Family Matters Read online

  Jennie started worrying. Cody seemed far too animated. Was he again hoping that she and Michael would reconcile?

  The drive to the hospital seemed an eternity. When they finally arrived at the gym, and had set Cody down to visit with his friends before class, she cornered Michael. “Did you talk to him?”

  “I did.”

  “What did you say?”

  “You want to know how our talk went? I told him as best I could that we had an old, deep connection between us, because we had him together, a child we both loved.

  “I told him that it was right, sensible, that we would be together to support him. I told him it was good for us to treat each other as old friends. That it should make him feel safe.” And that’s what they were doing, weren’t they?

  “Good,” she said. “I didn’t know exactly how you were going to put it.”

  They started back toward the group of children and parents. “I wanted to make sure he understood,” Michael said, searching her face for any reaction.

  Yes, yes, her face seemed to tell him. You said all the right things.

  For Jennie, it was a welcome reprieve to begin working with Cody again. When it came time for the parents to participate, Michael carried Cody over to the mats. Then he stepped back so Jennie could work with him. She motioned to Michael to squeeze in next to her.

  “I’ll show you how,” she whispered as he felt a rush of gratitude for her. “It’s a snap. You’ll get the hang of it and you’ll be the best one here.”

  “There isn’t much chance of that.”

  “Oh, yes there is.”

  The first few exercises went well. Michael learned the correct angle and placement of Cody’s feet, hips and knees. But as Jennie began to work with Cody’s arms, she could feel him tightening up against her. “Hey,” she said to Cody as Michael looked on. “What are you doing? Your muscles are getting tight, little one.”

  “It hurts, Mom.”

  “You’ve got to push ahead through this part.”

  She felt Michael’s reassuring hand on her back. She closed her eyes and sat back on her heels, easing into his touch, forgetting for a moment where she was, who she was, who he was.

  Oh. And suddenly, as she thought it, she realized it felt almost like a prayer. What would it feel like to always have something like this in my life? Something to support me?

  For the rest of the session, the three of them laughed and told jokes. And, as they drove home together, Cody fell fast asleep in the back seat of the car.

  They drove on in silence, but this time the silence felt comfortable between them. Michael pulled the car up in front of her house. Before Jennie had time to reach for the handle, he’d parked the car and jumped out.

  “It’s not dark. And this isn’t a date. You don’t have to walk me to the door.”

  “I want to.”

  She climbed out. He strolled with her up the walk and waited while she dug her keys out of her bag. When she turned to thank him, he grasped her forearms with gentle, certain hands. “Jennie. Please—”

  “Michael—” She glanced back at the car and saw Cody sleeping there, his lashes resting against his cheeks as lightly as gauze. “I don’t think—”

  He held up a hand, stopping her words. “You have to know this,” he said, persisting. “You have to know how much I needed you today. You have to know how much it meant that you came.”

  “I think I know.” Their eyes met in the growing darkness.

  He gave her a half smile, a bittersweet smile made more melancholy because he tilted his head at her like their little boy. Then, without another word he drew her close, his arms tightening warm and strong around her.

  “I just wanted to do this again,” he whispered. He held her as he had never held her before, like a drowning man seizing a life raft. “Oh, Jen, I’ve missed you.”

  “Me, too.”

  Their eyes met again and held in the dimness of the porch light. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, as though it weren’t the very thing they’d been fighting so fiercely, he took her into his arms and kissed her for a long, long time. When he stopped, they were both breathless.

  “Should I tell you I’m sorry?” He searched her face.

  “What is this?” she asked him. “What is this?” She stopped. “It isn’t what you told Cody. It isn’t just old friends.”

  For minutes after that, they stood fiercely entwined, not moving, Jennie burying her face against Michael’s chest, where she could hear his breath. And even after he drove away and she stood there alone, she could still feel the strong, steady beating of his heart.

