A while later I found myself staring at the shade barn. The moon was high and bright. Casting our shadows below us. Below me, Tux growled. The hair standing up on his back. In the distance, I saw someone with a flashlight walking across the field en route to the barn.
I cradled Tux, quieted him, and we followed at a distance. She opened a side door and strode in. We crept in through an end door and opposite her, out of sight and sound. Her flashlight landed on one of several boxes stacked on a wall. She lifted the lid off the box, leaned over it, rifled through its contents, and finally pulled something out. She held it up in front of her, put the lid back on the box, and returned out the same door she’d come in. Before she left, she straightened a picture on a wall, glanced quickly around with her flashlight, and disappeared out the same door she’d come in.
In Audrey’s absence, I pushed open the door and stood staring up at all that I’d once accomplished while Tux sniffed the dirt and peed on all the support timbers. I took my time, sifting through boxes and staring at the displays on the walls. The memories flooded. Old cleats, jerseys, shoulder pads, helmets, game balls, awards, framed listings of achievements and records, newspaper articles, magazine covers. Each memory was tied to a sweet place in me, but when I walked up close and drank from the spigot, the aftertaste was bitter. As a disconnected observer, I examined my life, and when it struck me, I didn’t fight it. The sum of my life accounted for nothing. A forgotten dustbin in south Georgia. And without Audrey, I’d done nothing. I stood among the rubble and ruins of a world that had long since crumbled around me.
I opened the front and rear barn doors and then cranked open the vents along the lower walls, creating a vigorous draft. Standing in the middle felt like an elevator shaft lying on its side. I poured the kerosene around the base of the timber and lit the match. I’d always loved that smell. The kerosene caught and began licking up the side of the wood. Within seconds, it’d climbed to the roof and was crawling along the underside to the far end.
I turned from the fire, picked up Tux, and began walking away. Flames climbed out of the barn, showered me in heat, and cast a bronze shadow on the road before me. A quarter mile away, I turned and watched as the flames lit up the night sky, showering the air in sparks, heat, and the residue of memory. In less than five minutes, the insatiable appetite of the fire had consumed the barn, which had crumbled and filled the air around me in flittering ash. Out of fuel, the fire receded into a pile of heat and cinders. By morning, there’d be little left.
Just a black stain on the face of the earth.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I slept fitfully and woke before daylight. As if someone shook me. Memories and images were flashing through my head like a projector. I showered, dressed, and slipped out the front door. Minutes later, I scaled the wall and then lowered myself into the garden. I wanted to walk through one last time. Imprint it into my mind—so I could come back here. I walked slowly, studying every detail, every bush, leaf, rose petal, smell. I marveled at what Audrey had done. Out of nothing but weeds and dirt, she had created and nurtured a living, breathing cathedral. I was proud of her.
And I wished I could tell her that.
The sun broke the skyline, parted the clouds, and began burning the mist off the ground. I sat on a bench and rested my head against the wall behind me. I closed my eyes and sat there breathing, imprinting the smell in my brain. Just feet away, I heard, “What do you remember?”
Audrey’s voice surprised me. When I opened my eyes, she stood to my left. Barefooted. Jeans. Hands dirty. Looked like she’d been up a while.
“About us?”
She shook her head. “About life.”
“Hope and promise.”
She chuckled. A hurt laugh. “Really.”
“The hope of what might be and the promise of sharing it with you.”
She must have been tired because she dropped her guard relatively quickly. She nodded thoughtfully. “In the recesses of my mind—” She waved her hand across her garden. “Before all this.”
I tried to get her talking. “How you doing? You okay?”
Evidently, she wasn’t that tired. She flipped her switch, raised her guard, turned cold, and ignored me. “Dee says you’re finally doing it. That you made the call.”
“You mean today?”
“Dee appeared last night, giddy. We sat and talked a long time. Said he can’t wait to watch this. Said it should shut the critics up forever.”
I laughed. “I don’t know if anything shuts them up, but it might quiet them awhile.”
She nodded. “Experience talking.”
Obviously, she hadn’t figured it out yet. Neither had he. “Wood and Roddy are taking care of all the details. Should be quite a show.”
“Roddy.” She shook her head. “Only one of him.” She turned to me. “Where will you end up?”
The garden caught my attention. “Don’t know. I asked Wood to handle the first round or two of calls. After that we’ll talk. But wherever, it doesn’t really matter.”
She sat on the bench opposite me, gently tracing her toes in the jet-black dirt. “He loves wearing that earpiece.”
I chuckled. “Yep.”
If my soul had been starving for water and the last twelve years had been a desert, these last few minutes had been an oasis and I was standing in a waterfall.
I drank deeply.
We sat in the quiet. The sun slowly lighting the world. Hummingbirds shot like F-16s in the air around us. Doves perched on the walls about us, cooing, calling to one another.
She spoke. Not so much to me as into the air around us. “I love it here.”
My window was closing, and I felt it. I said, “Audrey, can I say something to you?”
