AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The reason why things didn’t pan out for you doesn’t matter. Clubs talk, but they close ranks around their own, now and forever.”
He’s telling me my fall from grace will stay between us, and relief floods me.
He tags on a quiet, “If that’s what you want?”
The reason why I do sits right beside me.
Rae sets down his roll of paper, and I hope to fuck he’s drawn me on it as strong instead of weak. As someone he’s glad he crossed short-term paths with.Right now, I don’t want to step out of a story where he sees me as a giant. I’ve also seen him sketching us hurtling downhill while wet and laughing.
He’s my rush now. My high. My healing from all the old wounds that faded the moment he showed me how he saw me.
As a hero whose journey isn’t over.
Now I show him a hero of my own, and this time, when I reach for that scrapbook, Justin lets me take it.
Dad fills it.
So do I, and I can’t speak. I can only turn page after page that shows us on so many pitch sides along with other players. Mitchnames them, but I barely hear him. I’m focussed on images of me with skinny legs and goalie gloves that look massive on me before I got my growth spurt. Dad’s taller than me in many of these snaps, stooping while pointing at a goalmouth. For a moment, seeing both of us in profile is confusing.
I could be the adult, we’re so alike now.
I turn more pages to be confronted with a reversal. Dad is in a wheelchair with me stooping to point out gameplay, and Rae’s hand lands on my thigh.
Fuck knows why I feel that touch somewhere else—this pressure right over my chest is a phantom reminder, a sensory ghost telling me to breathe, so I do my best to inhale and exhale while Mitch keeps going.
“I’ve been with Justin for over twelve years. He couldn’t talk when I first started working with him. Too much damage. Too many dead ends in his noggin. Brains are brilliant though, aren’t they, mate?” He nudges Justin, who nods just like that owl I showed Rae by the river, looking wise and solemn. “Everything in the traumatic brain injury textbooks says that maximising sensory input helps to forge new connections. When people with TBIs engage more senses, their progress can be amazing. There’s no better place for that to happen than in nature. I knew that, but I had no real idea about where to start.”
There’s a smile in his voice next. “Back then, you could have written what this city boy knew about working outdoors on the back of a condom wrapper and had room left over.” He flips another page, taking me back in time to Dad’s days as a moorland warden. In this image, he’s at work with a younger Justin as his shadow. “Your dad told me about the Haven. How it had a focus on gardening.” He tilts his head in the direction of the care home. “And he reached out when I started work there. Offered to teach me about nature.” The smile in his tone turns serious. “Every single activity I do outdoors grew from the seedshe planted. You better believe it was a fucking privilege to return the favour.”
Mitch shows me how.
He shows Rae too by turning a last page. This one holds familiar sheets covered in words and phrases, and in single alphabet letters. The later cards only show pictures. Some are highlighted the same way we would highlight whichever picture or word Dad stared at, piecing together our last conversations.
Rae surprises me by saying, “I use these.” He touches a row of images showing facial expressions. “So I can work with kids even if I don’t have an interpreter.”
That’s what Mitch did, if he was who gave these tools to Kirsty. He helped us interpret for Dad when he physically couldn’t tell us what he needed. Now Mitch touches his temple. “When the PSP kicked in and communicating became hard for your dad, Justin put this scrapbook together for him. Used to show it to him when your dad came to the club, neither of them talking, both of them enjoying your journey.”
Rae asks, “PSP?”
Mitch waits a beat before answering for me, thank fuck, because there’s no way I can say this. “Progressive supranuclear palsy. Presents a little like Parkinson’s, but the progression is different and can be much faster.”
So fucking fast.
“That’s tough on families,” Mitch says.
It was tough on Dad, not on me. Tougher still on Kirsty, who had to hold us all together. The triplets were too little to be aware, which was the only blessing.
Mitch isn’t done yet. “That’s why we wanted you to have this.” He pulls out one of those communication sheets. “I mean, you can have the whole scrapbook, but this is the last conversation he had with Justin, so it seems kinda special.”
This communication sheet is covered with single letters. Only four of them are highlighted.
Mitch says, “He was looking at photos of you.”
Rae pieces those four letters together.
“Star.”
I’m voiceless. Almost sightless, as well. All I can do is hear Mitch ask a string of questions followed with a firm promise.
