Between Sundays (14 page)

Aaron shifted slightly in his chair, his attention completely on Derrick. The look on his face said he hadn’t meant to bring up something too deep, too personal. “Hey, man, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s okay. Sometimes it’s good to go back.” Derrick steadied himself and the years rolled away. “I was boarding a plane in Dallas that Sunday night after a game against the Cowboys, when my phone rang. The flight attendant was saying something about shutting off our cell phones, but I took the call. Denae was on the other end, hysterical.”

He could hear her still, the way her voice sounded frantic, desperate. “Derrick, it’s Lee…it’s our baby, Derrick. Dear God, it’s Lee…”

All around him players were chatting about the game and positioning their airline pillows and buckling their seatbelts. But Derrick was trying to catch his breath. “Denae, baby, calm down.” He placed his hand around his mouth so his teammates wouldn’t hear him. “I can’t understand you, baby. Talk to me.”

“Someone ran the red, Derrick. Dear God, no.” She let out a loud wail, one that echoed in his heart still today. “I need you, Derrick. Please. Dear God, not my baby. No!”

Derrick could feel his heartbeat double, and for a moment he considered tearing down the aisle and getting off the plane. But then he realized that would be crazy. He couldn’t get to Denae any faster by leaving his seat. Instead he gripped the phone as tightly as he could. “Is there…is there someone else around? Someone I can talk to?”

She was still weeping, but she must’ve heard him, because she handed the phone to a man with a calm, professional-sounding voice. “Hello, this is Doctor Lander. Is this Derrick Anderson?”

“It is.” His heart slammed against his chest and panic choked him. “What happened?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Anderson. There’s been an accident. A speeding car ran a red light and broadsided your wife’s van. We’ve checked out your wife and oldest three children. They’re all fine.”

Get to the point, Derrick wanted to scream. What about Lee? “Our…youngest?”

“He took a severe blow to the head. He’s in critical condition.” The doctor’s voice was heavy. “You need to get here as soon as possible.”

No, God, please not Lee.
Derrick closed his eyes and bent over his lap. He pictured Lee, jumping into his arms as he left for the airport the day before the game. “Daddy, I love you…”
Please, God, not little Lee.
He found his voice. “I’m on my way. Please…put my wife back on.”

Denae was still sobbing when she came back on the phone. “Pray, Derrick. I can’t…I can’t lose my baby.”

The flight attendant could sense something was very wrong. She didn’t ask him again about his phone, but the plane was moving. Derrick promised he would pray and then he hung up and turned off his cell. Nearly four hours later when they landed in Chicago, Derrick took a Town Car straight to the hospital.

The story was always difficult, but Derrick hadn’t realized till now that there were tears on his cheeks. He swiped the backs of his hands across his face. “He was still conscious when I reached his room. The other kids were huddled on the floor against one wall, crying. Denae was standing by the bed, holding Lee’s hand.”

Derrick’s breath caught in his throat, the way it always did when he allowed himself to go back to that horrific moment. His eyes fell on Lee, the way his head and face were swollen. At that point, Derrick didn’t know his son’s prognosis, but he didn’t need a doctor to tell him the situation was grave. He hurried to the side of the bed and tenderly, carefully, he took hold of his son’s other hand. “Baby…Daddy’s here.”

Lee blinked slowly, the blink of heavy sedation. “Daddy?”

Sorrow flooded Derrick’s heart and soul and he struggled to speak. “Jesus is with you, Lee. Everything’s going to be okay.” His words were as much for himself as they were for his son.

Across the bed, Denae met his eyes. Tears were streaming down her face and she shook her head. “It’s not good,” she mouthed. Then she squeezed her eyes shut, released Lee’s hand, and turned so he wouldn’t see her break down. After a minute, she motioned for Derrick to follow her.

An ocean breeze washed across his face and he looked at Aaron. His teammate was gripped by the story, stunned by it. Derrick sat up straighter in his chair. “The news was worse than I imagined.” Derrick’s voice was distant, lost back in that long ago fall. “You know, you figure he’s talking, he’s coherent. He must be okay.” Derrick shook his head. “He wasn’t.”

Denae led him into the hall and she collapsed in his arms. “He’s bleeding,” her face twisted in a gut-wrenching sorrow capable only from a parent losing a child. She fought for her voice. “Doctor says he can’t stop it. Blood’s coming from too many areas.”

