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As she opened the door, her middle-aged neighbor looked back and forth between us.
“Didn’t you hear the smoke alarm?” she said.
“Yeah, I’m so sorry, that was my fault,” Jolie said. “I forgot I had bacon cooking and I got in the shower.”
“You forgot?” her neighbor said skeptically.
I ducked my head and slipped out the door, waiting until I’d gotten back to my car to laugh. The jokes about our smoking hot first date would write themselves.
A few hours later, we’d finished practice and a bunch of my teammates had gone out for lunch. We were meeting back up in our weight room later to lift. I was ravenous and had wanted to go to lunch with them, but something had held me back.
It was my teammate Sawyer. He was sitting alone in a corner of the locker room, and I knew why. I’d always remembered his late wife Annie’s birthday because it was the same day as my dad’s.
“Hey,” I said, sitting down in a chair next to him once we were finally alone in the room. “You want to be alone, or is it okay if I sit?”
He seemed to snap out of his daze as he shrugged. “I don’t care if you sit.”
“My parents lost their first baby not long after she was born,” I said. “My mom said her birthday was hard, but she wanted to do something every year to remember her anyway.”
Sawyer nodded, a faraway look in his eyes. “It’s hard not to think about what could’ve been. What should’ve been.”
“I’m not going to hit you with clichés. But I’m here to listen if it helps.”
He looked at me. “I appreciate it. I’m just thinking about all the birthdays I had with her. She always wanted to go out to the movies on her birthday. That was the only day she ate movie theater popcorn, even though she loved it. Annie never wanted a cake; she just wanted that popcorn.”
He laughed softly, and I knew that while his physical self was in the locker room with me, in his heart, Sawyer was somewhere else, lost in his memories.
“Movie theater popcorn is the best,” I said.
Sawyer scoffed, smiling sadly. “I didn’t really get it, you know? I wish when we’d gone to those movies, I’d known we’d only get to do it as many times as we did. We didn’t have much money when we were first together, so the movie and a new pair of shoes were about all we could afford for her birthday. But she was still so damn happy. Even when we had more money, Annie never changed, you know? I loved that about her.”
“I remember her baking birthday cakes for all the guys who didn’t have someone making them one. She’d make cakes for me and Kon every year, and you guys would have us over for dinner.”
He smiled, tears shining in his eyes. “I haven’t thought about that in a long time. I’m glad you reminded me.”
We sat in silence for a minute before I said, “Hey, you have plans tonight?”
“I never have plans, dude.”
“Well, I’ve got my nephew Joey, so if you want, the three of us could go out for a movie. Have some dinner at the Olive Garden.”
Sawyer sniffed and wiped the corner of his eye. “I can’t believe you remember that was her favorite restaurant.”
“Annie’s not the kind of person you forget.”
He looked away, probably so I wouldn’t see him crying. Not that I cared, but I waited in silence until he’d composed himself enough to look at me again.
“I’d like that,” he said. “We can see whatever movie Joey wants to see.”
I stood up. “I’ll text you and we’ll pick you up on the way.”
“Thanks, man.”
I nodded and left him to remember Annie on his own. Grief had been a long, difficult road for him. For a while, he lay down right in the middle of the path and refused to move. At least now he was moving again, though he was on a path that would never truly end.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jolie
I’d never seen so much red. The first draft of my dissertation had come back to me looking like it had been through the aftereffects of a slasher movie. Exes and circles and so much red ink. Damn. This was the process. I understood that. I’d write and Dr. Matello would go through it with a fine-tooth comb, every time I turned it in, until we were both satisfied.
But damn, this first one was brutal.
I’d always been one of those kids who did well in school without having to kill myself. I understood the content of most of my classes without much effort, and that had continued into college. Once I got to graduate school, it was second nature. Not that I didn’t have to work hard, but I had the instinctive intelligence, especially in my chosen field, to be able to dig into the minutiae without being bogged down with commas and such.
