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But she slept on the couch that night, clearly hurt that he didn’t make an attempt to show any affection to her, and when she tried to hug him, he didn’t respond. There was no flirtation or even a suggestion of having sex, and when she finally realized it wasn’t going to happen, her sadness morphed to anger. She Googled sex after a head injury, and it said about half have a reduced sex drive.
“Great!”
So that was that. The next morning she called an Uber rather than have him drive her to the airport, and when it was time to leave, she didn’t bother waking him. After security at the airport, she bought a cup of coffee and sat at the gate, waiting. Her phone beeped. Dreading any conversation with him, she owed him the respect to answer.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Why, Oliver? What was there to say? You probably wouldn’t have kissed me goodbye, and it would have just made me feel bad.”
“I’m sorry. This is really fucked up.”
“It is. We should just end it.”
“I don’t want to do it over the phone,” he said. “Can we wait until I can get home? Let me get through these last games—”
“Ollie, stop it! You’re not going to play again. Why go on pretending?”
“Yeah, I know. But I still have to hang around for a while. There are issues that need to be settled, and I’m not up to it right now.”
They’d said goodbye, and now he was on his way home for Thanksgiving. Going from dreary winter weather in Michigan, he arrived in San Diego on a bright sunny day with the temperatures in the high sixties, his favorite weather. He rented a car and drove up Interstate 5, the familiar places inspiring him again.
The gate code had been changed at his father’s subdivision, but the gatekeeper remembered Oliver and let him pass through. An unfamiliar car was parked under the porte cochere. When he turned the engine off, he heard the dogs barking, and it made him smile. They always greeted guests the same way no matter who you were.
The door was locked, and he debated using his key or ringing the bell. Just in case his father was in bed with his girlfriend, forgetting he’d be working, he rang the bell. In a minute, the housekeeper answered.
“Mr. Oliver, I didn’t know you come home today.”
“It’s a surprise,” he said, smiling at her as he stepped through the door.
“Your bedroom is all clean.”
“Nice. Home sweet home.”
After he gave the dogs attention and they returned to their positions on the couch, he went back to his room. His boyhood bedroom was exactly the way he’d left it, with a huge photo of him wearing his college football uniform, posed running with a ball. It meant nothing now, whereas in the past it would at least make him smile. How did he get to this point? Ten years devoted to football; more than that, he forgot the youth football teams he’d played on. Now what was he going to do?
Since his father was gone, and he didn’t feel like dealing with Clare right away, he could torture himself by seeing if Joanne was free to get together. He wanted to break up, to start the holiday with a fresh outlook.
Shoving his unpacked suitcases into the closet, he lay on the bed and keyed in her number.
“Hey, what’s going on?” she said.
“Are you working?” he asked.
“Not now. I painted stage scenery this morning. I just got home.”
Joanne had moved out of her parents’ comfortable home and got a tiny apartment in Encinitas. He actually loved it, it was two blocks from the ocean, but he would resist staying in a relationship with her just so he could go there. He wondered if he was that shallow.Yes.
“Can you talk?”
“Sure. I bet I know what you’re going to say though. And you can save your breath. I agree, we need to call it a day.”
So it was possible he wasn’t even going to have to see her. It was too good to be true.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this.”
“Are you, Ollie? Why?”
“Because of our history,” he said. “I don’t even know what happened, to tell you the truth.”
