She snorted. “I guess you’re right. I mean, it’s bound to happen, seeing as the two of you have zero control when the other is in the room.”
She wasn’t lying.
“Do you think you two could ever work it out?”
“I want to say yes,” I admitted. “But there’s a lot of trauma in our background, Eddy. It’s like…” I swallowed. “I’ve been hoping for years he’d come around. That he’d come after me. But he never did.”
She pulled away from me and stared into my eyes for a long moment before she said, “Did you know that he came to every one of your games that were within either a six-hour flight, or four-hour drive, since you started playing professionally?”
I blinked. “He worked himself to the bone. Putting in all kinds of hours so that he could pay for those flights. And just sayin’, but he didn’t take his daddy’s plane, either. He did it all in secret.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it. “He did?”
“He even flew to Tokyo for a week to watch you play in the last Olympics.”
My heart ached. “He did?”
“He’s been to every single out of country game you’ve ever played, too,” she said. “And until he started this new job as a park ranger, he’s never really done anything but stay in. I never even see him out and about the town. He’s always working. Or he’s at home. Or he’s flying somewhere to watch you play.”
My stomach ached.
“To say that he didn’t come after you would be a lie. Because he did. All you had to do was look up into the stands and see.”
My stomach rolled, and I had to will myself not to rush to the trash can and throw up.
“And I never see him anywhere with his mom. Every time I happen to run into her, she always talks about how busy her son is, and how he never has time for her. She always makes sure that you’re where you’re supposed to be, so she knows that he’s not spending his time with you.”
“I hate her,” I said.
The only thing I could say.
I couldn’t examine all those other things right now.
“She hates you, too.” Eddy snorted.
I groaned. “This is going to be a nightmare.”
“It is.”
“Do you think I should fight for him, Eddy?”
She studied me with the same eyes that I was staring back at her with.
It was so long that I started to squirm.
“I think you’ll live the rest of your life miserable if he ever moves on.”
What felt like an electric shock jolted through me at her words.
Pain took life on my face, and she nodded as if she understood what her words had done to me.
“Do you want him to be happy, Nettie?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“Do you want him to be happy with someone else?” she pushed.
I couldn’t help the shaking of my head. “No.”
