Chapter 4
When the angels sang “Hark,” Harrison almost spilled his coffee on a plush white chair. There was some timing mechanism that he hadn’t yet found, and though he could turn off the lights and music again, he was too big to get behind the tree and futz with the volume like Amy had the day before.
He needed to email his host and ask her how to stop the madness. It wasn’t that he minded the Christmas music—what he minded was the full-metal blast of it when he was least expecting it.
He pulled out his laptop to email Sam Rodrigo, who, until last night, he’d assumed was a man. Before he could pull up the mail app, his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and groaned. It was Clay, his manager.
“My man!” Clay said loudly when Harrison answered.
“Unless you are calling to tell me someone died, you’re fired. I told you not to call me.”
“Why? Is it too early? Wait, wait, what time is it there? Sorry, bro—I’m in London with Gavin McGilly. Remember him? He shot a sixty-six at Torrey Pines.”
Yes, he remembered Gavin McGilly and his sixty-six at Torrey Pines. The last time Harrison had played there, he’d shot four over par. Out of the money, basically. “Are you seriously calling to tell me he shot a sixty-six? Come on, Clay. We’ve been over this. I’m on a break.”
“Oops,” Clay said cheerfully. “I didn’t think you really meant it. I mean, if you think about it, you’ve kind of been on a break for almost a year now. I honestly thought you’d be on the links by now. Why be in Texas at Christmas if not for the weather?”
If Harrison could have, he would have reached through the phone and punched Clay in the mouth. “What do you want?”
“Just checking on that rehab, buddy. Got those tournaments coming up in January like we talked about. You going to be ready to play? Been working the program? How’s the knee feeling?”
“Stiff. But I can still kick your ass.”
“Maybe ramp up to three rounds of PT a day, what do you say? And get out and hit some balls. I also think we should plan to check in with Dr. Davila before the new year. If Dr. D says you’re good to go, we can still make Farmer’s—that’s the last week of January.
Seeing Gavin reminded me it’s at Torrey Pines, and it made me think of you. ”
“Hang up the phone, Clay,” Harrison said. “Hang up and lose my number.” He clicked off and tossed his phone onto the bed. He rubbed his face. He shoved his fingers through his hair. His mind was racing through all the creative ways he wanted to kill his manager. And his knee was aching again.
What was so unbearably annoying about Clay was that he was right. Harrison did need more physical therapy. But he’d been in such a funk the last few weeks he hadn’t found the motivation to keep up with it.
He didn’t want to think about that now, although anyone could see that continued physical therapy on his knee was part of the equation for divining his future. What happened to all the navel-gazing he was going to do, anyway? So far, he’d mostly thought about food.
He dashed off a note to Sam asking how to adjust the timing and settings of the Christmas music, checked some late-season tournament leaderboards, checked the news, looked at the weather again—they were still predicting a winter storm for the area—then closed his laptop.
It wasn’t even ten a.m. and he was already looking for things to do.
That was the problem with his job. He was on the go so much that when he was on tour, he barely had time to breathe.
When he had downtime, he didn’t know what to do with himself.
When he thought about retiring from professional golf, he really couldn’t imagine what he’d do with himself.
All the questions he had about what came next were beginning to freak him out a little.
He got up and went in for a shower. When he was dressed, he glanced at the clock. It was now half past ten. His leisure-time skills sucked. Surely there was something he could do that did not involve a golf club.
He picked up his phone and called his mother’s cell phone. It rolled to voicemail. “Can’t come to the phone right now, so leave a message!” she chirped cheerfully.
“Hey, Mom, it’s me. Call me when you get a chance. Nothing urgent.” He next called his dad, who picked up on the fourth ring.
“Harrison! Good to hear from you, son. I’m getting ready to tee off.”
“Early tee time, huh?”
“No, not really. I’m waiting on Joe Rubens. He’s nosing around the clubhouse for some new balls. What can I do for you? Your mother told you about our Greek cruise, didn’t she?”
More than once. “She did.”
“We’re leaving in a few days,” his father said. “Just trying to get in a few rounds before I’m forced to look at old churches and watch your mother shop. You know how that is.”