  Jennie cleaned all day when it came time for Cody to move back in with her. She nervously dawdled around the house, straightening things she’d already straightened twice, rearranging pillows on the sofa, pausing in the doorway to Cody’s room and just looking at it.

  Michael arrived at five-thirty. “Hi, you two!” She held the door open for them. “I thought you’d never get here.” She ruffled Cody’s hair. “It’s about time you started hanging around this place again.”

  “I’ll be glad to be hanging around this place, too.”

  She looked up and past her son’s head. “Hello, Michael.”

  “Hello, Jennie.”

  “Can I see my room?” Cody asked.

  “Sure,” Jennie told him.

  “Here,” Michael said, bending to lift him.

  Jennie touched Michael’s elbow. “No. Let me try.”

  “You sure you want to?”

  She nodded. She’d have to carry him around plenty soon enough. She might as well start while Michael could help her.

  He stood behind her while she gave Cody a tight, giant hug and lifted him. “Agh,” she groaned, teasing him. “You’ve been growing again!”

  “I’m trying to grow!”

  They made it up the hallway without knocking the walls down. They only ran into two things, a watercolor painting of bluebonnets that swung crazily on the wall when they bumped it, and Lester the cat, who squalled as if he’d been mortally wounded when Jennie stepped on his tail.

  “Oh, Lester,” she sighed. “I didn’t even know you were down there.”

  She plunked Cody down on his bed and propped pillows all around him.

  She stood back, giving him some room. “You want us to stay with you?”

  “Naw. I just wanted to come in here and remember everything.”

  “Okay.” She wasn’t certain she and Michael should go. “You’ll call me if you need me?”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “He’ll be okay,” Michael reassured her. Then he turned to his son. “I guess I’ll go, Cody.”

  “Okay, Dad. Thanks.”

  He bent down on his knees. “You be good for Mom, you hear?”

  “I will.”

  “You’ll remember everything we talked about?”

  Cody nodded.

  “Okay. Love you, son.”

  “Love you, too, Dad.”

  This was the hardest part for both of them, telling him goodbye.

  Jennie followed Michael along the hallway. “You’re going to miss him, aren’t you?”

  “Terribly.”

  He turned to face her. He had nothing else to say but he couldn’t quite bring himself to leave.

  “Can I come pick him up and continue to take him to Andy’s sessions?” he asked.

  “You want to?” she said, surprised. She’d figured that, with Cody gone, he’d go back to spending long hours with his patients and at the hospital.

  “I do want to,” he said. “We’ve been doing fine in there—” he shot her a sheepish grin “—now that I know what I’m doing. Thanks for coming with us.”

  She turned and looked out the window at nothing. “You’re welcome.”

  He watched her for a moment. Then he stepped up behind her. “Jennie? What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It isn’t nothing. I can tell.�
�

  “Why do you try to read my mind?” she asked. “Why do you think you know me so well?”

  “Because I do,” he told her. “We were married once. I can’t help it.” Then he asked her very quietly, “Are you afraid to have Cody here?”

  She turned slowly to face him. “I am.” Then she took a deep breath and said in a rush, “I fought so hard for this.”

  He touched her on the chin. “You’ll do fine.”

  As she watched the man who had been such an integral part of her life for so long, she realized she wasn’t being completely honest. “There’s more to it than that, Michael. It’s more than Cody. It’s you. I’m realizing that, when I’m afraid, I’m depending on you. I’ve started needing you again.”

  “No,” Michael said quietly. “No. You mustn’t think it. It isn’t me you need.” She looked a question at him. “You’re Cody’s mother. And, beneath it all—” here he paused and seemed to struggle with himself “—beneath it all, I don’t think God could have picked anybody better for the job.”

  For no reason at all, at Michael’s words, Jennie remembered one fall when they’d gone to East Texas to cut firewood and they’d tumbled around on the ground in the acorns. She remembered their first little apartment in Dallas. She remembered watching him sleep one of the last nights they’d been together, his back an insurmountable mountain that marked his edge of the bed, when she had thought, “I don’t know him anymore. And he doesn’t know me.”