She looked up at me, and in her eyes I did not see anger or rage. I saw a broken and lonely girl. She waited.
“I just want to tell you that I’m sorry and I love you.”
She blinked. “Is that your confession?”
“I confess that I love you more today than the day we married. And I confess that I’m really sorry for what happened to us. To you. To our life together.”
She blinked again and nodded but said nothing. She was either too tired to fight or maybe she needed one tender moment amid the ten thousand that threatened to kill her. I stood and stared out across her garden, out across the one moment in our lives when all the world was right. The thought came to the tip of my tongue. I held it there, wondering if I should let it out. Finally, I did. I said, “You know, this wasn’t the play that I called.”
She looked up, confused. “What?”
I waved my hand out across the garden. “This… it wasn’t what I called in the huddle.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and started toward the ladder. Doing so brought me within two feet of her.
Her voice was soft. “But you audibled at the line.” She nodded. “It’s on video. You changed the play at the line.”
I smiled. “You saw me act like I was changing the play at the line. The audible you hear isn’t the play that Wood and Roddy run.” I shook my head. “I wanted them to think I’d changed it based on their coverage. That they’d boxed me in. It’s what the other side was expecting. But it was all smoke and mirrors. And it’s how Roddy got open. Only Wood and Roddy knew the call.”
She looked stumped. “But how’d they know?”
I turned. “The morning after we lost the national championship? You woke me up, changed my workout schedule, scheduled Roddy and Wood. I called it that morning.”
She considered the ramifications of this. “You mean, they knew the last play of the following season, the morning after you lost?”
I shoved my hands in my pants and started walking.
Her voice followed me. “Matthew?”
I stopped.
“You called the last play of the season before the season even started?”
I stopped. “Yes.”
&nbs
p; “Why?”
“Because sometimes the other side is better. Stronger. Faster. I knew then that they would be. That they could beat us. So I gave the three of us an assignment. We worked on it all summer and through the season. Wood’s job was to give me four seconds. Period. Roddy knew exactly where in the end zone he needed to be and how many steps it took to get there and how much time and how high he had to jump. And I knew the vertical leaps of the three DBs that might be covering him. I even had footage of them playing intramural basketball. I knew how high they could jump. So I knew exactly, within an inch or two, where that ball needed to be, and Roddy did, too. Calling that play a year earlier is the only reason it worked a year later.” I paused. “Great QBs are great, not because they have the strongest arms or fastest feet, but because they can anticipate and read defenses. It’s the one skill you can’t coach.”
She looked out across her garden. Confused. Slowly the pieces fit together and when they did, the sum of them pulled down slightly on her lower jaw. She sat in silence, astonishment setting in, and as I turned, I saw a glimmer of something in her eyes that looked like hope.
Her words fell softly on my shoulders. “Matty?”
The word soothed me. I let it rattle around inside me. It echoed, resonated, and settled softly near my heart. “Yes?”
Her tone was motherly. Caring. Slightly defensive. “Can Dee read defenses?”
“At his age, better than I. But he’s young. And he hasn’t seen this one coming. This one will catch him off guard.”
She covered her mouth with her hands to hide her smile, but she couldn’t hide the tears.
I walked off as the clock tower sounded.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Ray shook me awake an hour later. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and met him on the porch, where he offered me a cup of coffee. I knew what he was doing. We both did. He was saying good-bye. We propped our legs on the railing, blew the steam off our mugs, and sipped in silence for several minutes. Finally, I said, “I’ll miss the Bucket.”
A nod. “I’ll miss seeing you on it.”
I glanced at him. “Will you help Audrey with—”
He held up a hand and stopped me. “Who you think drove him to the orthodontist? Taught him to drive? Got him his first pair of cleats? His job at the grocery? Don’t plan to stop now.”
“Thanks.”
He continued, “In truth, he be taking care of her now.” Tux curled up at Ray’s feet, letting out a deep sigh. Ray finished his coffee, stood, dusted off his pants, and, stopping behind me, put his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll come see you.” He wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. “Soon as you get settled.”
I patted his hand, and he disappeared through the trees.
Tux and I spent the day alone—and out of sight—on top of the Bucket. If they came to the cabin, I’d at least see them coming. I napped, ate a little, drank lots of water, and stretched late in the afternoon. I climbed down around five p.m. when Wood appeared. He rolled his window down and gave me a thumbs up. “All set.”
We were quiet a minute, neither really knowing what to say. Wood knew where this was going, and he knew there were no easy answers. Finally, he spoke. “You sure about this?”
“No. But…” I shrugged.
He attempted a joke. “It’s nice to know you’re human.”
“Oh, I’m human all right.”
“You can still call it off.”
“You know better than that.”
“I’ll be with you on the other side of this.”
“You’d do well to get on with your life. Put all this behind you.”
“I’ll get on with my life, but I’m not putting you behind me.” He paused. “Matter of fact, I, uh… I been meaning to ask you something.” His tone had changed. Something tender. Caught me off guard. “Laura and I were wondering if you minded if we named our son Matthew.”
