17
Cooper
After the game, I called my father to tell him about the scout. I didn’t even wait until I got home, just called him while I walked across the parking lot to my car. He was going to be the most excited about the news. All those times he tossed the ball with me growing up—they might pay off.
He didn’t pick up the phone. Must be offshore somewhere without service. I left a message, announcing the news into the silence on the line, which was anticlimactic. None of this felt right. He should’ve been at the game, cheering me on. He should be the one celebrating with me now. Instead, I drove home to an empty house while Claire and Mom ate ice cream with Mr. Siebold.
My father didn’t call back until the next morning when I was getting ready to go to work at the drugstore. After he congratulated me and had me repeat the entire conversation I had with the scout, he said, “I bet you’ll get a full-ride scholarship. After that, you’ll have the pros after you. Although remember, nothing is certain in sports.” He went on to give me a list of majors he thought would be good, all of them high paying, should an injury put an end to my football career.
He was always trying to save me from the problems he’d had. People say money doesn’t buy happiness, but having it sure makes life easier.
When he was done with that, he asked, “How is your mom doing? Did she go out with the lawyer again?”
“Yeah. More than once.”
“It would be a lawyer,” Dad mumbled. “They charge you an arm and a leg to process your divorce and then hit on your ex.”
“Mr. Seibold wasn’t her divorce lawyer,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter. They’re all the same. She’ll probably find out the hard way what he’s like, and then ...”
I wondered if the call had dropped. “Dad?”
“Yeah. I’m here.” His voice sounded ragged. “I’m right here in Alaska, working my tail off to have a career that pays the bills like she wanted.”
More silence.
“You should talk to Mom,” I said.
“I do talk to her. She sent me footage of the game. You looked great.”
“You should talk to her about things besides me and Claire.”
There was another long pause. “Yeah, I need to do that.”
That was progress, however small. I left my room and went out into the hallway. “She’s here. I can find her and give her the phone.”
“No,” he said quickly. “I’ll talk to her later. I’ve got to think about it.”
Meaning what?
It didn’t occur to me until I hung up that he hadn’t asked about Madeline or told me I shouldn’t get too serious about a girl when I was young—and that had been his standard advice every time I started dating anyone.
Which meant Mom hadn’t told him about Madeline. I wasn’t sure whether that was because she didn’t think Madelineand I would last more than a few days or whether she didn’t want to admit she was dating my girlfriend’s father.
Or as Madeline would say in her lawyer talk: one didn’t preclude the other.
That was the stage we’d reached in our relationship. Her phrases were now part of my brain.
The rest of the weekend was way too quiet and boring. Work and homework.
Every time I got a text notification, I expected it to be something from Madeline.
It never was.
Dahlia messaged me often enough, and that was after I told her not to in case my mother had a way to read my messages. Dahlia never said anything about the homecoming dance and seemed to think that was enough stealth. She even sent me a selfie of her watching the game, lips pouting.
I’d figured that Madeline’s father might be spying on her phone since she’d brought up the possibility, but I hadn’t been all that worried that my mom was reading things on mine until Saturday night.