  I don’t think God could have picked anyone better than you for the job.

  It isn’t me you need.

  If it wasn’t Michael, what had brought her to this point of aching, to this feeling that something had to be lacking.

  I KNOW THE PLANS I HAVE FOR YOU.

  After all that had gone before between her and Michael, how could she have felt so free to tell him what she needed?

  PLANS TO PROSPER YOU AND NOT TO HARM YOU. PLANS TO GIVE YOU HOPE AND A FUTURE.

  Jennie didn’t know where the sudden sense of desperation came from as the Bible verse came to mind. This sudden sense of something tugging at her heart. She’d gotten Cody here; she’d gotten what she needed.

  It isn’t me you need, Michael had said.

  What was it then?

  The way I feel, God never would have picked me for this. God never would have picked me for any job.

  She couldn’t help wondering now, though, after Michael’s words. Something inside her yearned to ask, What if he’s right? What if there’s more?

  Chapter Fifteen

  When Jennie started drawing again, she made funny sketches for Cody and jotted down stories. Tonight she started drawing caricatures of Cody’s new friends on the swim team. Cody watched, entranced, while she shaded them in.

  “The swimming has really helped you, Bear.” She scrubbed the paper with a dull pencil. “Look. Here’s you. Here’s your fabulous new bathing suit with pirate flags.”

  “That’s great, Mom!”

  “Sometimes I wish I could do something more to help. All these other people are helping you…”

  “I bet you could help. I bet you could help Mark get more kickboards so we could invite more kids.”

  “You don’t have enough kickboards?”

  “No. We have to wait forever to get a turn on them.”

  “If Mark had more children, could he purchase more supplies?”

  “Nope,” Cody said. “We always gripe about taking turns. Mark says he doesn’t have money for everything he needs.”

  Jennie had heard about the tax cuts and the programs that had been affected; it hadn’t seemed like anything more than a news story to her when she had worked at the paper. And suddenly, as she sat sketching, what had once seemed like an impersonal news item now hit in the vicinity of her heart.

  I could make a difference. I know I could.

  After Cody went to bed, she telephoned Andy, her heart thumping with excitement. “Would Mark let me organize some sort of fund-raiser? The Times-Sentinel is always looking for public service projects to be involved in.”

  Andy’s voice brightened. “Oh, Jennie. If he had the resources, there are so many more things he could do. He could reach more kids. He could buy more equipment. Would you really do something like that?”

  “I’ll phone Art first thing Monday morning and then I’ll talk to Mark when I take Cody to swimming,” Jennie told her. “Consider it done.”

  Harv Siskell retired from the Dallas Burn in the middle of the season with a huge party and a five-tiered cake. Buddy Draper, this came as no surprise to anyone, was named his replacement. Buddy’s career as head coach of the Burn had begun.

  On the morning he was scheduled to coach his first game by himself, Buddy stood on the field midway between the two goals, having pulled his zippered satin jacket more snugly around him, his hands jammed into the pockets. The sun was just riding up over the Dallas skyline and, outside, the day was frigid, one of those wet winter days in Dallas that makes you feel the cold deep down to your bones.

  Buddy crossed the huge field alone, the soles of his shoes whispering against the grass as he made his way to the half line. In seven hours, the stands would be full again and he’d embark on yet another new phase in his life. He had already come so far now, he could scarcely remember what it felt like to be a star player.

  He looked to the left and the right, running the game plan through his mind, hoping he had considered everything, and that he could make Harv proud.

  Buddy loved game days more than anything. Each game day was like taking a big test—one you passed every time you won.

  He went into his office and tried to convince himself that this was just another game, that no one would remember it, that it didn’t matter that this was his first outing as a professional head coach. But, try as he might, he couldn’t manage to relax.

