You & Me

Failure lived inside me like an organ. I could feel it pumping alongside my heart. Keeping me alive, even when I didn’t want it to.

Late at night, this failure slithered, coiling around my lungs and squeezing everything tight. I’d wake up clawing at my chest, desperate to find this thing that lived and writhed inside me. Was it wrapped around my heart or had it settled in my belly? Was it slipping down my leg? Spiraling up my arm?

If I could find it, maybe I could cut this pulsing mass out of me that kept fucking everything up.

But if I could cut my failure out, would there be anything left of me?

I was a man born to be lonely. Maybe my first mistake had been trying to live my life. Maybe it would have been better if I was nothing but a memory, a chewed-off curse and a no-good man who’d run out on his woman and his child.

What did that say about someone, that their life might be better if they’d never been a part of it at all?

Traffic in front of me stalled. A line of stuck cars snaked from the red light and backed onto the highway. I was mired somewhere on the exit ramp. Only a handful were able to inch across the intersection with each cycle of the traffic lights.

All I needed was to hit the cross street. One right turn and I could escape this nightmare.

The clock on the dash ticked forward another minute. The cars in front of me hadn’t budged in three.

Someone behind me honked. Sure, we were all here just to annoy whoever was stuck seventeen cars back with their rear end dangling in traffic. I glared in my rearview as I propped my elbow on my truck’s window. Keep honking, buddy. It makes the lights go faster.

Another minute passed. Shit. Practice had started five minutes ago. Emmet didn’t know I was coming, so it wasn’t like he’d be disappointed if I didn’t make it.

In fact, he was going to be furious when I did show up.

I could do nothing right for my son. Everything earned me the same reaction: a sullen glare, a brooding side-eye, a slammed door. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to eat dinner with me. He definitely didn’t want to spend more than the barest minimum amount of time together. We had only incidental contact, the kind that happens when you share four walls and a roof and nothing else with another person.

He took after his mother that way.

Most of all, Emmet hadn’t wanted his mother to die.

Honestly? He probably wished I’d died instead.

He didn’t want to move across town, either, but we were lucky to find our cramped and aging little townhome at the edge of Last Waters within the school district’s limits. We didn’t have much to work with after all the debt was paid off.

A hole in the next lane opened thanks to a distracted driver nose-down in their cell phone. I shot my truck into the opening, waving a sloppy thanks over my shoulder as I zipped through three lanes of traffic. Into the gas station, around the McDonald’s. I drove past the first exit, as if that would make my lawbreaking more acceptable. I didn’t take the most direct cut, Officer.

Of course, there were no cops around. Dallas-area traffic bred accidents faster than rabbits, and the police had more to do than watch intersections for parking lot cut-throughs.

No one saw me, or if they did, no one cared. I didn’t even get a honk.

If there was a way to summarize my life, maybe that would be it: No One Cares About You, Luke.

If I vanished from the face of the Earth that moment, the only evidence of my loss would be my son eventually texting me days from now demanding to know why I hadn’t bought more milk.

Last Waters High School loomed before me. The school itself was massive, one sprawling campus servicing our town and the unincorporated settlements around us. It had been built utilizing classic Texas style—red brick, and lots of it—and after fifty years, what it most resembled was a prison.

The football stadium was the school’s crowning glory, and it overshadowed everything in our suburban enclave. That was on purpose and was enshrined in a town ordinance: nothing shall be built taller than the upper deck of the Last Waters stadium.

That ordinance was a promise to the rest of Texas. This town is a football town, and our school will graduate greats.

It was built like a bowl, the home side rising four stories tall, while the diminutive visitors’ side stood only two. Architecturally, that was a Texas stare down. It was also the school district realizing they could double their revenue if they jacked up the number of seats on the home side. That had been a wise choice. Every game, every seat was filled. In the past two years, I had never been able to buy a ticket to see my son play a home game, for either varsity or junior varsity. Like the other loser parents who didn’t plan ahead, I was stuck in the parking lot listening to the announcer. If I was desperate—which I was—I could hang out by the end zone gate and try to peer through the shrubs the district planted to obscure the view.

At 5:17 p.m. on a Tuesday, football practice was in full swing. From the parking lot, I heard the coaches’ bellows and their whistles trilling, the thump and slap of footballs being launched and caught.

For once, the end zone gate was open. Surely I couldn’t just walk in? Not to watch the great Last Waters Rodeo Riders’ team practice?

There were a handful of high schools in Texas that were known as NFL factories, and our little town was trying to get on that list.

If you drive an hour outside of Dallas-Fort Worth, you run into a flat stretch of Texas prairie where a group of weary westward travelers parked themselves on the banks of our river and decided no farther. The settlement they made was called Last Waters, an unimaginative name thought up because the westward trail they were on crossed the last bend in the river at the edges of their settlement. The dusty clump of houses they built huddled around a trading post and that curve of water, and was the last stop on the map for settlers heading west to chase their dreams and all the dusty promises they’d been sold.

