And Harrison didn’t know what to do about that. He was so ill prepared to feel this at this point in his life. He was beginning to wonder if he was ill prepared to consider or feel anything at this point in his life other than golf. It was slightly alarming to realize he did not have a game plan beyond the links.
What was he doing? What had happened to knee rehab? What about the decisions about his future he’d hoped to make? Suddenly he didn’twant to deal with any of that—all he seemed to want to do was hang out with Amy. He wanted to talk about things he would never talk about with anyone else. Like age and religion and how people can look at the same painting and see something totally different. He wanted to ask about her life and her kids (and he never wanted to hear about people’s kids) and how she’d ended up in human resources when what she wanted to do was create art. He wanted to ask about first kisses and first heartbreaks, about the things she would do differently if she could go back in time, and did she know she had the cutest freckle just above the corner of her left eyebrow?
These questions and more were what prompted him to get up and leave this morning. She was sleeping so peacefully. Her hair spilled onto his pillow, and she was so pretty in that relaxed state. He’d feared that if he’d stayed there next to her, he would wake her up for purely selfish reasons, and probably would have convinced them both to never leave that bed. But she’d come here to create art, and although she did not strike him as the sort of woman who would give up on a goal, he was afraid she might because of him. If there was one thing he’d learned about her, it was that she was totally into sex. And while he would really love that, he didn’t want to get in her way. She’d made it clear from the beginning that this was an opportunity she could not pass up, and he would never forgive himself if he distracted her from that.
On the other hand, he couldn’t stay in this little coffee shop forever. And besides, Hillary had already texted him about another physical therapy session this afternoon. Harrison decided he would go back, and he would tiptoe so as not to disturb Amy, and maybe tonight, maybe he would ask her what they were doing and whether he ought to leave.
Or maybe, he’d be a man about it and tell her he intended to leave. In this sun-filled morning, it seemed the only right thing to do. Because he wasn’t going to stay,right, Harrison?He was going to Scotland.Right?
What choice did he have, really? If he didn’t go to Scotland, if hedidn’t get back on the tour, what was left to him? Retirement? He was only fifty. Could he really retire at this age and be content? Or would he be bored? Could he really continue to play golf on such a grueling schedule? Or would he burn out? Maybe he’d already burned out. Maybe his recovery was taking so long because he didn’t know what he wanted.
Harrison groaned. He was no closer to knowing what he was doing with his life than when he’d arrived. His dilemma seemed even more complicated now, because he was realizing things about himself. Like how maybe he’d missed too much of what life had to offer in pursuit of a little white ball. And how the pursuit of the little white ball had given him an existence he could not have had otherwise, but he was beginning to feel like there was so much it had kept him from.
At the lake house again, he could hear the muffled sound of Christmas music playing inside. The temperature had taken another dip, and the cloud cover seemed different today. Less gray, more silver. He wasn’t sure, but it felt like snow. He paused when he stepped out of the car to stretch out his leg, and heard a car drive through the gates and park behind him. Hillary popped out of the driver’s seat and waved. “Great! You can help me.” She went to her trunk and popped it open.
Harrison met her there and investigated her trunk. There was a black bag, a mat for hitting golf balls, and a contraption that he knew very well—a golf club with a modified shaft to help correct swings.
“I’ll grab the table,” she said. “You can carry this. On the deck again? Let’s take advantage of the weather before it gets bad. What’s that I hear? I think that is ‘Carol of the Bells,’ isn’t it? I was one of the carolers in high school. You’d be surprised how hard it is to ring bells correctly.”
Harrison suppressed a sigh and picked up the bag and the rest of the things. Hillary had already gone to the house and opened the door.
He followed her onto the deck where she had already set up the table. “Hop up, on your back,” she said, and reached into her bag to grab a fewthings. “I talked to Tony last night.” She put her hands on his quadricep and began to knead it.
“Who?”
“Tony. Tony Cho. Remember? I was telling you about him yesterday.”
“Oh. Right.” Enough had gone on in Harrison’s life since then that he’d forgotten the entire conversation.
“So let me ask you something, H,” she said as she dug into his quad.
H, huh?“Ouch.” He grimaced at how tight his quadricep was. Still. “Okay.”
“Say you spent the last tournamentexclusivelywith someone. Like, they spent the night in your hotel room and you went out to dinner. That sort of thing.”
Oh God.He did not want to have this conversation.
“What would that mean to you? Like, would you think you were dating? Or was it just a multiday hookup kind of thing?”
Harrison hated to talk about other players. He knew most of them, and he knew Tony. Not well, but enough that this made him uncomfortable. “Hillary, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not—”
“Roll onto your stomach,” she said, patting his knee. “It’s okay, I can deal. You can say whatever you want.”
He rolled over.
“The thing is,” she said, as she began to knead his butt without giving him a heads-up that’s what she intended to do, “without consistent communication, it’s hard to know what anyone’s intent was, right?”
“I would say in the greater scheme of things, sure.”
“Like, I text him, and he answers, but it’s always sort of a yes-or-no thing. And henevertexts me first. And if he does text me first, it’s because he needs something. What do you think of that?”
Maybe Hillary wasn’t hearing the words she was saying, because Harrison thought it was pretty clear what Tony Cho was thinking.
“I don’t…think. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t want to get in the middle—”
“Like everyone on the tour says you’re a decent guy, H. You’re not hooking up with golf groupies.”
Well. He hadn’t in a very long time, anyway.