For the first time that awful night, anger sliced through Derrick’s grief. “So what? We’re supposed to stand by and watch him die?” All his life Derrick had tackled adversity, as a high school player at a school where black kids were looked at with disdain by alumni, and at college when he had to battle for a starting position. He worked hard for his success, every touchdown pass, and dollar earned. Always Derrick believed a person had control over his destiny.

But not here, not in a hospital room.

The panic was back, and suddenly Derrick didn’t want to debate Lee’s prognosis in a cold, sterile hallway. He wanted to be in the room beside his boy, holding his hand. And that’s what he did. He kissed Denae’s tears and then returned to Lee’s side.

The media touched on the story of Lee’s death, but no one but Denae and the kids knew about the part that came next. Aaron Hill wasn’t family. He wasn’t even a close friend, not yet, anyway. But if he was the reason God moved Derrick to San Francisco, then he’d tell the story.

He massaged the muscles above his right knee. “We had one more conversation, me and Lee.” His voice was choked with a hurt that was never far from the surface.

He reached the boy’s side and took his hand again. “How’re you doing, little man? You hanging in there?”

Lee squinted at him. “Daddy?” He clung tight to Derrick’s fingers. “My head hurts.”

“I know, baby. I’m sorry.” He felt more helpless than ever in all his life.
God, no…not Lee
.
Stop the bleeding, please.
“What can I do, baby?”

For a few seconds, Lee was quiet. Then his little boy smile lit up his swollen face. “Win…a Super Bowl, Daddy!…Okay?”

The statement was the strangest thing. Lee had only recently become aware of Derrick’s status, the fact that he’d won two championships. A few weeks before the accident, Lee asked to see his rings, the rings he kept in a bedroom drawer. Derrick had showed him, and Lee had done his own figuring. One ring for Larry, one for Lonnie, so now all he needed to do was win one for Lee.

Derrick had asked him about Libby, but Lee wrinkled his nose. “Girls don’t care about Super Bowl rings, Daddy. That’s for boys.”

And now, with his brain bleeding uncontrollably, his youngest son remembered.

Derrick bent over the hospital bed, and with his free hand, he ran his knuckles over the boy’s swollen cheek. “A Super Bowl, baby? That’s what you want?”

A tired little laugh breezed across his lips. “Yeah. You’re gonna…win it all, Daddy! The…Super Bowl.” His words were scratchy and strained, his eyes barely able to stay open.

Tears blurred his vision, but Derrick did the only thing he could do. He lifted his boy’s hand to his face and tried to hold on, tried to will life and healing into him. Then in a rush of determination unlike any he’d ever felt before, he nodded. “Okay, little man. I’ll win it all.”

“For me.” Lee’s breathing was getting worse, shallow and weak. “Win it…for me, Daddy. Like…we talked about.”

“I will, baby. I promise.”

Derrick had heard about cases where a dying person had one last shining moment, the final flicker of a fading fire. For Lee, that moment happened then. His expression lit up once more. “Daddy…” his eyelids opened wider than before. He looked like an angel, his eyes bright with childlike love. He patted Derrick’s hand, soft and tender. “You’re…my best friend.”

“You’re mine too.”

Denae was back on the other side, stroking Lee’s arm, his legs. But no amount of love or prayers or willing him to be healed could change what was happening. Lee’s eyes closed, and after a few minutes, his breathing grew slower and then finally stopped. And the bright ray of sunlight that had been their youngest son was snuffed out before he ever really had a chance to shine.

Derrick sniffed. The tears didn’t embarrass him. If recalling Lee’s death didn’t make him cry, he’d be worried about the condition of his heart. He wiped at his face again. “I miss him.”

For a long time, Aaron didn’t say anything. He stared at the sky, at the fading pinks and lengthening shadows. When he finally put words to his thoughts, they were strained with confusion. “You still believe? Even after that?”

“More than ever.” The determination in his voice was the same he’d felt that day in the hospital room. “I never coulda survived losing Lee without Jesus. Woulda died from sadness, man. No way.” He pressed his fist to his chest. “In here, I believe with everything I have that Lee…” His voice broke. He took a few seconds to find control again. “Lee is with Jesus. Happy and whole, helping get things ready till we’re all together again.” He felt drained from telling the story. “What would I have if I didn’t have that?”