Our town square was an original Old West antique, with all the trading posts and horse hitches and false-fronted buildings shored up by historical preservation committees. It’s a beautiful town, postcard perfect. To the west, across the river running through Old Town, lay an unending prairie and an unbroken sky.

Last Waters was close enough to Dallas to be called a suburb—if you stretched the definition of suburb—and far enough away from the city to be considered “real Texas” to those who threw around phrases like that. Real Texas, of course, was a myth. I was born and raised here. Grew up in San Antonio, went to college in Lubbock, ended up living my life outside Dallas. Last Waters was as Texas as any place I’d ever lived. We had three organic farms within town limits and charging stations for electric vehicles at the grocery store. I had my choice of cow’s milk, soy, almond, goat, or oat milk when I went to the store. Our schools and neighborhoods were diverse. Real Texas meant live and let live. Open doors for strangers. Be polite; it’s yes ma’am and no ma’am. And go Rodeo Riders.

It’s not the kind of place a weird kid like me would have blown into. In fact, it was the opposite of what I’d imagined when I was a punk teenager who thought he knew it all. I scoffed at places like this, laughed at the wholesomeness of it all. Fake, fake, fake, I thought. Couldn’t catch me dead in a place like that. And then I’d taken another hit of my bong and forgotten another homework assignment, and my teachers and my parents shook their heads and made comments about failed potential and wasted talent.

All that pot smoke finally wore off when I was twenty-two. Reality grabbed me by the balls three weeks before my birthday, during my final semester of college. I was scraping by on my fifth year with a 2.1 GPA, my major flip-flopping between art, art history, and philosophy. I didn’t know what I wanted, except I knew I didn’t want that, that, or that.

My girlfriend at the time, Riley, said those two words that will change any man’s life forever. I’m pregnant.

Riley and I were an unlikely pair of parents. We had no business being together, certainly no business mingling our DNA so recklessly.

Neither of us did well in the forward-thinking department.

When I’d met her, I was miserable about my second attempt at an art major and escaping my classes at an off-campus punk rock show. I’d sneaked into the bar—underage—and I was hanging in the shadows, shy and trying to keep to myself like always. I was hiding my joint in the cup of my hand, trying to be stealthy when I didn’t need to be. Everyone in that place was lighting up.

Halfway through the first set, the prettiest girl I’d ever seen sidled alongside me. She had a serious, stern expression, so severe I thought she was an FBI agent or a CIA officer or something way more intense than a local cop busting me for slipping into the bar with a fake ID. My paranoia was ratcheting every second she stared at me.

“Can I bum a hit?” she’d asked, one corner of her lip quirking up in a smile.

I was a goner. I gave her the rest of my joint and tried to scrape my jaw off the floor.

Riley was a graduate student in mathematics writing a thesis on supersingular primes, trying to solve unsolvable equations. She said she liked how the checkerboard pattern of my hat added up to a prime number of black-and-white lines. I told her I liked how she’d dyed the underside of her blonde hair purple. Her bangs were chopped straight, retro style, way before it was cool. She was her own woman, lived life her own way. I was mesmerized. An hour later, we were making out in the bathroom.

I went home with her that night, and I never really left her bed. A year later, after hundreds of late nights getting high, having sex, talking philosophy, and criticizing the modern world, Riley told me she was pregnant.

I had four months to clean up my act. I could graduate if I didn’t fuck around. I’d been planning on fucking around and begging my parents for another semester or two, but that wasn’t an option anymore. The only major open to me after all my flip-flopping was general studies.

I spent afternoons in the student center, scouring job listings and practicing interviews. I shaved my dyed black hair and let it grow back. Took out the lip ring and the earrings.

Eventually, I found someone willing to hire me. The job was entry-level and outside of Dallas, a seven-hour drive from our college. I asked Riley to marry me the day I got the job offer. We were married at the courthouse on a Wednesday.

Riley was eight months pregnant when we put everything we owned in a hatchback I’d bought the week before. The woman selling gave me her old car seat for free when she saw Riley and I show up to pay cash for her clunker. Every hour, I had to stop and fill the radiator.

Last Waters was where we settled. Riley picked the town. She said it had good schools and strong STEM programs. I thought the town name was evocative and dreamy. We both liked how cheap the houses were, at least back then.

A baby is a hard kick to a man’s conscience. I’d been planning and readying, building a crib, painting a nursery, reading baby books, and starting my new nine-to-five job, but nothing, none of it, prepared me for the moment when I first held my son, Emmet.

In that moment, there’s a split-second decision a man makes: you’re holding forever in your hands, and you’re looking down the long, black barrel of the rest of your days. Choose now: Are you going to man up, or are you going to run? There’s no going back.

I cradled Emmet and cried tears of joy, and for the first time, it felt like my life was really going somewhere special.

How fucking wrong I was.

