Page 220 of The Sweetest Return

“I did not break that thing.”

“You absolutely did.”

“It was old.”

“It was mine.”

“That was almost twenty years ago.”

“And yet I remember.”

He sat at the table, moving a little slower than he had when I was young but still with purpose. More gray filled his beard now. His hands remained broad through the palms, knuckles thick from work, nails scrubbed without pretending they had never touched dirt.

When I was a kid, those hands looked like the strongest things in the world.

Some days they still did.

I sat across from him.

“Coach Price offered me the running backs job.”

Pops nodded like I'd told him rain was coming.

“I figured.”

“You figured?”

“You been looking like a man waiting on a phone to ring.”

I looked away.

“They want me in now. Quiet transition, then official. Forge are four and six going into Week Eleven, and that running back room needs help.”

“They do.”

“You watched?”

“I got eyes.”

“You also fall asleep in the third quarter.”

“Because they play ugly football.”

I laughed.

Pops drank that terrible coffee and waited.

“So why is it a hard decision?”

“Because it changes everything.”

“Most things worth doing do.”

“The schedule is heavy. Facility every day. Film. Practice. Road games. Staff meetings. Businesses still have to run. My knee still does what it does.” I rubbed my jaw. “Imani and I are finally…”

I let it die.

Pops heard it anyway.