Actually, no, Harrison did not know how that was. He hadn’t been on a vacation with his parents in more than thirty years.
His father made a grunting noise as if he was standing up. “What do you need?” he asked again, which made Harrison feel like he was being a bother.
“Nothing. It’s just…” He pushed his fingers through his hair. He didn’t know what he wanted, really. “I’ve been thinking a lot about my career, and—”
“It’s been a good one,” his father interjected.
“It has. But…” He rubbed his knee. “I’ll be fifty in a few weeks, Dad.”
“Yep.”
“And I’ve been thinking about where my career goes from here.”
“The fifties were my best decade. I improved my handicap by three. Can you believe that? In my fifties.”
But Dad wasn’t a professional. “You also had a whole other job, and me and Mom—”
“I was working with Coach Becker. Remember him? Now, he was something else. He could clock what was wrong with a swing in a split second. You were still playing college golf then and you probably don’t remember, but he’s the one who told me you had that slight hitch in your downswing.
That’s gotten a lot better over the years, but you really need to keep an eye on it. ”
Harrison could win every tournament he ever entered, and his dad would still find something wrong with his swing.
He looked at the window. The skies were gray and leaden, like his mood.
“I, uh…I was thinking about flying out for a few days. When you and Mom get back from your cruise.” Truthfully, he hadn’t thought of it at all until this moment.
Maybe staying at this lake was the wrong idea.
Maybe he needed to go home and talk to his parents. Talk to someone. Be with his family.
“Better call your mom on that one. This is a long cruise. She upgraded the suite because of it. Probably going to cost me my retirement.”
It sucked that Harrison was looking at fifty years on this earth and still wishing that at least one of his parents would say, Yes, please come home!
We are dying to see you! They probably thought they saw him enough.
After all, he was a grown man with his own life.
They liked to show up occasionally when he was on tour during the summer, someplace they’d never been.
They’d stay at a swank hotel, come to the course to watch him, then go off to sightsee.
Sometimes they had dinner together after the tournament, but rarely just the three of them.
His father liked to invite other amateur golfers to meet his son, the professional golfer.
Or he would ask Harrison to invite some of the pros so that he could meet them.
Harrison never spent quality time with his parents.
He wasn’t even sure what quality time at this age looked like, other than a round of golf.
But he wanted more than that. He wanted to know who his parents were.
He wanted them to know who he was. Hell, he wanted to know who he was.
He was beginning to question if he knew himself at all.
“Here comes Joe,” his father said. “Just strolling along like he’s got all the time in the world.” He chuckled. “His short game has really improved. You should see him putt. You might learn a thing or two.” And now he laughed like he’d just said something hilarious.
Harrison did not laugh. “Well, looks like you need to go. Have a good voyage, Dad.”
“Thanks. Call your mother and see if there’s a time you can come visit.” He said goodbye and clicked off.
Harrison couldn’t help but sourly note that his father had not asked why or what he’d been thinking about his career. But he supposed it was just as well he hadn’t—it wasn’t as if Harrison had a clue just yet.
He decided he was hungry and needed to find a grocery store to buy some provisions. Maybe there was something he could nibble on while he searched Google for a food source. He went to the kitchen, noting that the house seemed eerily quiet. Especially without the Christmas music.
An apple was missing from the bowl. And there was a knife in the sink that looked as if it might have been used to spread butter.
He opened the fridge and looked inside. There wasn’t much—a few cartons of fat-free yogurt and some lettuce.
Vegetables that would require a lot of chopping, and two cartons of milk.
On closer inspection, he discovered one was almond milk, placed neatly beside the vegetables.
Amy Casey had all the accoutrement of a health nut. More power to her.
And yet, the other container of milk was full-on cow fat, and half empty. Confusing.
He shut the fridge door and opened the pantry beside it.
It was mostly bare—some microwave popcorn, seasonings, and an opened box of Frosted Flakes.
He reasoned, as there was a knife in the sink, and not a spoon, that the cereal was left over from some other guest. This cereal did not fit the Amy Casey profile he was currently constructing in his head.
He took the box out of the pantry and peered inside. Nothing but flakes.