Chapter 34
Taysom
I park in my mom’s driveway, the same house Emma and I grew up in, just a few blocks away from where the Mercer’s live.
I don’t think Mom’s home, but I’ll go in anyway.
At my last visit here, last Sunday, we video chatted with Raul in New York for over two hours.
He was sort of a seamless part of the narrative, with Mom’s phone propped up against a stack of cookbooks while she and I cooked.
When Emma, Anthony, and Chandler arrived, Raul coached Anthony through a mechanical issue he’s been having with his car.
Before he created his own company selling digital advertising packages, Raul worked as a mechanic.
Mom was goofy and radiant, laughing at anything and everything. Not just at Raul, but at Emma and me.
She’s happy now. She was happy before she met Raul, but being in a relationship with him has steadied her. Just thinking of that makes my chest tighten with gratitude.
I use my key to get in and step through the doorway and into the bright entryway. My first year in the NFL, I paid to have the whole house remodeled. Everything’s better. Better flooring, better fixtures, and even a better layout.
Some parts of the house are unrecognizable from my childhood home, but that’s okay. I wanted my mom to be happy here and give her a fresh start.
“Taysom?” Mom says as she comes out of the pantry.
“Oh, hey.” I walk to her and give her a hug. “I thought you’d be at work.”
“One of my co-workers wanted to switch with me, so I’m working tomorrow instead.”
“You thought anymore about retiring?”
She gives me an uneasy look. “Retiring? No. Cutting back? Yes. The hospital said starting in September I can reduce my workload to two shifts a week.”
“That’s great, Mom. You deserve it.”
“And how are you? How’s Charlotte?”
“She’s great, actually. Her fundraiser just hit 100k. I tried to call her, but she didn’t answer. She was going into the center to start cleaning out her desk.”
“That poor girl. Maybe with the 100k, she can keep her job, though?”
“I don’t know. If the center gets to keep going, there will be a lot of changes to figure out. Everyone else already has new jobs and the building is scheduled to be demo-ed. But we’ll see.”
She tugs on my sleeve. “So, what else is on your mind?”
“You really see through me, don’t you?” I say with a laugh.
“Of course I do. I’m your mom.”
“Well, the Wolves settled on Casey Riddock’s contract last night. Word is, it’s big, though we don’t know the exact number yet.”
“Oh.” Mom’s eyes grow wide.
“I’m not off the team yet. At least not officially. There’s a chance he could still be the backup.”
“Have they offered you a new contract?”
“No, not yet.” I swallow hard. “But the Commanders’ starting quarterback is retiring and their backup is out with an injury, so…”
“The Washington Commanders? In D.C.?”
I nod and she brightens. “That’s exciting!”
“It probably won’t happen. I want to stay here.”
“Why?”
I look at her like she’s lost her mind. “Mom, I’m a Wolf, through and through. I have been since I was a baby, remember?”
I point to the photo of Emma me when she was a preschooler and I was a toddler, both in tiny Wolves jerseys.
She laughs and grabs the small frame off the counter. “But if they don’t renew your contract, you might really love becoming a Commander.”
“I just…can’t comprehend it. I mean, I felt sure something was going to happen to sabotage things. No way would I get to play for my dream team for five plus years. I…I’m still not ready for this.”
“This is a big deal. Of course it’s hard,” Mom reminds.
It’s a swift kick to the gut. I’ve known since they picked up Riddock in the draft that things would end, that I was living on borrowed time.
When I don’t respond, she continues. “I hope they do renew you. And there’s a chance they’re just working on the numbers and will present it to you soon.” She shrugs. “I’d love for you to be a Wolf for life, son. But circumstances change. They might not be able to afford both you and the new guy.”
“Matt said the same thing.”
“Honey, a change might be good. I know the Wolves are your dream team. But isn’t the head coach of the Commanders your dream coach?”
Billy Cairns. A guy I idolized growing up when he coached for the Wolves.
I give her a doubtful look. “Careerwise, a change might be good? Maybe. And yeah, playing for Billy Cairns would be a dream come true. But what about Charlotte?”
“I was wondering when we’d get to that. I get you want to stay here for Charlotte, but she doesn’t have a job here right now. Nothing’s tying her here.”
“I’m not going to ask her to come to D.C. with me.”
Mom’s eyes twinkle. “Why not? It sounds like an adventure to me.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?” She turns from me, folds a dish towel, and tucks it into a drawer.
“Well, I don’t want to leave you here. And Emma, well, I don’t care as much about her as I do Chandler.” I pause to smile. “But don’t go repeating that to her.”
The corners of her eyes crinkle. “Taysom, you’re a pro football player. Your job is meant to be in a lot of different places.”
“But Dad…”
Mom sighs and massages her shoulder. “What about your father?”
“He was never home. And look what happened.”
Regarding me carefully, she reaches up to pat my upper arm. “Do you think your father and I divorced because he travelled for work much of the time?”
“Well, yeah. If he’d been around—”
“No, Taysom. Your dad’s travel schedule didn’t cause us to divorce.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“TayTay.” She sniffs out a little laugh.
