Page 25 of Old Fashioned
I sat in the front seat behind the driver, smiling to myself as I listened to the players talk about girls and cars and sports and video games and all the things that made high school boys tick. I smiled because I could easily remember a time when my worries had been as simple, too, and part of me yearned for that innocence.
Once everyone was accounted for and coach gave his speech, reminding the boys that we still had a game to play and they needed to be focused for our short, thirty-minute bus ride, we were off.
TK and Coach Pascucci sat together in the front seat opposite mine, already huddling over their clipboards and murmuring softly about plays, so Jordan took the open seat next to me. He let out a breath as we pulled out of the school’s parking lot, dropping his clipboard between us and rubbing his eyes.
“Nervous?” I asked with a smile.
“More likeexhausted,” he said. “Is this what parenting feels like? Because if it is, I’m thankful I never went down that road.”
I full-on laughed at that. “Oh, this isnothingcompared to being a parent. Trust me.”
“How do you handle it?”
I shrugged. “Yoga, gardening, running — anything where I can be alone with my thoughts and relieve stress. And I try to keep as much of myself present so that I don’t lose who I was before I became a mother, if that makes sense. It’s a big reason why I was excited to get back to work.”
Jordan nodded. “Why didn’t you work before?” Immediately, he paled. “I’m sorry if that was rude to ask. I just mean… did you want to wait until Paige was a certain age before you worked, or…?”
I attempted a smile, though my insides were on fire now with flashes of Randy striking like lightning in my veins.
“It wasn’t exactly my choice not to work,” I said, carefully.
Jordan’s expression hardened, the gold around his irises catching the rays of sun as they filtered in the bus windows through the trees we passed.
Everything inside me begged him not to press, and without a word exchanged, he seemed to understand.
“Yoga, huh?” he asked instead, crossing his ankle over the opposite knee. He was dressed in black athletic slacks and a red polo with STRATFORD FOOTBALL embroidered on the pocket. The sleeves of it hugged his biceps, the hem of it tucked into the band of his pants where a belt was fastened.
He looked professional and somehow dangerous, too.
“Yep,” I answered, nudging him. “Not as fun as running in the mud, I’d wager, but it’s my own brand of release.”
“I’ve never tried it,” he confessed, popping a piece of gum into his mouth. I’d learned it was his game ritual, to chew gum, and I wondered if it helped him keep from blowing his top. He offered me a piece, too, but I declined. “Maybe we could do it with the guys during a Thursday practice sometime, if you’d be willing to lead us,” he suggested. “Lord knows we could all learn to relax a little more.”
“Maybe,” I agreed with a smile, and then I turned to look out the window, because emotions I worked hard to keep down were bubbling up like a spring.
Jordan left me to gaze and think, pulling his iPad out and leaning over the aisle to talk to the coaches while I watched our little town disappear and fields of nothing take its place.
I loved the country.
Occasionally, we’d pass a house or a barn or a little fruit stand, but for the most part, there wasn’t much between us and North Valley, and I surrendered to the solemn depths of my mind as we drove. Because it hit me in that very moment with Jordan’s question that I was finally here, I was finally on the other side of the hell I’d endured, standing on my own two feet.
I was working.
I was taking care of my daughter.
I was remembering who I was.
I was living.
And, for the life of me, I couldn’t decide why that made me want to scream in joy as much as it made me want to cry.
Thankfully, I didn’t have time to dwell on it. As soon as we pulled up at North Valley’s field, that same energy I’d felt in practice all week swept over us like a strong summer wind, and we got down to business.
There was something about Friday night football in Tennessee, an energy unlike any other in the entire world.
It was almost impossible to explain it to anyone who hadn’t experienced it themselves, that cocktail of anticipation and excitement with a twist of anxiety. The passion for these teams ran deep in the blood of not just the students, but the entire town. There were painted faces and giant handmade signs and whistles and cowbells and synchronized cheers.
When it was game time, nothing else mattered.
