29. John
TJ and Dad stayed the weekend, TJ crashing on the couch and Dad taking the guest room that had once been Joey”s. Over the course of those days, Dad relaxed, letting the years of distrust and hurt slide off into a pile we both managed to sweep away with new memories and conversations years in the making.
”Your mother was one hundred percent sure you”d be a girl,” Dad told me as we sat around the kitchen table over steaks the last night they were in town.
”Really?” I asked, happy to hear any details about my mother and what she might have thought about me, the son she never really knew. ”So she was disappointed?”
Dad chuckled, his eyes taking on the faraway look he”d worn a lot this weekend—whenever he”d talked about Mama. ”Not even a little bit,” he said.
I sat with that for a moment, wondering if he was just saying that to make me feel better. But I didn”t think that was in his skill set, actually.
”She was with you about twenty-four hours, you know,” Dad went on as Joey held my hand under the table, steady and strong at my side just like she”d been all weekend. ”She held you almost that entire time. Didn”t want to let you go, even when the alarms were all blaring, and the doctors were racing around trying to save her.” He shook his head sadly.
”Her mother brought TJ to the hospital to meet you right after you were born, do you remember Teej?”
My brother shook his head, a faraway smile on his face. ”I was too young to remember.”
”Well I remember,” Dad said softly. ”And she looked at the two of you together, and she was so happy. So wildly happy.” A tear dripped down my father”s rough skin and I looked away, a misplaced embarrassment rising inside me. This man didn”t cry. He didn”t even feel, as far as I was aware.
”She said it was the best thing, having two boys. She knew she wasn”t gonna be there... ” Dad trailed off and sniffed. ”And she said you”d look after each other, that brothers were the best thing we could have made.”
Dad stared at his plate for a long moment, his shoulders shaking slightly, as TJ and I sat immobilized. This was a version of Dad neither of us knew how to react to.
”You all miss her,” Joey said softly. ”She sounds like a wonderful mother. I wish I could have met her.”
Dad nodded and I pushed down the emotion threatening to rush up my throat, looking up to catch TJ wiping at his eyes before picking up his knife to cut a bite of steak.
”She would have been proud. Of both of you,” Dad said, looking between TJ and me. ”And so am I.”
It was by far the most I”d ever gotten from Dad, and I took his words and folded them up neatly to store for later. They”d be something I took out now and then to look at, to remember this moment. It was still surreal to have heard them spoken aloud.
Anyone could change and grow, I realized, given the right circumstances.
My eyes drifted to Joey, and I found it was almost hard to look right at her, she was so brilliantly perfect. The girl I”d loved my whole life, who would be by my side as we discovered our next chapters together. She”d grown and shifted before my eyes too, and I hoped I could do the same, growing into the man she deserved, and the goalie the Wombats needed.
I squeezed her hand and met her eyes, my whole future lighting up inside her gaze.