“He didn’t place our family as a priority.
That’s the bottom line. Sure, the heavy travel schedule was hard, but it was what he did and didn’t do when he was home that made all the difference.
I gave him years of opportunities to choose us, and ultimately, he didn’t.
When you were little, I couldn’t really explain it to you, but… ”
I force air in and out of my chest. I’ve held up this idea in my head for so long that if he hadn’t been gone all the time, things would have been different. But was I wrong?
Mom’s blue eyes are kind. “This is exactly why your intense football schedule doesn’t have to harm your relationships, son.
If you’re putting your family—your future wife and kids—as your top priority, if your heart is with them always, if you’re in contact with them as much as possible, your relationships can be strong.
With firm boundaries and diligent and honest communication, you can make it work.
It’s not easy, but you can do it.” She squints at me. “Taysom, you’re not your father.”
I scrub my face, blinking away the sting behind my eyes.
“And also?” Mom reaches up and puts both hands on my shoulders and gives them a firm shake. “I’m fine. You don’t need to look out for me anymore.”
Doubt radiates through me.
“It’s not that I don’t think you’re fine,” I say. “I like being here at the house with you.”
“Well, if you had to go to D.C., then I just might have to also take the leap and go to New York.”
In the years she’s been dating Raul long distance, she’s never said that she’d go to New York to be with him.
It was implied, of course, every time she turned down a proposal from him with the promise that it simply wasn’t the right time.
I considered the possibility that she’d go to New York.
But I also considered the possibility that Raul would come here, eventually.
His youngest goes to NYU, but when he graduates, there wouldn’t be as much tying him down.
He could probably start his business over here in San Antonio.
But from the look in her eyes, she seems ready to do just that.
“Raul would love that,” I manage.
“I would love that, too,” she says, wistfully.
“What about his work travel? Does it bother you?”
She considers my question. “Sometimes. But it’s completely different than it was with your father.”
“So, that’s not why you’ve delayed your engagement?”
“No, Taysom.” She purses her lips a moment.
“It’s never been the right time. But sometimes we just need a little push to do the thing we really want to do…
the thing we know we need to do. I’ve been…
okay…with turning down his proposals. Mostly okay.
” She smiles. “But maybe we can make a clean break from this town, both of us.”
It feels like I’m skating on thin ice, that in one swift step, it will break open and we’ll plunge into the frigid water. And then what if I couldn’t save her? “I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy, Taysom. I’m happy here doing what I’m doing.
Being a nurse, a mom, and a grandma. And I’d be happy in New York with Raul.
Very happy.” Her eyes fill with tears, but she blinks them away and her gaze skitters around the room.
“The house is beautiful. But sometimes I feel ready to let it go.”
I swallow hard and shift my body away from her. “That makes sense.”
“The only constant is change, Taysom, and I think we’ve both been trying really hard all these years to fight that change.”
She’s probably right, but I have too much overloading my head right now to know how to respond.
I give her another hug and then head out into the backyard, the yard that used to feel so big. The bounce in the trampoline as I scramble up on it is just like I remember, but the springs creak louder than before.
Emma’s moved on--she’s got her own family—and Mom wants to move on. Has she been staying here in San Antonio for me? I have no idea, but maybe I’ve been staying here for her. I mean, for my job, sure. But maybe also because I thought she needed me.
Swift and deep, the weight of failure crushes me.
Football was supposed to fix everything.
It was supposed to heal our family—make everything better.
And it’s been an amazingly wild ride that I’m very grateful for.
It’s supported me and my family, and I’ve been able to do a lot of good things with the money.
It didn’t fix my broken family, though, and that stings. I thought if I could be better, always better than I was before, it would gather my family in and fix them.
But I couldn’t do that.
My mom’s thoughts ring out in my head. That I can choose how I do relationships, that I can make up my mind about what I will and won’t do.
With a gasp, it hits me. Football doesn’t have that much power. It can’t destroy or fix a family. I’ve been giving it far too much credit.
Charlotte. I want to be with Charlotte. She didn’t answer when I tried calling on my way over here.
So much has happened today and we need to talk.
I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell her about what Matt said, but now, the pressure of everything is shifting inside of me and I feel like it’s now loose enough that I can share it with her.
Can I share how much I love her?
I haven’t said the words yet, but she has to know how I feel.
Because my mom is right. I don’t need to let my old beliefs—that football has the power to seal my family to me and the power to break my family apart—stop me from living my life.
As much as I tried to fix it for my mom, clean out all the bad memories and replace them with new, this house witnessed a lot of pain.
It’s okay. I mean, what happened is not okay, but we’ve done a lot of good healing over the years.
And it’s held a lot of joy, too.
It’s time to move on from this house. The realization takes my breath away.
Maybe playing for Billy Cairns would work out. And it’s time to move on from San Antonio.
I can’t move on from Charlotte, though.
But before I talk with her, I have one more phone call to make.
I pull up Matt on my phone. “Let’s revisit the D.C. idea.”