  By the time the fans began to arrive and find their seats, a little bit after noon, Buddy felt like a fish out of water, gasping for breath.

  Today they were scheduled to play the San Jose Earthquakes. The Earthquakes were already in their locker room, laughing with camaraderie, when Buddy headed down the hallway to find his team. When he walked in, they were all waiting for him.

  “Here’s Coach!” someone hollered.

  “We’ve got to make this happen for Draper!” someone else shouted.

  Marshall Townsend pitched him one of the practice balls. “So do you want the game ball today, Coach?” he asked with a wide grin on his face.

  “Only if we win.”

  He gathered them into a group and outlined his game plan for the day. He talked about effort, passing, control. It was everything Harv Siskell had always talked to him about, everything that had once made a difference in his life. That and the positive thoughts Andy had shared with him.

  Andy. How many times had he thought of her lately? How many times he had wondered if she’d come to watch him again at one of the games. Every week, thousands of people cheered for him and his team. Every week he pretended to himself that one of the fans might be her, that she might be ready to forgive him, that she might be willing to accept the decisions he’d made.

  Just before game time, he and the Burn gathered in a big circle, put their right hands together and bellowed, “Go, Burn!” as they lifted fists to the sky. The crowd roared as they raced out onto the field. And, after a few minutes of raucous warm-ups, the clock just below the huge MSL banner read 2:00 p.m.

  The Earthquakes took possession of the ball for the kick-off at center line. For the next forty-five minutes, the players crisscrossed the field in wild patterns, the striker made two shots, the keepers switched places and the press drove Buddy nuts. He felt as if they never took the cameras off him during the first half. He needed to concentrate on the game and on what to tell his players. Then Marshall Townsend passed the ball with a one-touch shot when he should have controlled it.

  “Get over here,” Buddy said to his player after authorizing a substitution.
“It looks like school-yard soccer out there.”

  “Sure, Coach.” Marshall shot him a grin. “You sound like Harv.”

  “I’m supposed to sound like Harv.”

  Marshall reentered the game three minutes later. As the last period began, the scoreboard read San Jose 4, Dallas 3.

  An Earthquakes player belted the ball toward the Burn’s goal, but once again the keeper blocked it. He punted it to the right side of the field, where the San Jose forward trapped it. Two steps forward, and he crossed it to a player on the left side.

  When Marshall got the ball he, too, trapped it, jealously controlling it himself for several steps before he passed it backward to the defender. The defender in turn passed the ball back to the right forward. And Dallas’s right forward, Eric Spooner, took the shot.

  San Jose’s keeper blocked the ball with his fist. The ball barely missed the outside post and rebounded. Chuck Kirkland was right beneath it, already anticipating its return pattern. The ball shot through the air several feet above the ground. As Buddy watched with clenched fists, he knew the only thing Kirkland could do was volley it.

  The left forward sprang from the ground like a giant cat, whipping his foot out in a fierce kick that sent the high ball straight back into the goal like a guided missile.

  Score. Dallas.

  Fans jumped up and down in the stands, hugging each other and cheering. The television cameras from WFAA and KTVT moved in ever closer. But with three minutes left in the game, while one of the Burn’s best defenders sat waiting in the penalty box, San Jose turned the tide by scoring again.

  The Burn and Buddy couldn’t recover from that. When the last whistle blew at 4:25 that Saturday afternoon, the score stood San Jose 5, Dallas 4.

  “Buddy Draper?” The sports reporter from Channel 11 called to him as he started toward the locker room. “You got time for a short interview?”

  “Certainly,” he agreed. He spent five minutes with the reporter, telling the people watching he thought his team had expended too much energy early, and that perhaps the players had placed too much weight on the game because it was his first. He was pleased with his players’ performances and told everyone so. And, just as the cameraman changed to a different angle and the reporter asked one last question, Marshall Townsend loped up beside him. “Guess you don’t want the game ball since we lost, huh?”