“Declan, I don’t think you understand. I’m your coach. Where you go, I go.”
“Bathroom too?” I ask, humor filtering through the density of my return.
“No, gross. But the deal with your coach, your actual football coach and the commissioner, is that I basically babysit you. I’m to report your every move. And don’t ask if I mean the ones in the bathroom, too. Absolutely not. Your career and, according to what you told me, the careers of three other guys, are riding on this. So, if you’ve made secret arrangements to meet with Brandi or whoever, it’s off.”
I scrub my hand down the back of my neck. “It’s not like that.”
“Then where are you going?”
“The hospice.” My voice is almost a whisper.
If she’s surprised, she doesn’t show it, but she does get back into the car. Gaze softer now, she says, “Like I said, where you go, I go.”
The driver moves into traffic. The sheen on the asphalt suggests it rained recently. I recognize the names of the streets, the turns the driver takes, and many of the stores and pubs, but a lot has changed, too.
Have I? I feel like I’m ten, twelve, sixteen all over again—when Aunt Maureen got me out—when my life hung by a frayed thread.
“I haven’t been home in years either.” Maggie’s voice floats to me from the other side of the car.
“I take it home is not in Florida. So where is it? You never told me,” I answer.
“I don’t know anymore.”
“What about your parents?”
Her answer is silence as if to remind me that the topic is off-limits.
When I had her phone, I saw a photo of a little girl with her same eyes, hazel with amber flecks, tucked between two adults who looked vaguely familiar. Perhaps she suffered a tragedy of her own and is as alone as me.
“How about your home?” she asks, breaking the long pause.
She seems alone, lonely at times. I recognize the empty void of that feeling and how deep its claws sink in to keep me there. I don’t want to shut her out, but I can’t let her get close to the past—to who I was.
But Maggie is a beam of sunlight. What would happen if I let a little of that into the shadowy spots? Before allowing myself to think too hard, I blurt, “I never knew my father. My mother passed away when I was a lad. Grew up...moving around. When I was sixteen, my great aunt found me. We’d never met before that, but I went to live with her in the United States. She was a flight attendant. The private plane was a gift for her, but...” I trail off.
Maggie is quiet for a long moment. “I get the sense that you’re avoiding something.” She faces me, gaze soft with understanding, despite the private airplane reentering the conversation.
As we pass under the street lights and illuminated signs, her features move in and out of shadow. I sense the same could be said about her avoiding something.
“Listen, I’m here to help you manage your life. The good and bad. The tricky and easy. I’m your coach. It’s my job.”
“You’re also my friend.”
“Remember, we didn’t know each other until now.”
“But we’re no longer at Blancbourg.” I lift both my eyebrows.
“We have to follow the rules.”
“We’re in my territory now. I make the rules,” I say with a laugh, but I’m not joking. For a long time, that was true...until things went too far.
We pull up in front of a nondescript brick building. Maggie’s gaze floats to the signHope House Hospice.
I sense the gears shift between us as the car comes to a stop.
In a low voice, I say, “What I need right now is a friend.”
Without hesitating, Maggie takes my hand.
