You & Me

Landon was waiting for me at the school on Thursday. He was perched on the hood of his car and frowning down at his phone when I pulled in. As soon as he saw me, the frown melted from his face.

We breezed through the athletic center, waved to Annie and the other moms, and beelined to the coolers and the ice machine. I scrounged around until I found a dirty coffee cup to put beneath the water leak. “There. Now you won’t die on me.”

We got the ice into the coolers, ran to the lockers, and threw the Gatorades and sodas in to chill. Something was off, though, even though he was joking around. I could tell he was exhausted, but something else was weighing him down. A heaviness clung to him, slowed the speed of his smiles.

“What’s up?” I asked once we’d wrestled the coolers into position at our end of the buffet. The menu tonight was chicken fingers and down-home sides: mac and cheese, corn bread, baked potato casserole, coleslaw, and baked beans. We’d gotten the coolers set up in record time, and we were perched on the closed lids as the moms finished readying the food line. “You seem tense.”

Landon’s expression pinched. “You noticed?”

“Hard not to.”

“You’re the only one who has.” A smile played over his lips before he scrubbed both hands over his face. “Do you remember when I said Bethany comes to Bowen’s home games during the season?”

Bethany. His ex. I nodded.

“She’ll be here this weekend.”

Based on his expression, Bethany flying into town was as welcome as the Spanish Inquisition. I’d gotten the impression they didn’t actively hate each other. “Are you guys not on good terms?”

“We are and we aren’t. She was my best friend before she was my wife. But now, Bethany is like a foreign language I’ve forgotten how to speak. We used to be good together, but every time we try to talk, it’s like… going for a high five and missing every time.”

I knew that feeling. Before the frigid distance settled between Riley and me, we were misfiring at each other every which way. After a while, it was easier not to even try.

“It didn’t use to be like that. It’s not…” He tossed me a tiny grin as he pointed between him and me. “Like this.”

“Do you have to see her when she’s here?”

He chewed on his top lip. “I do, at least a little bit. She, uh, she stays at my house when she’s in town.”

My eyebrows shot up.

“It’s…” He groaned. “It’s hard. We were supposed to be together forever, but I was the one who changed that. I ended our marriage, and I moved down here with our son, so try to make it as easy as possible for her to visit. I pay for her flights, and I let her stay at my house. She gets the most amount of time with Bowen with the least disruption to his life that way. It’s okay. It works.” He stared down at his clasped hands.

“Who are you trying to convince? Me or you?”

He laughed, not the warm, boisterous laugh that filled him with life, but a sad little chuckle as he squeezed his eyes closed. “It was all right before last spring.” He rubbed his palms together. “She’d been here a week, and I guess to her it felt like we were a family again. On her last night, she tried to ‘remember when’ with me. She was saying things like I’d ‘always have a place in her life’, and if I wanted, I could move back to Utah.” Pain flickered across his features. “Unfortunately, that led to a fight, which led to her crying, which led to Bowen bursting in… God, Bowen was furious. They fought, and she cried even more. It was a disaster. Everything has been tense since.”

I moved from my cooler to his. His eyes met mine, and he seemed to search me while his fingers tangled and his toes tapped against the floor. “Guilt is something I wrestle with. Hard.”

“I don’t think you have anything to feel guilty for.”

He sagged. “I wasn’t the man she thought she married.”

I leaned into his shoulder. “So what would have happened if you guys had stayed married? She’d be miserable. You’d feel like you were dying inside. Trust me, I lived that life—”

My voice caught, and my hands flew to the edge of the cooler. I squeezed down on plastic until my fingers went numb. “That’s not the right choice. Staying together when you know it doesn’t work, and when you’re so miserable you want to just… drift away. No—” I forced the words out, past the grind in my chest. “I wish I’d been as strong as you were in my own marriage.”

“I decided last night I was going to go to a hotel while she’s here. She can spend time with Bowen at the house, and there won’t be any confusion about what she and I are to each other if I’m not around.”

“Why doesn’t she stay in a hotel?”

“I’d rather Bowen be the one least disturbed. He needs time with his mother. I’d like that time to be as high-quality as possible.”

“Come stay with me.” The words were out before I’d fully completed the thought. “Don’t go to a hotel. Come crash at my place.”

Landon’s eyebrows shot to his hairline.

I was getting into the idea, imagining him and me hanging out like we’d done on Sunday. “We can do something this weekend. You can teach me about wine, or we can get outdoors if the weather is nice. Hell, you can try and teach me how to cook something that takes more than four ingredients.”

“Luke, that’s very kind of you to offer—”

“So come over, then.” I elbowed him and grinned.

“Are you sure?” Unease warred with trepidation and what looked like a glimmer of hope across his face.

“Of course I’m sure. I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t.” In my mind, I was cataloging all the things I’d need to do before Landon arrived. Vacuum and dust and mop and clean the bathrooms—okay, just my bathroom. Emmet was on his own. I’d need to freshen up, open a window. Air out the jock stench.

Finally, Landon smiled. He exhaled, and his whole body seemed to unclench.