I was devoted to Emmet, at least. I loved being Emmet’s father. When he was young, I used to make him laugh with a flurry of horrible accents and made-up voices. I was Russian or German while we splashed in the bath, Australian as he brushed his teeth. After I tucked him into bed, I’d grab a book and read in a mashup of all the different voices I could muster. I’d impersonate cartoon characters from our Saturday morning marathons when we’d cuddle on the couch and eat chocolate chip pancakes. After cartoons, we drew together at the kitchen table, spreading out with our coloring books and printer paper and crayons. I used to wallpaper my cubicle with the drawings Emmet made for me. I used to tape the sketches I made for him over his bed.

Riley and my problems started early and hard. When we left Lubbock, she was determined to finish her doctorate. For two years, she juggled equations and proofs with Emmet’s infant neediness. As soon as I got home from work, I took over while she disappeared into her office, shutting her door behind her and locking it in place. We grew apart fast.

Emmet’s football practice was crowded inside the stadium. The home stands were filled with moms and dads watching the team. Some had coolers and blankets on the bleachers like they were making a picnic out of practice. Younger siblings darted up and down the stadium steps. I hung behind the end zone near the gate. I wasn’t sure I belonged. No, I knew I didn’t belong.

I scanned the field, searching for jersey number 99. Emmet and I had picked that number together when he moved up from herd ball to junior football. He was coloring in his Dallas Cowboys coloring book, and I was trying to capture the curve of his five-year-old smile on my sketchpad. What number should I pick, Dad?

You should pick 99. I gave him a different answer for why each time he asked. Because we can party like it’s 1999. Because nine is the coolest number, and there are two of them! He was five, and multiplication tables were still a mystery to him. Because I love you nine times nine. Do you know how much that is? He was already laughing, and he’d shaken his head, gazing up at me like I was worth all the love in his eyes. It’s infinity, buddy. It’s forever.

Why’d he keep 99? There’s a lot of years between five and seventeen. He could have changed his jersey number anytime. I always expected him to.

There. I found my son near the sideline, working with one of the coaches. He was breathing hard, his helmet off, his raggedy blond hair soaked with sweat and hanging in his eyes. He was frowning, like always, but listening to his coach. Listening hard. Nodding along. I watched his lips form the words yes, Coach before he slammed his helmet back on and ran to his teammates.

My football knowledge was limited to fragments I managed to soak up through Emmet’s games. Football was incomprehensible to me. Sports were never my thing. As a kid, I cried when I was picked for the kickball team. Other boys brought their baseball gloves and footballs to school. I brought my colored pencils. Art was my life, and I grew into an aching, broody young man who dreamed in Monet daubs and Van Gogh swirls.

It’s a Texas tradition to put your sons into football when they’re three and four years old. Football is that good old time Texas religion, and those Friday night lights are our houses of worship. I didn’t think, at four, that Emmet was going to be a breakaway superstar. Kids then are nothing but adorable, running in circles in mini pads and helmets they can’t even see out of. The game is runaround, with coaches tossing a ball underhand style into a toddler scramble. Most kids are in it for the orange slices and the ice cream after the game.

Riley was the one who taught Emmet how to catch and throw. Mathematics genius and pop culture rebel though she was, Riley was also all Texan, and she’d grown up in pigtails and cheering on her brothers as they demolished opposing teams under the Kerrville stadium lights. She knew football like she knew algebraic equations.

If you threw a football at me, it would hit me in the face. I wouldn’t have the first clue how to catch it. How to hold it. I tried throwing one once, but it bounced off the fence and skittered sideways into the neighbor’s yard, pinwheeling like a flying saucer.

I admit, I got a little tickle of dread when Emmet started showing “great promise,” according to his toddler coaches. What do they know, I thought. He’s six. He can’t show great promise at football when he’s six.

Then Emmet was plucked from the Lil’ Riders’ first grade scramble team and put on the all-county select squad.

In fourth grade, he was invited to the middle school combine for the whole state of Texas.

By eighth grade, he was an All-State linebacker.

Freshman year, he was the starter on the junior varsity squad and was invited to varsity practice to “get ready for when we move you up.”

Through it all, Riley was there. She bedazzled a jersey with his number and glitter painted his name on the back. Football was theirs, their special connection, a mother-son bond I was never part of, a club I was never invited to join.

That didn’t hurt so much when Emmet still wanted to watch cartoons on the couch with me or draw at the kitchen table together. We still had our time, and he was still my little buddy.

But Emmet grew up, like all kids do, and coloring was replaced with homework, cartoons with Saturday football games, and his life filled up with a rush of after-school practice and drills, and suddenly there was never time for anything other than football.

Which meant there wasn’t any more time for me in my son’s life.

I tried to learn. Once, I asked Riley to teach me about football. I imagined her and me cuddled together on the couch like we used to cuddle in her dorm room bed. I’d listen to her explain downs and yards, run versus pass plays. I desperately wanted to be invited into their secret world.

“I can’t believe you don’t know any of this” was as far as Riley and I got. “You’re from Texas, aren’t you?”

The scorn in her voice made me shrivel away. I never tried again.

Life was far from perfect, but at least it was. There were deep fissures between Riley and me. The things that attracted us to each other repelled us as time passed. I thought she was cold, unfeeling, aloof. I was withering in a desert starved of affection. She thought I was too emotional and had no sense of myself.

