Tilley had known this invitation was coming—or, at least, hoped. Even still, a little gasp escaped her throat. And it wasn’t an act. It was true surprise. Not that it had happened, but that she was actually going to go through with it. “I think I could arrange it in my very busy schedule.” She winked at him. She wasflirting. George reached out and took Tilley’s hand and they sat, still and quiet, looking over the dock, out into the night, all the way up to heaven. Their minds might have been somewhere else, but their hands, their pulses, their hearts, were connected right here. And, for now, that was enough. It was a start. It was more than either of them had ever dreamed they’d have again.
MASONReputation
I had spent so much time thinking coaching was kind of a simple profession. You get to hang out with kids. You get the summers off and a long break at Christmas. Spring break. Fall break. Work that I could leave at work.
I mean, sure. Kids were hormonal and dramatic and complicated. And then there were the school politics, people who were mad I got to coach without teaching, people who were jealous of my office. (Let’s be real: My office was super shitty.) People who thought I should have to take extra lunchroom duty. None of that really bothered me. But this current challenge? Definitely not one I had expected.
Daisy had the day off, so she and Maisy had stopped by to bring sandwiches and eat lunch with me. I still hadn’t told her about Chapel Hill. I had tried, in my defense. But every time, something had come up that had stopped me. Sure, I could have just blurted it out, but this needed to be a conversation. There were things to solve here. This wasn’t just news I wanted to share. It was a life plan I wanted to try to curate—if she was willing, which I knew she might not be.
“So are you not a big egg salad person?” Daisy asked. “Because I know some people hate the smell.”
I looked down at my sandwich, which I hadn’t eaten much of. “No, I love egg salad. I’m just kind of distracted.” Every time I was away from Daisy, I felt that intense guilt that I needed to tell Drew the truth. But then, I would see her and Maisy, and I felt this potentially very selfish feeling that Maisy was best off with Daisy. And, well, hopefully, maybe, me. But I felt like I was playing God, and I was self-aware enough to know that I was really not qualified for that.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I do, actually,” I said.
“If this is about Maisy—”
“It’s not,” I said, cutting her off. I had promised her I wouldn’t say anything to Drew, and I wasn’t sure I could keep that promise. There was a part of me that knew that this news would devastate Drew and change his entire life. I wanted to protect him from that in some ways. But, in others, we all had to be responsible for our actions and decisions. Not for the first time, I wished I could talk this over with my mom. She had this way of clarifying things for me. But I had the feeling my mom was the keeper of enough people’s secrets.
I had planned what I would say to Daisy pretty thoroughly. “I want to say first off that I mean for this to be a conversation. This isn’t me just telling you something.”
She squinted at me. “Okay.”
But before I could continue, a voice I recognized called “Coach!” from around the corner, and it was one of those moments when I wished I had a remote control, where I could hit pause and not have Daisy have to face who was coming through the door: Julie. In full-on, perky mom mode. “I just wanted to talk about organizing the snack sign-up for—” She saw Daisy, and Daisy saw her. And it wasawkward.
But bless Daisy, she just said, “Hi, Julie.”
“Daisy!” Julie gasped. “Gosh, I’m so glad to see you.”
She looked like she meant it. Daisy looked kind of… like she had Vaseline on her teeth that was making her keep her mouth open, but the disgusting taste was informing her facial features. It occurred to me that I hadn’t really been there for Daisy through this like I should have. I’d had so much going on myself. “I think a snack sign-up would be great, Julie. Thanks,” I said, trying to get her out of here and putting this awkward exchange to an end.
She gave me a thumbs-up and turned like her hair was on fire.
“Well, that went well,” Daisy said under her breath.
Nope. I couldn’t get distracted. “So, Daisy, what I wanted to talk about—” As I started to explain, Sarah ran through the door in her cheerleading oufit, out of breath, saying, “Coach!”
She looked at me and then noticed Daisy and Maisy. She smiled at them like this was ordinary. “Oh, hi!”
“Hi!” Daisy said brightly. That must have taken a lot of composure.
“Um, Coach, Emily sent me in here—”
“Nope,” I said.
She laughed. “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask!”
I studied this girl who had given birth behind a dumpster, could have died from an infection, who was currently occupying the same space as her baby. She was either a sociopath or she was hiding her pain so deep down that it was going to haunt her for life. My money was on option B.
Drew appeared in the doorway now too, and when he saw Sarah, he beamed. Then he saw Daisy and Maisy, and I felt like I needed some air. “Oh my gosh!” he said. “Sarah! This is the baby I saved.”
He flexed, she giggled, and I had to open my window. Daisy had turned a shade of gray.
“I was just here to tell Coach that Emily was thinking that since the cheerleaders had been such a hit at the games, maybe we could do a quick dance on the field at a time-out or two?”
“No!” I answered immediately, wanting her out of there.
