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“Well, maybe now that he almost died, he’ll wise up and come home.”
“He didn’t almost die, Joanne,” Charlie said firmly. “Please stop saying that. The team might very well offer him a position coaching. You heard what the man said.”
“I missed that.”
The coach had tried to soften the blow to the Saints by suggesting there might be another opportunity for Oliver within the franchise, but it wasn’t a promise, and Charlie relayed that to Joanne. The car pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store and the couple climbed out.
“We won’t be long,” Charlie told the driver.
They didn’t speak again until they got inside.
“I think we’re going to break up,” Joanne said.
Taken aback, this wasn’t a topic Charlie was comfortable talking about, so he didn’t respond.
“We can’t survive long distance, and I’m not emotionally prepared to support Ollie through a major crisis like this from San Diego.”
They were picking over a pile of oranges when she said it, and Charlie turned to her, trying not to sneer. “That’s your decision.”
“You have to see that I’m right in this. He isn’t going to come home with his tail between his legs.”
“Joanne, he had his brains rattled. It’s not like he failed. Far from it. He’s a hero in my eyes. He won a game for a team that hasn’t had many wins lately, and his reward was to be told he can’t play now.”
“Sorry, but I don’t see that as a big incentive. He’ll be miserable.”
Oliver miserable was not fun. The times she’d flown to Detroit over the last year for home games or just because they missed each other, he was the same old guy who refused to move forward with their relationship. When a proposal wasn’t forthcoming after he signed on with the team for the second season, she made the decision not to pressure or manipulate him into doing anything. If he didn’t want to marry her, to hell with him. Now this.
Charlie didn’t reply because he felt guilty that his son was so much like he was. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
“What would be the perfect resolution for you?” he asked while they waited in line.
“I want him to come back to San Diego, get a job, and ask me to marry him. It’s time to grow up.”
“You guys are still so young,” Charlie said, smiling. “What’s your rush?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m tired of the intrigue.”
“You don’t like flying to his games? That seems pretty exciting compared to what most young people have on their agenda.”
“Look at me. Do I look like someone who wants that life? I want to stay within a ten-mile radius of my house. I want to do community theater. Go to church with my family on Sunday and then out to breakfast afterward. I want to have a baby and volunteer at the nursery school.”
“Oh, well—”
“Not exactly the same thing he wants. I mean, I could do it from Michigan, I guess, but he isn’t ready to get married. That’s not true. Idon’twant to do it from Michigan. I want to stay in San Diego.”
“Well, I guess that settles it. What are you going to do?”
“Nothing yet. It would be kind of mean of me to break up with him today, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, kind of.” Charlie wondered what had possessed his son to stay in a relationship with such a selfish, self-absorbed woman.
They finished checking out and walked out to the car with their bags of groceries. The silent ride back to the apartment was a harbinger of things to come.
Chapter 3
The holidays fast approached, and Oliver knew that hanging around the team was not going to be enough to keep him engaged. Finally, they lost their last game and that was it. No Super Bowl for the Detroit team. He had to find something worthwhile to spend the rest of his life doing. The creepy fingers of depression lurked close by. Every time he felt a twinge in his head, the depression seeped in for a few hours, or a few days.
“Why don’t you go home for Thanksgiving?” Coach Clark suggested. “You can rest and let your mother wait on you while you decide what you want to do. Let’s talk Monday morning when you get back. I’ll set up the meeting now.”