Adrenaline and frustration gave way to exhaustion, which gave way to avoidance and retreat. We drifted. Her unhappiness soured, grew foul. Metastasized. We were like comets spinning around our son, careful to make sure our paths never crossed. That we never saw each other, or spoke to each other, or had to even look at each other in our house.

We’ll deal with it later, I kept telling myself. After this season, or after this school year. Emmet is just a kid. We’ll deal with it all later.

Emmet turned ten, then twelve, then fourteen. Puberty strained and then snapped the last of his and my tenuous connection. He ducked my breakfast kisses on top of his head, shut the bathroom door in my face when I tried out my rusty Australian accent when he was brushing his teeth. It wasn’t just me he couldn’t stand. He and Riley fought about everything: his homework, how he dawdled at practice, why his room was a pigsty, how he needed to shower more, do his laundry, bring his dishes down from his bedroom, stop sneaking soda in the evening. If I tried to intervene, one or both of them turned their rage on me.

Sometimes, I purposely took the heat. Riley and Emmet could fight until they were bellowing at each other, until the walls were shaking, until doors were slamming, until their eyes were red-rimmed and their veins were popping. When Riley and I fought, it was with single, cutting sentences and bitter, seething silence. I could take her words and bury them, shove them into a place where I’d never hear them again. I could take Emmet’s eye rolls, too—I thought—and his God, Dad, stop, and his slammed bedroom door. This was just the teen years. Just the hard times. We’d get through this.

Life was.

And then it wasn’t.

She should have been here, but she wasn’t. It was just me. The leftover parent. The last choice parent. I wasn’t who Emmet wanted, but I was all he had now.

Which was bad news for him, because when I watched him run his drill, I hit the limit of my football knowledge. I knew Emmet was a linebacker, and I knew he was on varsity this year.

I only knew that last bit because I plucked a torn-up letter from our garbage can. It had been addressed to Riley, and it was from the Last Waters Rodeo Riders Booster Association, congratulating Riley on Emmet’s successes and welcoming her to the clutch of varsity football moms. Varsity moms are what keep this program together, it read. We’re the glue that binds these boys together and carries them through their high school football years. Our love and our nurturing helps set these young men on their future paths. And we need you with us.

Apparently, no one informed the boosters that Riley was no longer able to be with them.

I could have emailed. I could have scribbled out a short note or even printed Riley’s obituary and stuffed it in an envelope. I didn’t have to come in person to tell them Riley was dead and she wasn’t going to be one of the moms nurturing those boys.

If I leave now, Emmet won’t even know I stopped by. I could grab a pizza on the way home, leave it on the counter for him. He’d never know, and my showing up wouldn’t become yet another sullen, bitter resentment, one of the thousands of mortal injuries I’d inflicted on my son in the past year alone.

“Hi.”

The voice came from behind me. Warm, friendly. Probably not a security guard about to throw me out. Still, I didn’t belong. Maybe I could get out of there with a simple hey as I slunk back to my truck.

No such luck. The guy behind me was blocking my way. “You look familiar. Are you… Emmet Hale’s father?” He tilted his head as his gaze took me in.

There wasn’t much to take in. I was forty, and I looked it. Crow’s feet, silver threaded through my hair. The only thing I had going for me was that I had a rangy body, whipcord thin without even trying. A runner’s physique, though I didn’t like to run. I didn’t gain weight, but I didn’t pack on the muscle, either.

This guy spent some time in the gym. He was better built, gifted with the classically handsome male physique: wide shoulders tapering to a trim waist, no belly flab allowed. He wore suit pants and a Rodeo Riders Booster Association T-shirt. His hair seemed soft and was swept-back, cut just so, effortless-looking even at the end of the day.

I usually looked like I’d crawled out of my own grave. Dejection had a way of sitting heavy on the skin.

He looked like he dined on happiness. He seemed my age, if not a year or so older. Not based on looks. Something about his demeanor. He was settled in a way I’d searched for my whole life. Grounded.

I shook my head, not to say no but to try and loosen up my cobwebbed brain. “You know my son?”

He smiled. It lit his whole face from the inside. “Emmet is your son! I thought so. You guys look alike.”

“Most people say he looks like his mother.” The words were out before I could stop them. I looked away, squinting into the setting sun. “That’s why I’m here. You guys mailed a letter to my house…” I waved my hand at his T-shirt, at the cartoon rodeo rider lassoing a football through a yellow upright. “I’d appreciate it if you took Emmet’s mom off your mailing list. She’s dead.”

There were easier, subtler ways to put it, but a year after the fact, I was worn dry of the niceties. They’d been ground out of me.

His eyes widened. He had a smoother reaction than most who I dumped the news on. No Texas paroxysms of grief, no gasping or grabbing my arm, no Lord have mercy, no I’m so, so sorry.

“Absolutely. I’ll take care of that tonight.” He was all business. “I’m very sorry that letter went out. It was for the moms’ recruitment drive, right?” He cringed. “I’m sorry.”

“Appreciate it.” Tight, polite smile. My work was done. Time to go.