They sat a long time in silence, and then Aaron thanked him. “I had no idea.”

“Everyone has their struggle.”

“Yeah.”

Without another word, Aaron stood and shook Derrick’s hand. Derrick followed him to the stairs and listened as Aaron moved down into the kitchen. He thanked Denae and told the kids goodbye, then let himself out the front door. With someone else, Derrick might’ve been worried about the abrupt exit. But this was Aaron Hill, and the exit could only mean one thing. The evening, the story, their family, had made an impact on the guy. So much that Derrick guessed Aaron didn’t know what to do with his feelings.

When he was gone, Derrick went to his bedroom, to the photo that hung on the wall by the closet. God used all suffering to build character, right? Wasn’t that what the Bible taught? Because losing Lee changed everything for Derrick.

After that, his faith could never be something passive, a pleasant outing to a friendly church service. Faith became everything, because heaven held one of his own. He was passionate about making sure his family all wound up together in heaven.

But here on earth, winning another Super Bowl ring was important too.

He kissed his thumb and pressed it next to Lee’s precious little face, beaming at him from the photograph. Nights like this, he could still hear his son’s last laugh, see his last smile. “It might happen, baby. This might be the year.”

Either way, he was certain of one thing. Aaron Hill had listened to every word tonight, and if God was going to change him, the journey might just begin right here.

In the legacy of a little boy who never really had a chance to live.

A
aron drove without thinking, without processing even one bit of Derrick’s story. He drove until he came to Baker’s Beach, the stretch of rocky sand just west of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was almost nine o’clock, but a few couples still dotted the sand. Aaron didn’t want to talk to anyone.

He walked away from the bridge, toward the part of the beach that drew fewer people. Feelings were building in him, weighing on his heart, but he couldn’t think about them, not yet. He pushed himself. Long strides, his hands in his pockets. Only when he was far away from anyone else, did he walk toward a craggy boulder near the surf. He climbed to the top, drew his knees up, and sat facing the water, and finally…finally he stopped.

He rested his arms on his knees and let his head fall against his fists. And there, for the first time Aaron could ever remember, he felt his eyes tear up. Anger and sorrow and guilt and helplessness welled up inside him. Strange and deep feelings for Derrick and the precious child in the family photo, and for Megan, who had dedicated her life to helping kids without families. And for Cory, who wanted a father so badly he was willing to make up the idea that Aaron might be his dad.

All of it mixed together in his heart until he could barely breathe for the sadness. He had always respected Derrick Anderson. Yes, when the 49ers brought him on board, Aaron had felt threatened. How could the franchise have room for two star quarterbacks? But from the beginning, Derrick had made it clear. He was there as much to mentor Aaron and Jay Ryder as he was to make any real contribution on the field.

The story Derrick told him tonight changed everything about how he saw the man. Aaron lifted his face and let the ocean breeze dry his eyes. He didn’t cry; he wasn’t sure he could cry. Even so, his heart ached for the thoughts weighing on him. He stared at the moon’s reflection on the bay and tried to imagine what that night in the hospital room must’ve been like. He’d never been a father, never cared for anyone as much as he cared about himself and his career. No one except Amy Briggs.

When Derrick told that story, Aaron felt like he was there, like it was his own son Derrick was talking about. The hurt somehow transferred deep into his heart, to a loss he’d never registered before tonight. The loss of a different child that maybe, just maybe, was his own. The one Amy had told him about his sophomore year at UCLA.

By then Bill Bond had already been saying how Amy was seeing other guys on the side, and how she was only sticking around for the money. When Bill heard about Amy’s claim to be pregnant, he scoffed at the idea. “She’s playing you, Hill. You’re a star, and you’re letting a girl play you. Come on, now.”

Aaron even wondered if maybe his agent had talked to Amy, discouraged her from fighting for their relationship. Aaron had asked him, but Bill only dismissed his question. “You take care of the football,” he would say whenever the subject came up, “and I’ll take care of the riffraff. And there will always be riffraff.” At the time, Bill’s comments were comforting. Aaron couldn’t trust Amy, but he could always count on his agent.

Every day, every year since then, he’d told himself the same thing. He couldn’t have been the father. Amy was seeing other guys and maybe she wasn’t even pregnant. He never saw proof, never saw her with a bulging middle. And he certainly never heard anything about the child.

