“What about his work travel? Does it bother you?”
She considers my question. “Sometimes. But it’s completely different than it was with your father.”
“So, that’s not why you’ve delayed your engagement?”
“No, Taysom.” She purses her lips a moment. “It’s never been the right time. But sometimes we just need a little push to do the thing we really want to do…the thing we know we need to do. I’ve been…okay…with turning down his proposals. Mostly okay.” She smiles. “But maybe we can make a clean break from this town, both of us.”
It feels like I’m skating on thin ice, that in one swift step, it will break open and we’ll plunge into the frigid water. And then what if I couldn’t save her? “I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy, Taysom. I’m happy here doing what I’m doing. Being a nurse, a mom, and a grandma. And I’d be happy in New York with Raul. Very happy.” Her eyes fill with tears, but sheblinks them away and her gaze skitters around the room. “The house is beautiful. But sometimes I feel ready to let it go.”
I swallow hard and shift my body away from her. “That makes sense.”
“The only constant is change, Taysom, and I think we’ve both been trying really hard all these years to fight that change.”
She’s probably right, but I have too much overloading my head right now to know how to respond.
I give her another hug and then head out into the backyard, the yard that used to feel so big. The bounce in the trampoline as I scramble up on it is just like I remember, but the springs creak louder than before.
Emma’s moved on--she’s got her own family—and Mom wants to move on. Has she been staying here in San Antonio for me? I have no idea, but maybe I’ve been staying here for her. I mean, for my job, sure. But maybe also because I thought she needed me.
Swift and deep, the weight of failure crushes me. Football was supposed to fix everything. It was supposed to heal our family—make everything better. And it’s been an amazingly wild ride that I’m very grateful for. It’s supported me and my family, and I’ve been able to do a lot of good things with the money.
It didn’t fix my broken family, though, and that stings. I thought if I could be better, always better than I was before, it would gather my family in and fix them.
But I couldn’t do that.
My mom’s thoughts ring out in my head. That I can choose how I do relationships, that I can make up my mind about what I will and won’t do.
With a gasp, it hits me. Football doesn’t have that much power. It can’t destroy or fix a family. I’ve been giving it far too much credit.
Charlotte.I want to be with Charlotte. She didn’t answer when I tried calling on my way over here. So much has happened today and we need to talk. I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell her about what Matt said, but now, the pressure of everything is shifting inside of me and I feel like it’s now loose enough that I can share it with her.
Can I share how much I love her?
I haven’t said the words yet, but she has to know how I feel.
Because my mom is right. I don’t need to let my old beliefs—that football has the power to seal my family to me and the power to break my family apart—stop me from living my life.
As much as I tried to fix it for my mom, clean out all the bad memories and replace them with new, this house witnessed a lot of pain.
It’s okay. I mean, what happened is not okay, but we’ve done a lot of good healing over the years.
And it’s held a lot of joy, too.
It’s time to move on from this house.The realization takes my breath away.
Maybe playing for Billy Cairns would work out. And it’s time to move on from San Antonio.
I can’t move on from Charlotte, though.
But before I talk with her, I have one more phone call to make.
I pull up Matt on my phone. “Let’s revisit the D.C. idea.”
Chapter 35
Charlotte