I frowned. “But how do you know my son?”

Emmet wasn’t what you’d call social—he got a double dose of introversion from his mother and me—and according to what I’d found out by emailing the assistant coach, he’d only been called up to the varsity team during football camp.

“Emmet and my son are friends.” If he was put off by my question, he didn’t show it. “He was over at our house a lot this summer. He and Bowen did endless drills in the backyard. I almost spray-painted yard lines on the lawn for them.” Another smile, like they were easy for him to throw around.

It’s a singular experience, being told something about your child you have no knowledge of. I had that scooped-out, hollow feeling, like I’d answered the most basic spelling question in the bee wrong. Confused their and there in front of a stadium full of people. “Oh.”

“Bowen wanted to make sure Emmet made varsity this year.”

Did he know this was the second time Emmet had been called up to the varsity team? The first only lasted a day and a half. He was sixteen—he’d just turned sixteen that week—and being on varsity was the only thing Emmet wanted. He was called up the first day of football camp. Riley dropped him off in this stadium. She never picked him up.

I spun my keys, slapped them against my palm. “Who is your son? I’m trying to think of Emmet’s friends, and I can’t place the name.”

A total lie. I couldn’t recite a single one of Emmet’s friends. He had to have some, right? The only thing I knew for sure was that I’d never seen this man in my life.

“Bowen Larsen.” He pointed to the center of the field. “Number 16.”

Oh. That Bowen. My eyes drifted to the little 16 stenciled in glitter thread on the man’s chest, right over his heart. That 16. The kid who’d been featured in a half dozen articles in the hometown newspaper. Football’s next big thing.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize—”

He smiled and held out his hand. “I’m Landon. Landon Larsen, Bowen’s dad.”

“Luke Hale. And it’s my turn to apologize. I didn’t know my son was at your house this summer.” That was a parenting failure, surely. Shouldn’t I know my kid’s whereabouts? I thought he’d been in his room, where he always was. I kept track of his continued existence by the dishes that piled up in the sink and the steadily decreasing milk in the fridge.

Landon waved my apology away. “Emmet was wonderful. A gentleman.”

I snorted.

“Okay, I never actually heard him speak…”

“That sounds more like my son.” Despite myself, despite my life, I smiled.

“Dad!”

When one kid cries “Dad,” anyone who is one turns to the sound. It’s a reflex. Of course, Emmet hadn’t called out for me like that in years. The only time I heard “Dad” these days was when he threw it out on the end of an angry snapback. There’s no milk, Dad. Don’t ask, Dad. Just leave me alone, Dad.

Bowen Larsen, quarterback extraordinaire, hometown hero who took over the Last Waters Rodeo Riders last season after the first-string quarterback blew out his knee, jogged across the end zone toward us. It was a ridiculous scene straight from a movie: sunshine slanted and hit the stadium behind him, and golden glow spread over the bleachers as the rest of the team worked their drills. Whistles blowing, the coaches clapping. Cleats on turf, footballs thudding into jerseys and pads. Bowen smiling, a little half grin that was an echo of his father’s.

Bowen towered over both me and Landon. Landon and I were about the same height, six feet, but I had to look up to meet Bowen’s gaze. His hair was long, curly, and tugged back into a knot on top of his head. He had a sweat-soaked bandana folded around his forehead and tied beneath his messy hair.

He tossed a set of car keys to Landon. “Here you go, Dad.”

“Thanks, kiddo. I owe you one.”

“Yeah, no prob. Did you get—”

“I did. Everything on the list. It’s all in the front seat of your car. I even grabbed more Monster for you, and those hideous sour gummy worms.”

“Awesome.” Another huge smile from Bowen for his dad. His eyes flicked to me.

“Bowen, this is Luke Hale,” Landon said. “Emmet’s father.”

Recognition flared in Bowen’s eyes, along with something else. He hesitated before he spoke. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hale. I’m glad Emmet’s on varsity this year. He worked hard, and he deserves to be here.”

He worked hard last year, too, but it was taken from him— “Your dad says you and Emmet worked out over summer?”

“Yeah, we did. He really bulked up. Brought the beast mode, which is good ’cause we need some solid strength at his position.”

“Linebacker. Middle linebacker.” I was only sixty percent convinced I was right about that.

Bowen smiled. “You do know. Emmet wasn’t sure. But yeah, he’s definitely the guy this team needs this year.”

I had no idea what to say to Bowen, to this local football legend—to Emmet’s friend—who apparently knew enough about me to know I didn’t know a single thing about football. Or Emmet. Well, Em, at least you’re talking to someone.

“Larsen!” The bellow came from the center of the field. It filled the stands, crashed through the stadium. Coach Pierce had his hands over his head, a what-the-hell gesture matching his furious expression. “The hell are you doing? Get back to practice!”

“Gotta go. Thanks, Dad!” Bowen ran off, a blur of jersey and sweat.

Number 99 beelined for Bowen and they jogged together to the sideline, where Emmet ripped off his helmet and scowled. Bowen ruffled Emmet’s hair before he darted to the center of the field where Coach Pierce waited, looking like he was about to bust a blood vessel if Bowen made him wait five seconds longer.

