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The Millers had never been happier or more proud of him than after that Orange Bowl victory, except maybe the day he signed his letter of intent with the University of Texas. That day this house had been filled to capacity with sportswriters from all over the state. Ellie had fussed over the mess they were making, dropping cookie crumbs and spilling punch. Coach had complained when the TV lights blew out a fuse.
But their grumbling wasn’t taken seriously. It was obvious to everyone there that the couple was bursting with pride over Griff. Not only had he been offered a full scholarship to play football for the university but he was graduating cum laude from high school. Coach’s decision to take him in had been validated. His investment in that recalcitrant fifteen-year-old had paid off, and in ways beyond Griff’s athletic ability.
The four years Griff had played for UT, he was coached by some of the most respected and knowledgeable men in the game. But he still had relied on Coach Miller’s advice. He took everything he’d learned from Coach into that Orange Bowl game with him. It was Coach’s triumph as much as his.
It was later, after signing on with the Cowboys, that Griff stopped listening to his mentor’s advice and started thinking of Coach as a nuisance rather than a sensible guiding hand. The absence of that framed photo on the living room end table spoke volumes about Coach’s feelings toward him now.
“Come on back,” Ellie said, shooing him into the kitchen. “I’m shelling peas. You can buy them already shelled, but they don’t taste as good to me. Want some iced tea?”
“Please.”
“Pound cake?”
“If you’ve got it.”
She frowned at him as though her not having pound cake on hand would happen the day hell froze over. She cleared her pea-shelling project off the kitchen table. He sat down in the chair that had been designated his after his first dinner here and was embarrassed by the unmanly nostalgia that made his throat seize up. This was the only real home he’d ever known. And he’d brought disgrace to it.
“Coach isn’t here?”
“He’s playing golf,” Ellie said with vexation. “I told him it was too blamed hot to play at this time of day, but he hasn’t grown any less hardheaded. In fact, he just gets worse.”
She served the tea and pound cake, and sat down across from him, clasping her hands on the table. He looked at those tiny hands, remembering the bright yellow rubber gloves she’d had on the day he moved in and recalling one of the rare times he hadn’t avoided her touch. He’d had the flu. Sitting on the edge of his bed, she’d laid her palm against his forehead, testing it for fever. Her hand had been soft and cool, and to this day he remembered how good it had felt against his burning skin. To her it had been an instinctual thing to do, but until then, Griff hadn’t known that was what moms did when children complained of feeling sick.
Ellie and Coach had never had children. The reason for that was never explained to him, and even as a teenager he’d had the sensitivity not to ask. Maybe her childlessness had factored into her welcoming that surly and sarcastic boy into her home.
She hadn’t smothered him with motherly affection, which she’d sensed, correctly, that he would have rejected. But with the merest signal from him, she made herself available. She would lend an ear if he wanted to talk through a problem. In a thousand small and subtle ways she had demonstrated the maternal tenderness she obviously felt for him. He could see it in her eyes now.
“It’s good to see you, Ellie. Good to be here.”
“I’m so glad you came. Did you get my letters?”
“Yes, and I appreciated them. More than you know.”
“Why didn’t you write back?”
“I couldn’t find the words. I—” He shrugged helplessly. “I just couldn’t, Ellie. And I didn’t want to cause a rift between Coach and you. He didn’t know you wrote to me, did he?”
She sat up straighter and said smartly, “It’s not up to him what I do or don’t do. I make up my own mind about things.”
Griff smiled. “I know you do, but I also know you support Coach. The two of you are a team.”
She had the grace not to argue that.
“I knew how pissed he was,” Griff said. “He tried to warn me against setting myself up for a big fall. I didn’t listen.”
He distinctly remembered the day that their steadily declining relationship was finally severed. Coach had been waiting for him at his car after practice. The Cowboys’ coaching staff knew Coach Miller well, knew how influential he’d been on their starting quarterback, and always welcomed seeing him.
Griff didn’t. Their conversations had grown increasingly contentious. Coach had no quarrel with his performance on the football field, but he didn’t approve of much else, such as the rate at which Griff went through money.
Griff wanted to know the point of having it if you couldn’t spend it. “You’d be wise to put aside some for a rainy day,” Coach told him. Griff ignored the advice.
Coach also disapproved of the pace of his life. He cautioned Griff against burning the candle at both ends, particularly during the off-season, when he got sloppy with his workouts and kept late hours in the glossy nightclubs of Dallas and Miami, where he’d bought a beachfront condo.
“Discipline got you where you are,” Coach said. “You’ll sink fast if you don’t maintain that discipline. In fact, it should be more rigid now than before.”
Yeah, yeah, Griff thought. He figured Coach’s dissatisfaction was based on jealousy. He no longer had control over the decisions Griff made or the way he lived his life, and that rankled the older man. While Griff appreciated everything Coach had done for him, he was old school in his thinking. His strict lessons no longer applied. Coach had got him where he was, but now that he was here, it was time to cut the apron strings.
Griff began distancing himself. Their visits became less frequent. He rarely returned his mentor’s phone calls. So he wasn’t happy to see Coach that day he ambushed Griff at his car. With his typical tactlessness, Coach came straight to the point. “I’m worried about your new associates.”
