“Sorry, did I miss a flag being thrown? Or were you dancing in the pocket, psyching yourself out and holding onto the ball ‘til your boys couldn’t protect you anymore? You know you could have thrown it away.”
“I couldn’t see my receivers, it would have been a grounding call! Myboyswere gone!”
“They were running their routes, Carver!”
“The other team didn’t need to sack me for fourteen fucking yards,” Carver said, growing increasingly infuriated. Their passes were getting a lot harder and faster.
“Guys,” Maggie called, but her voice fell on deaf ears.
“Twelve of those yards were all you, happy feet!”
“I know math isn’t your strong suit, Chip, but that means they still threw me two yards, or six fucking feet!”
“Fine, Jesus, you think I never got knocked around as a quarterback? You thinkmyshoulders are in good shape? You act like the whole world is against you, meanwhile you get handed shit on a platter! You were no quarterback and you know it! I’m not even talking arm, I’m talking heart! Fietz only put you on the roster out of respect for me and Dad, and you let us down!”
Carver’s aforementioned heart spasmed with anguish. “I never asked for any of that,” he shouted, flinging the football at Chip, who barely caught the pass. “I didn’twantit. You knew I wanted to run cross country again, but you both fucking bullied me into trying out for football, bullied me into going out forquarterback even though I would have made a better receiver, just so I could spend my whole fall riding the bench and then spend months rehabbing a stupid pointless injury! Why?” The ball came back, and he fired it away again. “You two weren’t good enough to play D1, soIhad to give it a shot?”
“Oh, yeah, me and Dad are the worst for wanting to share something with you,” Chip said with another eyeroll, and flung the ball back at him. “And it’sourfault you choked. You know, those linemen could tell you shouldn’t be out there, and that’s exactly why they sacked you so hard, to teach you a lesson! You went out there and asked for it, and they gave it to you!”
Carver went momentarily blind with rage and fired a very hard pass directly at Chip’s smug face. The next thing he saw was Chip dropping to his knees in the grass with an exclamation of “Son of abitch!”
The football bounced merrily away. Maggie shouted and ran to her husband. Carver stood there, queasy with the knowledge that he’d just fucked up, while Chip tried to staunch his bleeding nose with his hand. Bailey and Aaron also ran to their father, shouting, “Daddy!” but Chip only looked irritated by all this attention.
“Stop,” he said, swatting Maggie’s hand away and getting to his feet by himself.
“Daddy,” Aaron said tearfully.
“Daddy’s fine! Jesus H!” Chip took his hand from his face, looked at his blood-smeared palm and said “son of a bitch” again.
“Chip, I’m sorry,” Carver said.
“Shut the hell up,” Chip replied.
From the patio, Nora shouted, “Carver Jacob Novack, what did you just do?”
The tone in her voice was chilling. Carver turned to her with a wince. “The ball got away from me, Mom, sorry.”
“Oh, please! I came to the door because you two were screaming at each other, and the next thing I see is you breaking his nose!”
Maggie sucked in air through her teeth. “Is it actually broken?” she said to Chip, who shrugged.
“This isn’t funny, Carver,” Nora hollered at him, fiddling anxiously with the collar of her pristine white button-up. “We have a family wedding tomorrow, with aphoto-graph-erwho is being paidout the ying-yang,and your brother’s going to have a swollen nose and a couple of black eyes! My God!”
“Mom, we were getting heated and I lost control of the ball, I’m sorry. It was an accident, I apologized, what else do you want me to do?”
Nora shook her head. “Chip, are you alright?”
“I’m fine, leave me alone,” Chip shouted back.
Nora made a sound of exasperation and went back inside the house. Lillian, who could only ever hide her curiosity about a bloody injury for so long, sidled up to Chip and began examining him. She took his face in her hands, which caught her a pointed look from Maggie, to whom she said, “Can I take a look?”
“Fine,” Maggie said, and went to round up the agitated children. “Though you’re not exactly adoctor, are you?”
“I’ve seen a few broken noses,” Lillian said, palpating Chip’s face and making him wince. “When I do this, do you feel a crunchy, grating sensation?”
“No,” Chip said, sniffing.
Lillian manipulated his nose some more, while Chip stood there pretending this wasn’t painful for him. Maggie gave another pointed look as she took the kids inside — this one aimed at Carver. He just shrugged at her.