Emmet glowered at the end zone. Even from fifty yards away, I could feel his disdain like a punch to my ribs. Go away. I lifted my hand. Tried to wave.

Emmet tugged his helmet back on. He kept his back to me.

What would it be like if Emmet and I had the easy camaraderie that Bowen and Landon had? If we could smile at each other—or even simply be around each other—without an ocean of despair between us? Was there any world that existed where he and I were more than strangers? Or had I lost my son forever?

What was left between us? Did he even remember Saturday morning pancakes and cartoons? Or did he only remember the distance?

The field blurred. I looked down, trying not to crack in front of Landon, who was clearly a far superior father to his son. What had he done to be so close with Bowen? Been there, probably. At every game, every practice. Hell, he was a booster parent, wasn’t he? He had the T-shirt to prove it, with his son’s number in glitter thread over his heart.

“Emmet is in one of those teenager moods right now, huh?”

I kept staring at the turf, the green between my shoes. I hadn’t cried in years, and damn it, I wasn’t going to let loose here at Emmet’s practice. He’d never forgive me. I nodded. “My wife, Riley— She did all of this with him. I’m no good with sports. I never knew which end of the football to throw, or which end of a baseball bat to grab.”

Landon’s laugh was soft. “Well, a football has two identical ends, and it will go any direction you point it. I can’t help you with a baseball bat. We’d be the blind leading the blind if we were dropped onto a diamond together.”

I choked back a sob. Why was he being nice to me? “What was that, with you and Bowen?”

“We were helping each other out. Bowen has sixth period off in the middle of the day, and I’ve been slammed with meetings. We traded cars this morning so he could get the oil changed on mine. He needed books for English and a bunch of odds and ends, but he didn’t have time to get it all. I picked everything up for him before practice.”

Effortless parenting. Effortless love. If I asked Emmet to help me get my oil changed in my truck, he’d roll his eyes, probably make some comment like, “Can’t take care of that, either, huh, Dad?”

“You guys have a good relationship.”

“Well, we work at it.” Landon shoved his hands into his suit pants pockets. He stood close enough I could feel his warmth against my shoulder. “It’s not easy. Teenagers never are, but we both keep trying. Fathers come in all different varieties, too,” he added. He kept his voice light. “Not just the sports-loving kind.”

I ran my tongue over my teeth, trying, failing, to keep the waver from my chin. “I don’t know what to do.” The admission was agonizing, the words clawing inside my throat.

“None of us do. Being a parent is like driving a car without brakes. You grip the wheel and hold on tight, pray you don’t crash too hard.”

My stomach lurched. If Landon wasn’t careful, I was going to hurl all over his very expensive cap-toe Oxfords.

“Why don’t you volunteer?” Landon’s voice was soft.

I barked out a short laugh. I’d surely screw that up, like I’d screwed everything else up. “I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“It’s not refereeing. You don’t have to be a sportscaster or a play caller. Volunteering is a way to be closer to your kid. I get more time with Bowen because of the work I do with the team and the boosters.”

He nodded behind us, to a table with balloons tied to the corners and bedecked in the burgundy, white, and yellow school colors. A Last Waters Rodeo Riders Booster Association banner hung from the front. Three moms were working behind the table, each wearing a shirt like Landon’s with their son’s jersey number over their hearts. One of the moms had tied her hair back with ribbons. Another had a bedazzled visor wrapped under her fluffy bangs, Last Waters curled on the front in sparkling burgundy jewels.

“We’re having a booster membership drive tonight,” Landon said.

The letter. The reason why I was even there. “I thought that was for moms only.”

“It’s mostly moms who volunteer. We get a few dads here and there. Like me.” He grinned, tipped his head to the side. He was unstoppably friendly. And kind. More kind than I deserved. “If you want to volunteer, I could hook you up with the good spots. I know the vice president of the boosters.”

“Oh yeah?” Which one of the moms at the table was it going to be? My money was on the bedazzled beamer.

Landon shrugged, seemingly both proud and embarrassed at the same time. “You’re looking at him.”

My eyebrows shot up.

“Like I said, volunteering gives me more time with Bowen. I love it.” He screwed his face up, smiling, squinting, shrugging, all at once. “Try it? If you hate it, you never have to come back. But if you do enjoy it…”

Wasn’t that what I wanted? More time with Emmet, and a chance, just a moment of a chance, to connect with him again? To try and bridge the gulf between us, and maybe, maybe, be his father again? Someone Emmet trusted, even loved, and not merely a man he slung bitterness and disdain at.

I was terrified. If I didn’t try, if I never tried, then I could never fail worse than I already had. What if I reached out but Emmet didn’t want to do the same? Or worse, what if he shoved me away?

What if, after I poured out my heart, my son stomped it with his cleats?

It was easier to stay out of sight of my son and his rage.

Easier, but worthless. I was miserable. More miserable now than I had been a year ago, and back then, I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel any worse.

