“Is that seventy-eleventy bajillion dollars?” the little girl asks.
“Definitely not that much.”
“Here. Here, take a discount card,” the mom stutters, shoving a plastic card at us while the little girl starts telling Oliver about a time when she fell off the balance beam.
If I were a good be-a-normal-person coach, I’d dive in and say thank you and take the plastic card and hustle Oliver away.
But I’m a little too stuck on the way he’s smiling softly at the little girl, listening to her story about the time she did three cartwheels in a row like it’s the most important thing in the world.
“Take two.” The mom shoves the cards at me, and I shake myself back to reality.
To a reality where these two are going to tell their friends about the man who dropped three or four thousand dollars into their donation jar.
I take the cards, then poke Oliver. “Hey, M-dub-O, we’re gonna be late for my brother’s birthday party, and you know how much he’ll be a pill about it.”
I get a hairy eyeball of irritation at the use of his old nickname—I deserve that eyeball, because I know that’s what his bullies called him in high school, which makes it about the best way I know to irritate him into moving.
And it works.
He rises and nods to the little girl. “Keep practicing and you’ll fall less.”
“Thank you,” her mom says, still clearly a little lost for words.
He nods, and then tucks his hands in his pockets, puts his head down, and turns and heads back into the parking lot.
I jog after him.
“Shut. The hell. Up,” he mutters.
I squeeze my hands into fists.
Not to keep from punching him since I haven’t said a single solitary word.
No, it’s to keep from hugging him.
It’s absolutely nothing to him to donate a few thousand dollars here and there. It’s like pennies to him.
Less than pennies.
But watching him smile at a little kid, watching him pause for them—it’s shaken something loose inside me that I much prefer to not have shooken loose.
What’s the word for a fuckup bigger than a fuckup?
Because I think that’s exactly what I’ve gotten myself into.
7
I DON’T WANT HELP EXCEPT I MIGHT NEED IT
Oliver
How isit that I spent the past four years working twelve- to fourteen-hour days, yet six hours driving a car has me completely wrecked?
And it’s not a post-trauma thing.
Despite the close calls last night and this morning, I’m not worried someone’s going to sideswipe me every minute anymore. Not worried that we’ll end up upside down beside a river. Not concerned that a runaway train will appear out of nowhere.
I’mbeat. Physically, mentally, and emotionally.
