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“I came in for the weekend to see my wife and kids and figured I’d stop by to see how things are going here on my way back to Florida. What the hell did I walk in on?”
“You walked in on my last fucking straw, Marcus. I quit.”
I leave those words behind me as I storm out of the office to my car, and I peel out of the parking lot before I even have a chance to process what I just did.
CHAPTER 24: LINCOLN
Miles’s injury does one important thing for our team, at least. It throws the shade off my brother—which my father tried to accomplish with his slanderous article, but this really takes the attention off anything to do with my brother or me.
It’s all anyone can talk about. His recovery can take anywhere from nine months to a year, which means he’ll be out this entire season. I turn off the television because frankly, I’m tired of hearing about it. I know what this means for Miles, and I know what this means for our team. And I was well-informed about it before it hit the media.
It’s a devastating loss for the Vegas Aces, but I’m trying to recall Jolene’s words through the drunken haze I was in last night.
Back-ups are there for a reason. Or something like that.
Thank God we won and nobody’s coming in until noon today. I shouldn’t have had as much to drink as I did last night. I’m not a kid anymore, and my thirty-six-year-old body is definitely protesting this morning.
The office is quiet, and I lean back in my chair for a deep stretch. It doesn’t make me feel any better, really, and as I stand to pace around the room a little, my eyes fall onto the framed photo of my family on my credenza.
It’s only then I realize that I’ve spoken to everyone in my family about Jolene and me except for my mother. I suppose I assumed my dad’s been keeping her in any loops she’d need to be kept in, but who knows what the fuck he’s been telling her.
I walk over toward my couch and collapse onto it, and then I pull up her contact and dial her.
“Good morning,” she answers, and she sounds a little subdued.
“Hey, Mom,” I say.
“Glad to know you’re alive.”
I chuckle. “I’m alive. And I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to call you. I figured Dad was keeping you in the loop.”
“No, not really.” She lets out a soft sigh. “Your dad and I…” She trails off and pauses as if she’s deciding how to end that sentence, and then she finally does. “We’re getting divorced, Linc. We haven’t told anybody yet, but you’re the boy who made me a mom and I guess I’m tired of hiding it.”
“Oh, Mom,” I say, and I’m not exactly sure how to feel.
On the one hand, I always sort of thought my mother deserved better than what my father gave her. But they seemed happy. It seemed like they took care of each other even though they’d bicker and argue.
But I guess every kid sees what they want to see in their parents’ marriage, don’t they? It wouldn’t matter if I was thirty-six or six or sixty-six. I’d want them to be together, to be a shining beacon of what a good marriage should be. What most kids don’t think about, though, is that our parents are people, too, and they deserve to be happy.
“It’s why I haven’t called to check in on you, and I’m sorry about that. I regret it. I know you’re going through some things, too, but I guess I just wasn’t ready to pick up the phone,” she says. “I have some other things I should discuss with you, too.”
“Come stay with me,” I blurt.
“Oh, honey. I can’t do that. I’m flying back to New York later this week. I don’t want to sell the farm, and that’s part of what pushed me into finally filing the paperwork.”
Jesus. She’s been going through all this without me—without any of her kids. Without anyone at all since she said they haven’t told anybody yet.
She was always a homebody. Her friends were the wives of other players when Dad played, despite how hard that life was since players would come and go. She liked being in New York since that’s where her parents and siblings live. And I know she always said she’d move wherever two of her boys landed, but her heart is in New York.
“Then stay with me until you go back,” I say. “I’ll be home early tonight, and we can do dinner and watch the old black and white movies that bored me to tears when I was a kid. Or we can talk and drink wine. Whatever you want, Mom.”
She’s quiet on the other end, and then I hear a sniffle. “You’re too good to me, Linc,” she finally murmurs, her voice trembling.
“I love you, Mom, and I have not been very good to you. So let’s spend some time together before you go back. Please?”
She clears her throat. “Okay. Fine. Yes, I’d love that.”
“Six o’clock, and I’ll bring dinner.”