A boat passed by, and from somewhere out on the water he could hear laughter. He waited until it faded, until only the lapping of the water against the shore remained. The smell of seawater filled his senses, and he hung his head again.

What if he was wrong? Aaron gritted his teeth. What if Amy had really been pregnant? What if she’d had a child, Aaron’s child, and he’d spent all these years not knowing it?

How could he have turned her away, let her fall out of his life without even a hint at closure?

What was he thinking back then? He was a kid, a boy whose dream was unfolding faster than night traffic on the Ventura Freeway. Strangers waited for him every time he left a class or headed out to his car in the UCLA parking lot. Bill Bond was the one who stuck, the one who seemed like the friend and father he’d never had.

Bill thought Amy was bad for his career, so that settled it. Aaron gave her some lame words and a lot of cold shoulder, and after a blur of seasons, he signed a pro contract. By then, Amy was so far gone from his life, it was like she never existed at all.

But she had existed, and he’d wronged her.

Hearing Derrick’s story tonight stirred his memory and his conscience and brought to light wrongs that had been eating at him since the last time he talked to Amy. Even if he hadn’t acknowledged it until now.

He opened his eyes and Megan Gunn’s face filled his heart. She was crazy for that little boy of hers, even if she was only his foster mother. In that way, she was the opposite of everything about him. When he’d heard about a fatherless child, when Amy had come to him with news of her pregnancy, he’d taken a quick door and disappeared from her life. When Megan heard about a child without a father, she stepped up and gave her whole life, everything she had. Her freedom and reputation, her dating life, her time and finances. All of it.

His face was dry, but the ache in his heart stayed. What sort of person was he, to let all these years pass without even calling Amy? If she really was seeing guys behind his back—however Bill Bond knew that—then no, they wouldn’t have worked out. But he could’ve at least had a final conversation with her. He could’ve asked why he hadn’t been enough for her.

Then, as if the events of the evening had crystallized his memories of Amy, he realized for the first time that something didn’t ring true: Amy hadn’t dated a single guy all of high school until the two of them went to his prom. Why would she have suddenly done any differently? He should’ve pressed his agent harder about his evidence, his proof that Amy was cheating.

A crazy thought hit him, and his gut tightened in a sick feeling. What if Bill had made up the whole story about Amy? He might’ve done it in a twisted attempt to protect Aaron, right? It was possible. Even now, nearly a decade later, the breakup didn’t make sense.

He slid down off the boulder and walked to the water’s edge. Amy was probably married with three kids and a wonderful life. Whatever had happened back when he was a sophomore in college, she was certainly over it by now. Over him.

He couldn’t do anything about the past, but he could try to figure out his future. He needed to talk to Bill, get more details about whatever he’d found out about Amy. Bill didn’t like Amy, and now he didn’t like Megan. Maybe Aaron had spent enough time listening to his agent and not his heart.

He turned and began walking back to his car, his Hummer. Nothing felt right, not the way he carried himself or the way he looked at tomorrow. Something needed to change, but he wasn’t sure exactly what. He pulled out his cell phone and punched in Derrick’s phone number. His new friend answered on the first ring.

“Hey, man, you forget your doggie bag?” It was the Derrick he was more familiar with, the one with a ready one-liner.

Aaron didn’t feel like smiling. He kept walking. “You doing that pizza party thing for the youth center again this week?”

“Yep.” The teasing dropped from Derrick’s tone.

“Can I go?” He was breathless, but not from the walk. “I’m serious, I can’t explain it. Being with those kids…it made me feel good.”

“I don’t know, Hill. No one at the center wants a media circus.”

“No press. I didn’t bring any last time. I won’t even tell my agent.”

Derrick was quiet for a beat. “Okay. The kids would like it.”

“Good.” A hint of relief sparked in his soul. “Thanks, man.”

The drive home took longer than usual, Aaron’s mind running through the details of everything he’d seen and felt that night. He needed to be stronger, needed to stand up to his agent a little more often. He couldn’t go back and make things up to Amy. But he could spend next Friday night at the Mission Youth Center, working alongside a woman unlike any he’d ever met. And maybe this time he wouldn’t try so hard to hit on her. It might be enough just to watch her, study her.

Maybe in the process, some of her strength would rub off on him.