“She’s expecting?” I had no idea.
He nodded, smiling.
“How long have you known?”
“Had the ultrasound this week. He’s definitely a boy.”
I laughed. “Wow. Really?”
He chuckled. “Laura’s been telling me we need to get cable, but I just never listened to her.”
“Evidently not.”
“So?”
“Yes. Yes, absolutely.”
“While you’re in such an agreeable mood—” Wood wasn’t finished. He had something else on his mind. “How would you feel about being his godfather?”
“That might be tough from prison.”
“Doesn’t matter where you are.”
“Laura really said that?”
He looked up at me. “When I told her about today, about what you’re planning, she broke down. Told me if I didn’t talk to you about all this that she was coming down here herself.”
I chuckled. “You married well, Dunwoody.”
He smiled, chest swelling. “That I did.”
“I’d really like that. Yes. Thank you.”
We were quiet a few minutes. Finally, he spoke. “You know, if you want, I could get out of this car, give you the keys, and you could just start driving. And I’d be willing to bet that when they found out you did that, everything would settle and disappear. You could start over someplace other than here.”
I considered this. “The thought did cross my mind.”
He waited. “But?”
“You remember that Orange Bowl?”
He closed his eyes. “My head still hurts. What were those two brothers’ names?”
“Chip and Dave—”
He cut me off. “Russell.”
“Yep.”
He pressed his hand to his head as if the memory still hurt. “Those guys were tough. One would stand you up and hold you a second while the other just cut you in half.”
“And you remember how they shut us down for fifty-eight minutes.”
“I do.”
“What finally worked?”
Wood chuckled. “Sneak up the middle.”
“Didn’t work the first time, did it?”
“Nor the second or third.”
“Then came—”
He laughed from his belly and cut me off again. “Fourth and forever.”
We both paused as the memory replayed itself across our minds.
I said, “You remember standing in that huddle? Before that last play?”
Wood kept laughing. “Man, Roddy was so pissed.”
I stopped him. “Wood, this is fourth and forever.”
He stared out through the windshield. His lips were tight when he spoke. “I miss that.”
“There’s someone I miss more. And she needs to know it.” The clock was ticking. I tapped on the side of the door. “Better get going.”
“Yeah. I want to get there in time to make sure everything’s in order and to tell Damon where he can shove his clipboard.”
“I’d like to see that.”
“Want a ride?”
“I’ll walk.”
Wood stared out his windshield and his voice softened. “Last time through the tunnel.”
I nodded. “See you in a few.”
At a quarter to six, I peered through the trees at the stadium. The sidelines were packed with people. Television crews had brought cranes onto the track to get a close-up and elevated view of the field. The knot in my stomach tightened. Could I pull this off?
Roddy had made good on his promise to get the word out via Twitter, and it must have worked because the lower section of the stands was packed. Must have been a thousand people. Wood stood on the sideline, deflecting a vocal barrage from Coach Damon, who was effectively muted by the crowd of reporters, scouts, and coaches swarming the field. True to form, Wood had changed into a suit and what looked like his secret-service earpiece, which I thought was a nice touch.
Dee quietly appeared next to me. If his father had been black, his father’s influence on his skin color had drained out of him. Completely. He
looked at me. “What’d you say?”
I let out a deep breath. “I said I’d like a chance to reenter the NFL. Formally.”
“It worked.” His excitement grew. “You’re really trying out?”
“Something like that.”
He shook his head, mesmerized by the crowd. Awe pulled down on his jaw while his smile spread his lips. “Must be twenty-five to thirty teams over there. And twice as many cameras.” He snapped his fingers. “I just met a photographer from SI. Coach, Sports Illustrated is here. The lens on his camera must have been”—he extended his arms widely as if he were telling a fish story—“three feet long.”
Mesmerized, he was staring at the field. I was staring at him. “Dee?”
He turned, curious. Oblivious. “Yeah?”
“I need you to do me a favor.”
His eyes returned to the field. One toe started tapping the ground. “Anything. Name it.”
I placed a ball in his hands. “Try out with me.”
The toe stopped tapping and the last of the color drained out. “What!”
“One last workout.”
“But—” This is about the time he understood what was going on and began shaking his head. “No.”
“Dee. Look at me.”
He wouldn’t.
“Dee?”
Still nothing.
“Men are coming to my cabin today. They may be there now—” Slowly, he lifted his face. “They’re going to arrest me. Send me back to prison.”
He shoved me hard in the chest. “Why’d you do this? Why didn’t you walk away when you could?”
“Dee, she’s just using you.”
“Who? Why?”
“That’s not important. If not you, she’d be using someone else. She tends to come at what I love. No matter who it is. Always has.”
He turned. Faced me. Eyes asking the question his heart had long since wanted to voice.
“Do this for me, please. Walk out there and play a game with me.” I tapped his heart. “Just play a game with me.”
He dropped the ball and began shaking his head. Finally, his shoulders shook. The sobs came soon after. His voice broke. “But prison—”