Epilogue
THREE YEARS LATER
“ W hat do you want, mate?”
As Tae searched the LED menu board hanging over the line of cashiers for something appetizing, Jack tried to put on a happy face. But with everything happening, he knew he was probably failing.
“Just a Sprite, please.”
“A Sprite? You don’t want anything to eat? Uncle Jack’s buying.”
“Mmm…nah. I’m not very hungry.”
“No? Yeah…me neither, pal. We’ll just take a Sprite and a strawberry Fanta. Both large, please.”
The cashier seemed taken aback by an order that lacked the usual lager or ale, but Jack didn’t mind. A grown man ordering a couple of soft drinks may have seemed childish, but smug and mocking expressions were a small price to pay for how great his body felt three years sober. Physically, he’d never felt better, but as Tae could probably tell, his mental and emotional health was barely hanging on by a pair of fraying threads.
“Thanks,” Jack said to the cashier as he handed Tae his drink. As they walked back to their seats, Tae looked as if there was something on his mind. “You alright?” Jack asked.
Tae didn’t respond.
“Tae?”
“I’m fine...are you?”
His nephew’s honesty almost made him grimace. “You’re a smart kid. You really need me to answer that for you?”
“I just…you’re not happy.”
“Please, bud, don’t start with me again.”
“You aren’t? Are you?”
“No. I’m not, alright? Is that what you want to hear from me?”
“No. I just want you to try. You’re not even trying!”
“Oh, I’m not trying?! What a crappy thing to say to me! Tae, look at me, please, “Jack said as he stopped Tae from walking and bent down to his nephew’s eye level. “Now, I love your aunt very much. And I’ve done everything I possibly can to get her back, but she’s made herself perfectly clear. She’s gone, alright? The woman I knew and loved is gone! Now, the sooner you get that through your skull, the sooner you can…” A booming roar rose in the distance. “What is that?”
“I think it’s…”
“It couldn’t be…”
Jack and Tae exchanged glances of nervous excitement, then sprinted down the corridor towards the West Stand Lower. Such a sound echoing throughout Stamford Bridge could only mean one thing: the home team just scored.
“We shouldn’t have left!” Tae yelled as they ran.
“I told you, ‘Wait ‘til after stoppage time.’ But could you hold your tinkle? No. Then I told you, ‘We can come back for concessions after the final whistle.’ But did you listen? Of course not.”
“We were down two-nil!”
“Hey! Until you hear the final whistle, CFC’s always in the match! And don’t you forget it!”
After racing down the stairs and getting to their seats, Jack asked, “What’d we miss?!”
“It was a bloody own goal!” Zuri shouted over the noise of the crowd while standing on the other side of Thomas.
“Hey!” Thomas yelled, “No swears in West Stand Lower!”
“Right! Sorry!”
“Thomas, tell your sister I wasn’t even talking to her!”
“He wasn’t even talking to you!”
“How much stoppage time?!” Jack asked.
“Twelve minutes!” Thomas replied.
“Twelve?! Forget a point; that’s enough time to walk away with three!”
“You wish!” Zuri screamed.
“You know, you’re not just hurting me! You’re hurting the boy! Do you know what he wants more than anything?! You in Chelsea blue! He keeps saying, ‘Bring her back to us, Uncle Jack! Bring her back!’ And I have to explain to him that you and his mother care more about red being your color than your own nephew’s or brother’s or husband’s feelings!”
“But we look so good in Arsenal red!”
“This is all your fault, Jada!”
“She’s never going back to blue!” Jada yelled.
“Shame on you! Homewrecker!”
Thomas intervened, “Jack, go stand next to your family!”
“I am,” Jack said as he put his arm around Thomas’s shoulder and a hand on Tae’s head.
“I appreciate that, Jack, but you keep yelling in my ears, and I have no choice but to disown you.”
“But I don’t want to,” Jack whined.
“Jack…”
“No.”
“Jack…”
“Fine, but I’m not talking to her.”
“She’s your wife, mate.”
“And I love her. But I don’t have to like her right now.”
As Jack traded places with Jada, he felt like a traitor. Thomas and Tae were all the way on the other end of their small row while Jada, Talia, and Zuri stood like a red wall between them. But the worst part wasn’t even seeing his wife in rival colors.
“Daddy, she wants you,” Zuri said.
“Nope.”
“Hold your daughter, Jack.”
“Not when she’s wearing that.”
“Hey. Don’t pout. You lost the bet fair and square, so this week, she dresses like Mommy! Don’t you, Junie?”
“Juniper Irene Adamson, you take that red sweater off this instant, young lady! Oh! Mommy, her ear protection’s coming off. No…just…no, you’re doing it wrong. Fine. Here, let me.”
“You got her?” Zuri asked.
“Yes. I can’t believe I’m holding an Arsenal baby.”
“Oh, you’ll survive,” his wife said, kissing him on the cheek.
As Zuri went back to chanting terrible lies about the greatest football team on the planet, Jack removed a bright blue baby beanie from his pants pocket, carefully put it on Junie’s little head, and whispered, “Shhh. Don’t tell Mommy. There we are. Much better.”
In the tenth minute of stoppage time, a corner kick led to a header, drawing the Blues even with the rival team from North London. Rather than join in the celebration, Jack took in the scene Thomas had foretold some three years earlier:
“I sacrificed what we had so you and I could have something even better down the road...If we could get in a time machine, fast forward a few years, and take our kids and wives to their first-ever Chelsea match against Arsenal, would you get in that time machine, or would you stay here and go clubbing with me tonight?”
Jack thought he knew the answer then, but he’d been wrong. The correct answer was rejecting the false dichotomy. Neither was what he wanted or needed. The latter for obvious reasons, but getting in a time machine and bypassing all the experiences that led to that perfect moment would have only served to make that moment imperfect. The match ended in a draw that day, but as Jack left with the people most essential to his happiness - arm in arm with the twit he never knew he needed - that tosser was certain he’d never experienced a greater win at Stamford Bridge.
And so these former enemies once fell and daily fall…in love because, despite the odds, they came to Hawthorne Hall.