There was something he wanted to say, but right as he opened his mouth, Annie interrupted. “Everyone ready?”

It was the same song and dance as last Thursday. The junior varsity boys came through the buffet line like a herd, piling their plates with mountains of food, not making eye contact with the moms, and trying to sneak double or triple sodas into their hoodies. Varsity followed, measured and polite with their pleases and thank yous. Bowen and Emmet brought up the rear.

This time, Emmet said, “Hey, Dad,” as he and Bowen wound their way to the drink table. Emmet had picked out a handful of chicken fingers, corn bread, and had a small mountain of mac and cheese on his plate.

I had three Gatorades ready. “Hey, Em. Good day at school?”

“Got my physics test up to an 86.”

“That’s better than any physics grade I got. Good job.” Emmet nodded, almost smiled, stared at his shuffling feet, and waited for Bowen.

Landon was shaking his head at Bowen’s plate. Bowen had piled a heaping mess of everything—chicken fingers, baked beans, mac and cheese, baked potato casserole, and even corn bread—together into a mountain, and he’d stuck a plastic fork on top like a flag. “Really?”

“I’m hungry!”

“When are you not?”

“Well, hopefully after I finish this, I’ll be good.”

“Until you come home and eat four bowls of cereal.”

“Which reminds me.” Bowen grinned. It was a rakish grin, and I knew exactly what was coming. “We’re out of Cocoa Puffs again. And milk.”

Landon passed Bowen a Coke and gave his son a long-suffering smile. “Have a good practice, Bowen. I’ll have your Cocoa Puffs waiting for you at home.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

After the coaches got their drinks, we started dumping ice and consolidating the coolers. We left a handful of Gatorades and sodas on the table while we dragged everything back to the lockers. When we were done, the team had all drifted out to the field and Annie, Marianne, and the rest of the moms were gathering their plates of chicken fingers and settling down at the tables for their weekly gossip.

I turned to Landon. I’d thought, earlier this week, that we might find another hole-in-the-wall restaurant to try, but he looked like he was about to drop. “Do you want to head home? You look exhausted.”

“I’m good.” He smiled, or tried to. It looked like a yawn. “Did you want to get something to eat?”

I did, but not if he was going to fall asleep on me. One more outing might do him in. “How about I grab some chicken fingers and we tailgate at my truck?”

“That sounds great.”

“Go put your feet up. I’ll grab dinner.”

Landon went. I pulled our plates together, my back to the moms at the tables. Their eyes moved over me like ants crawling on my skin.

“Luke, I’ve got a stash of Diet Dr Pepper in my bags,” Annie called. “You wanna take one to Landon?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

I met Annie behind the buffet line by her purse and her bags. Mom Crap was scrawled across one in glitter paint. Annie dug around inside it and pulled out a bottle of Diet Dr Pepper. “I keep them on hand, special for Landon. Come hit me up whenever you need one.” She brushed her hands off as she straightened. “Hang on, Luke. I wanna talk to you for a mo’.”

My stomach tightened. I gripped Landon’s Diet Dr Pepper.

“I’ve been working on these ladies some.” Annie nodded to the other moms. “I got most of them corralled, but there’s still a few that are going to find all the worst times possible to come up and say they’re praying for you and your loss. Don’t mind them none. They’re just happy you’re here. They’re exuberant, that’s all.”

“That’s kind, but—” I fumbled for what to say. “I don’t need anyone troubling themselves over me.”

“I told them to mind their own beeswax, but you know how Texas women are.” She laid her hand on my forearm. “Now, how are you and Landon? You showed up tonight, and I haven’t seen you two separate until now.”

“We’re good. And he’s…” There were far, far too many things to say about Landon. I could string a mile of adjectives together to describe him and never make a dent in who he really was. “He’s great.”

“That he is. You know all this you and he are doing?” She waved her pointer finger around, swirling around the team room, the buffet line, and then out in the direction of the field. “He’s been doing it all by himself for four years now.”

“I don’t know how.”

I didn’t like the image of that, of Landon doing this work by himself. One man alone on the field, hauling water jugs, setting up tables, taping down electrical cords. Dragging that ugly inflatable back and forth. Standing alone on the skywalk and cheering for his son. There was negative space around him in my thoughts, a place where there should be someone beside him. What did Landon alone even look like? Where did he share all that love for life if he didn’t have someone with him?

“Me either. I would have fled screaming, but he kept showing up, week after week. That’s a good man right there.”

I thanked her for the soda and made my escape to the parking lot and back to Landon. He was sitting on my tailgate, legs swinging gently, the evening breeze ruffling the ends of his hair.

Here he was, alone, but the absolute presence of him was enough to stop me in my tracks. Strands of his hair fell across his forehead and brushed the tips of his eyebrows. Was there a color that existed that matched the way the sunlight hit his eyes?

There was something melancholy about the sight of him, though. That negative space surrounded him again. Something was missing from this picture.

He turned as he heard my boots crunching across the lot. He smiled, and everything came together.

A sketch wouldn’t be able to hold this man, I thought. He’d burst right out of the page if I tried.