Page 11 of Ancient History

“South Rock has a good team thanks to Coach Legrand, so if we blow it this season, it’s on me.”

“What’d we use to say when you played?”

I exhaled my nerves. “Take it one game at a time.”

Each game was a test that uncovered our strengths and weaknesses. It was never the final say.

I dug into my cereal, surprisingly hungry. Since I was nearing thirty, I had to be more careful with what I ate. Though I still had muscle, I was filling out a little in the middle from my teenage days. Across the table, Pop ate in peace. His breaths were more labored.

“Did you take your pills?” I asked.

“What pills?” He kept his eyes fixed on the morning paper.

“Pop…”

“I took them.” He got that impudent frustration in his voice. Who was the kid now?

I went to the kitchen counter and grabbed the Day of the Week pill container. I flipped open the compartment for Monday. Three pills stared back at me.

“Pop?” I shook the container to emphasize my point.

“I’ll take them later today.”

“The doctor said you need to take these every morning.”

He bristled when I put them on the table. I’d forgotten what a stubborn son of a bitch he could be. Too bad for him, I was just as stubborn.

“I’m healthy! I don’t need all these pills. I have an active job.” Pop was the facilities manager for the Arden MacArthur Community Center in town, home to a gym, spaces for classes, and a theater. He could fix anything in that place, the handiest of handymen. After thirty years on the job, Bud Hawkins was synonymous with the MacArthur Center, and they put up a plaque in the lobby in his honor for his twenty-fifth anniversary.

“If you want to stay active, then you need to take your medicine.”

“What happened to eating well and getting a good night’s sleep?”

I understood his frustration. He wasn’t that old, just turned sixty. He’d always been the strongest guy I knew. I wished I could eat well and sleep soundly and have my leg suddenly get better.

“An apple a day can’t solve everything. That’s why we have doctors and science. C’mon. Take your pills, Pop.” I mixed them into some applesauce like he used to do for me. Yeah, it was juvenile, but it always did the trick. I mixed in the pills well and handed over the bowl.

“This looks familiar.” He heaved out a deep, rumbly laugh.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about? It’s just applesauce.”

He cocked an eyebrow. That tomfoolery might’ve worked on my six-year-old self, but his sixty-year-old ass wasn’t playing along. He gave me a skeptical eye as he spooned his applesauce into his mouth.

Next, I took the blood pressure device from the cabinet above the fridge.

“My blood pressure is fine,” he scoffed.

“Pop. The doctor wants us to measure your blood pressure daily.”

“Why? I’m fine.”

“Then how come you passed out on the job?” I stared into his eyes, trying to convey all my care and concern. We could joke about this now, but when I got that call that Pop was in the hospital, I swore my body stopped functioning. Panic and terror rattled my bones so deep that I still felt it, weeks later. They weren’t sure what caused his “incident,” as the doctor called it. He didn’t have a heart attack, but his heart slowed down. It was having trouble pumping blood, which made him prone to dizziness and fainting. He fell off a ladder at work hanging a banner. It left him with a banged-up leg and a nasty bump on his forehead.

Since he lived alone, it wasn’t a question that I would come home to help him recuperate. Not like I had much keeping me in Nashville.

I stared him down, angry dude on the outside but a little boy on the inside scared shitless for my Pop.

He was smart enough not to put up too much of a fight. He held out his arm. I wrapped the patch around. He was in good shape for his age, his arms thick with muscle, his tattoo of my birth date wiggling around on his bicep.

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