This wasn’t the life I wanted for myself or for Emmet. It wasn’t what I wanted for Riley, either, but Riley’s life was over. It was Emmet and me now, and we had to make our choices. Try and salvage this hand we’d been dealt, or… fade away, I supposed. If I did nothing, in a few years, all Emmet and I would be to each other was a name on the other end of a stale text message thread.

One chance. One tiny chance. That’s all I wanted. “Okay. Sign me up. I’ll do it.”

“Great!” Landon beamed. “I think you’ll enjoy it. I really do.”

“You’re going to have to help me. I don’t know anything about this stuff.”

“I’ll tell you exactly where the pointy end of the football goes and which team to root for.” Landon winked. “I promise, you have nothing to worry about—”

“Landon!” The bedazzled beamer appeared. “Who is this you’ve found?” She turned a full-watt Texas grin on me. She was all Texas: big blue eyes, big blonde hair. Big personality rolling off her. Big chest, too, wrapped in a booster T-shirt and tucked into itty-bitty shorts, with miles of tanned leg disappearing into strappy sandals. Her son’s number, stenciled over her heart, was 35.

“Annie Doyle, this is Luke Hale. Emmet’s father.” Landon angled himself so Annie and I were facing each other rather than him and me. “Luke, this is Annie, Jason’s mom. Jason is our starting running back, and he and Bowen have played together for three years. Annie is our president.”

I appreciated the subtle clues Landon was giving me. Running back. Played with Bowen for three years. That made Jason a senior, one year older than Emmet. I held my hand out to Annie. “Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Doyle.”

“It’s Ms.,” she said, not missing a beat. If she knew anything about me, recognized my name at all, she didn’t show it. “And the pleasure is all mine, Luke. So, did Landon convince you to join our lil’ group?”

Lil’ group. Right. These were the involved parents, the super parents. The good parents. I had no business being a part of their gaggle. “He did.” I shot a wavering smile at Landon.

“Wonderful!” Annie looped her arm around my shoulders and guided me toward the table. “Let’s get you all signed up so you can join us for this week’s activities.”

She was all business after that. There were more forms than I expected for a simple parent-volunteer gig, and for a moment, I panicked. I was in over my head, and Emmet wouldn’t want me to be a part of this, anyway. I was only going to piss him off.

But as I set down the clipboard, my gaze caught on Landon and Bowen, together again as practice wound down. Bowen was telling Landon a story, and though I couldn’t hear him, I understood the body language. Bowen was all in, performing for his dad. Pretending to catch the football, pretending to block, then soar into the air and leap for the catch. Landon tipped his head back and laughed, so loud and clear and bright I could hear it across the end zone.

God, I craved that, yearned for that kind of relationship with my son.

My son. My gaze searched the field until I found number 99 slamming his cleats and his water bottle into his duffel bag. Anger radiated from him. He had his back to me, but I could still read the sulking rage in the tense lines of his shoulders.

Emmet jerked his duffel zipper closed. Grasped the handle. Dropped his head and heaved a deep breath. I scribbled my name on the signature form and passed it back to Annie. She was deep in conversation with another set of parents, and all I got from her was a wave and a “We’ll give you a call!”

Good enough for me. I needed to get to my son.

Landon and Bowen had disappeared, but Emmet lingered in the end zone like a bad smell. He had his pads over one shoulder, still inside his jersey, and sweat dripped steadily from the corners of the fabric. “Bowen said since you’re here, you’d drive me home instead.” He glowered at his sandals.

Did Bowen normally drive Emmet from practice? I knew he “got a ride” every day. I’d been driving back from the office later to avoid running into Emmet. It was easier for us both if Emmet was already in his room behind his closed door and munching on pizza rolls or Hot Pockets when I got home. “Of course. We’re going to the same place.” I tried to smile. It felt like a grimace.

Emmet stared at the turf like he wished the ground would open beneath him.

We walked to my truck in brittle silence. Emmet hurled his pads and jersey and duffel into the bed, then slumped into the front seat. He had his face buried in his phone before he buckled his seat belt. Waves of don’t talk to me pulsed from him.

I drove us home and didn’t say a word.

He dumped his duffel and pads on the living room carpet, kicked off his sandals, and shuffled to the kitchen. I lingered in the laundry room. Why was it so hard to be in the same room as my son?

Screw this. It was dinnertime, and we were both hungry. I had chicken in the freezer—God knew how old—and canned vegetables in the pantry. I could make something for the two of us, and we could at least chew in each other’s direction. I knew better than to dream we’d talk.

“Where’s the milk, Dad?”

As always, Dad was the barb, the stinger at the end of the sentence. I sagged against the kitchen island. “I bought another gallon two days ago.”

“Yeah, two days.” Emmet glared.

Two days was more than enough time for Emmet to put away at least a gallon of milk. “I’m sorry.”

“I need it for my protein shake, Dad.” You’re a failure, Dad.

“I said I was sorry.”

