay, girls. Load up. Time to get to school.”
“Good seeing you, Winona,” Maeve says as she herds her girls toward the door.
“You too!” Winona shouts after them.
Then she turns to me. “Ready to go?”
“Basically,” I tell her.
“I brought work to do while you’re in the gym and treatment. Is there a place I can hang out? I can just stay in the car if there’s not a spot inside.”
“Work?” I ask her. “And yes. We’ve got spaces you can use.”
“I’m addressing wedding invitations.”
“Winona for Hire.”
“At your service,” she does this rolling thing with her hand as she takes a bow like a performer at the end of a Broadway play.
She really has been at my service. That’s going to change. I’m not incapacitated anymore. I can do things for her too now.
The weather outside is cooler. A fall storm is blowing in. The branches of the trees along the road heading out to the facility are covered in leaves that are just starting to show their colors. The wind passes through them, making everything feel more alive.
“I love fall,” Winona says, glancing over at me. “What’s your favorite season?”
“Football season,” I say.
“That’s not a season, Mister Tight End.”
“It is in my world.”
She giggles lightly. “To us civilians, that season is known as fall.”
“And winter,” I tell her. “Football season runs from late August to early February if we’re lucky.”
“That’s half the year.”
“My favorite half,” I tell her.
“It was sweet to see Boston and Ariella this morning. I didn’t know they were coming over.”
“I didn’t realize they knew you.”
“Moss and Maple. I only work there one day a week now. And I hadn’t been going in while you needed me daily.”
“You stopped working because of me.”
“Daisy gave me three weeks off. She said your needs were more important. She’s got other part-timers and volunteers.”
I stare out the window at the wide grassland off to the side of the two-lane road. My chest fills with a slightly uncomfortable warmth. My sister-in-law made allowances for me. And I didn’t even know.
Football keeps me on the go. I live in a bubble, surrounded by other professional athletes, coaches and staff. I’ve let my family sit on a back burner.
Winona turns on the radio and starts singing along to an old Fleetwood Mac song.
She makes me want things.
“Come on, Declan. Sing with me,” she says between lines.
I could protest. But I don’t. I join in, softly, not belting it out like I do when I’m alone.
She smiles over at me and I press my palms into my thighs. The urge to reach out and run my hand down her cheek takes me by surprise. What would she do? Am I in this alone? If so, I need to reel it in and get a hold of myself.
We pull into the parking lot. Winona grabs my crutches and then she reaches into the back seat and grabs out a cardboard box.
“How many invitations are we talking?” I ask.
“Two hundred!” She groans. “It’s okay. I’m getting paid. And it’s helping the bride relax.”
“You’re a saint,” I say.
“Yeah. Saint Winona,” she says. “That’s me.”
I lead Winona to an empty office with a wide wooden desk and a high-back leather chair in the corner. She looks around the room, plops down on the floor and dumps the contents of the box in front of her.
“I work better when I sprawl out,” she says, looking up at me and then back down at the array of paper and pens scattered in front of her.
She hums to herself while making loosely piled stacks of envelopes, and then she grabs the sheets of paper with addresses.
The words slip out of me. “I love it.”
Her head snaps up, a questioning expression on her face.
“I love how you’re not bound by convention,” I clarify. “It’s refreshing.”
“I’m definitely not.”
“Well, I’d better get to it.”
“You know where to find me,” she says, waving her hands across the scattered cards.
“And you know where to find me. I’ll either be in the gym or the treatment room. They’re doing e-stim. I’ll come get you before I sit in on meetings with the coaches.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“If you need to leave, just text me. I can get a ride home.”
“I’ll be here, Declan. Now go work out. You’re getting flabby.”
She can’t even keep a straight face when she sees me flex in response to her faux criticism.
“See you in a few hours,” I say, shutting the door behind myself and propelling into the hallway with a smile that won’t quit.
“Hey, Dec!” Jaxon’s voice booms through the hall. He jogs over, leaning in to clap me on the back.
“How’s it goin’?” I ask him.
“Good. Are you on staff now?” he asks.
“What?”
“I saw you coming out of the empty office. Came to tell you you’re way too young for retirement.” He laughs.
“No. I was just getting Winona set up in there.”
“The nurse?”
“Nurse’s aide. Yeah.”
He smiles. “She’s cute.”
“No. She’s not. Not to you, she’s not.”
He laughs hard. “It’s like that, is it?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. She’s … different.”
“Oh, man. O’Connell. You caught feelings. Finally, man.”
“Finally? What are you talking about? You’re still single.”
“Yeah. But I’ve been in love before.”
“I’m not in love.”
“But you’re in something.” He wags his brows.
“She’s my home health aide.”
“So?”
“So … I don’t think that’s ethical. Is it?”
“She’s not going to be your aide for long. And besides, isn’t she friends with your brother’s wife?”
“Yeah. One more reason I can’t entertain feelings for her.”
“You don’t entertain feelings.” He laughs again. “They take you on a ride. Unfortunately for you, they don’t ask your permission.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Well, personally, I think it’s awesome.”
“Could this stay between us?”
“Your secret is my secret,” he says. “I gotta run. I’ll catch you on Wednesday.”
“Yeah. I’ve got to get to treatment,” I say.
Jaxon turns to walk away and I propel myself down the hallway, but my mind hangs back, lingering on our conversation.
You caught feelings.
More like the feelings caught me.
And now, what am I going to do about that?