Nothing but a snort from Emmet, who had his back to me as he unscrewed the lid of his monstrous protein powder jug. If there was some minimum standard of fatherhood, maybe keeping my son stocked in protein powder got me points. He had six massive jugs lined in a row on the back counter next to his boxes of cereal.

“Why were you at practice?”

I dug the chicken out while I tried to formulate the least incendiary response to his question. Would he hate it more if I said I wanted to see him or if he found out I signed up to volunteer? I had a thirty-second reprieve as he blended his protein—with water, the poor deprived child—and I started to defrost the frozen chicken breasts. He drank his smoothie straight from the blender, glaring at the floorboards to my left in between giant gulps.

“I signed up to volunteer,” I finally said.

Silence. I fiddled with the cutting board. Straightened the edges, lining it up parallel to the counter.

“Why?”

“Because I want to. I want to see your games.” And you can’t buy tickets to that stadium in this town, believe me, I’ve tried. “I want to be a part of your life—”

Emmet whirled away, slamming the blender down and shoving the protein jug against the kitchen wall. He was furious with his movements, jerking open drawers and snatching up a spoon, grabbing the peanut butter jar and yanking off the lid. Scooping out a spoonful and glaring at the peanut butter like it was all that was wrong in the world. “You never were before. Why would you care now?”

“Emmet—”

He shoved the peanut butter spoon in his mouth and stalked out of the kitchen.

Now I wanted to throw something. I wanted to hurl the cutting board at the wall, fling the knives to the ground. I wanted to chase after Emmet and tell him he was wrong, that I did care, I always cared. I wanted him to look at me, actually look at me. I wanted him to say Dad and not have it rhyme with I hate you so much.

Instead, I grasped the edge of the sink and stared at the limp chicken breasts floating in tepid water. “Riley,” I breathed. “How could you do this to us?”

Emmet, like always, stayed in his room. I pan fried the chicken in a silent kitchen, only the sound of my sniffs accompanying the sizzle and pop. Something was building, something was coming. The inevitability of it pressed in on me like a thunderhead broiling on the horizon. Feed Emmet. Get to the store.

I left a plate of chicken breast and microwaved green beans on the table, and I didn’t text Emmet until I was in my truck. Dinner is on the table for you. I’ll be back in a bit.

At the store, I grabbed another gallon of milk, another carton of eggs. More peanut butter. Power bars, too. I slipped them into Emmet’s duffel every week, scooped out the empty wrappers Sunday nights. Gatorade powder. It was cheaper than buying the bottles. He still went through it like it was candy sugar. Which, it basically was.

I didn’t crack until I was back in my truck. Why that night, after all the nights between then and now, I didn’t know. There were hundreds of nights like tonight, where Emmet was furious and sullen and didn’t want to be around me, and at least a hundred nights where I had forgotten to keep the milk stocked, too.

It wasn’t the words, and it wasn’t the ruined dinner or the missing milk, but for some reason, tonight was the night I was fracturing. The tears I had never cried, not for one year and three weeks, prickled against my closed eyelids. I grasped the steering wheel and curled over the gallon of milk, gritting my teeth as I screamed. My forehead hit the leather. I wanted to drive away. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to trade places with Riley.

My phone buzzed in the pocket of my khakis. Like a fool, my first thought was Emmet. Our texts were a one-way string: I sent him texts, and I received silence in response. Dinner is on the table earned me an empty plate in the sink. Clean your room, and I received a dozen dirty dishes. I’m doing laundry, and a basket of stink appeared on the stairs.

He hadn’t texted me in months. I had to scroll and scroll and scroll to find even an ok.

So, no, it wasn’t my son texting me. It was probably spam. The last three texts I’d received were spam. But still, I grasped my phone like it was a lifeline.

Hey Luke, this is Landon. We met today at practice.

I chuffed out a single laugh. Like I could forget meeting Super Dad.

I wanted to reach out about you volunteering. You’re all set! Everything is good to go. I took the liberty of signing you up alongside me for this week. If you like or hate something, we can change things up, but I wanted you to get a taste for what’s available. I also thought you might appreciate being with another dad.

Translation: I know you know nothing about football, and throwing you into the mix with the booster moms is like leaving a baby out with a pack of wolves.

So that’s that! I’ll get your T-shirt made and have it ready for you. Our first gig is this Thursday: team dinner. Can you make it to the high school by 4:30? If not, no problem. Arrive whenever you can. Text me and I’ll meet you outside the athletic center.

I fumbled back, I can make 4:30.

Great! I think you’ll enjoy the team dinner. It’s low key and all we do is feed the kids. It’s just like being at home. 🙂

I laughed again. Sounds good.

Text me if you have any questions. Otherwise, I’ll see you Thursday.

Okay. See you Thursday.

It was great meeting you today, Luke.

I shoved the phone back in my pants and kneaded the steering wheel. Dug my head against the seat back. Breathed in, and breathed out.

If I didn’t get moving, Emmet’s milk would spoil.

Saturday morning cartoons. Pancakes and smiles and funny accents. Drawing together at the kitchen table in matching pajamas.

I wanted my son back, damn it.

I threw my truck in drive and pointed toward home.