Hold Us Close (Keep Me Still) (12 page)

“D
addy!
Daddy!
Did you see me? That’s five! I beat my record!”

I watch my daughter run off the field to her father, her dark ponytail flying behind her. My husband drops his clipboard and lifts her into his arms. My heart swells with happiness as the love between them cocoons them in a private celebration.

“Mommy, did you see? Did you get it?”

I press the pause button and lower the video camera. “I got it, sweetie. Way to go, superstar!” I high-five her and stand on my tippy-toes for a kiss. She’s a head above me in her father’s arms.

“No kiss for the coach?” my husband asks, his green eyes gleaming with mischief.

“Hmm…okay. You’re a superstar too, honey.” I wink and make a kissy face just before his lips graze mine. Even after five years of marriage, a tingling sensation from his touch still overwhelms me.

“I’ll show you superstar,” he murmurs into my ear. For a moment, I’m lightheaded from his words.

“Landen! This is a family place!” I slap his arm playfully and reach up to tickle Hope. He grins as our daughter giggles before launching into her play-by-play recap of the soccer game we just watched.

“Can we go get ice cream now? I get extra sprinkles, Daddy. You promised!” Hope forces him to meet her gaze as he confirms he’s going to follow through.

“Yes, ma’am. Extra sprinkles it is. And if Mommy is a good girl, she can have extra cherries.”

I almost drop the video camera. And Hope’s soccer bag. I clear my throat as we walk to the car. “Behave yourself, Coach.”

“Never,” he mouths, waggling his eyebrows at me.

I roll my eyes, even though anticipation coils tightly in my belly. Watching him fasten our daughter in her booster seat, I can’t help but ogle his muscular backside. Later, when Hope’s been bathed, and stories have been read, and she’s asleep and the house is still and quiet, I know he’ll make good on his promise to me as well.

He stands and closes her door. “Speaking of behaving yourself, I think you’ve got some drool there, Mrs. O’Brien.” He grins, and I shake my head and step around to my side of our SUV. It’s been almost five years since I’ve had an episode. As far as we know my surgery was a success, but I still don’t drive—just in case.

We pull out of the parking lot and I glance around at the other families leaving. I can’t help but wonder if everyone is as lucky as us. If they realize what a gift life is. How fortunate they are to be alive and healthy and able to come watch their able-bodied children play a game they enjoy.

“Grandma and Grandpa were there. I saw them. Grandpa waved to me,” our daughter chirps from the backseat.

Landen’s hands clench on the steering wheel as he pulls out of our parking space. I reach over and place my hand on his knee.

“They were, sweetie. They had some errands to run but said they’d be at the tournament next week for sure.”

“Can they come have ice cream with us? Grandpa likes sprinkles, too!”

Rubbing what I hope are soothing circles on my husband’s knee, I twist in my seat and crane my neck towards Hope. “Tell you what, how about they join us for dinner next week after the game? We can have ice cream for dessert.”

Landen’s muscles tighten under my hand. His parents reconciled after Hope was born. When The Colonel announced he was retiring to California so they could be near their granddaughter, no one was more surprised than us. Landen’s relationship with his father is still strained. They’re like warring countries that have declared a temporary truce. But I’ve seen the power my daughter has over The Colonel. Over everyone, really. But she owns him more so than anyone else, heart and soul.

Not that it erases Landen’s memory of what his childhood was like. I don’t expect it to. After his injury last year, I feared he’d destroy our family with his darkness once and for all.

Glancing at the smiling man next to me as my daughter agrees and chatters on about how she wants pink striped socks to cover her shin guards like so-and-so has, it’s almost hard to picture the man he was a year ago.

In last year’s playoffs, the opposing team’s striker missed the ball and nailed Landen with a kick hard enough to tear three separate ligaments in his knee. We prayed it was just a sprain, something temporary. But when the final results came in, he knew. We both did. His career was over.

For weeks, he marinated in his own anger, sitting alone in silence, barely responding to Hope or to me as he struggled to recover from his injury. Thick clouds of disappointment shrouded him in a place I thought I’d never be able to reach him.

And I wasn’t. It was Hope. Day after day, she’d climb into his lap, lay her head on his chest, and just sit quietly with him. This alone was a feat in and of itself, as Hope rarely sits quietly. Even when the physical therapist came to force him through his exercise routine, she stayed glued to his side.

Watching my beautiful full-of-light daughter even go near Landen when he was in such an awful place was difficult. He didn’t yell or hit things or break anything, but I could feel the force of his pain and frustration radiating from him. My instincts said to grab our daughter and keep her as far from him as I could until after he’d self-destructed. I even considered taking her back to Georgia and staying with my aunt for a while.

I was standing in the kitchen making dinner and contemplating this when she began to pull him back to us.

“Why are you sad, daddy?” I barely heard her small voice from the next room. I stepped into the doorway to see his response.

Landen blinked a few times, as if he hadn’t even realized she was there. He forced a smile and stared into her face. Again, I wanted to snatch her up so his pain couldn’t spill out onto her. But I waited.

“I’m not sad, sweet girl. Just trying to figure some stuff out is all.” He kissed her on the head and went to remove her from his lap.

But she wasn’t done. Thank God for the tenacity of four-year-olds. “Do you still love me?” she asked, her voice quivering enough to shatter my heart.

He recoiled like she’d slapped him across the face. “Of course I do, baby. So much.” He gave her a small squeeze and she frowned at him.

“Do you still love Mommy?”

I held my breath. I knew he still loved me. We’d been through worse than this. But I also knew his anger was a very dangerous part of him that could overshadow the loving man I knew if he let it.

“More than life itself, angel. I love you and Mommy more than anything. Always.”

“More than soccer?” Hope shot back at him.

Landen nodded. “More than soccer, more than air, more than chocolate ice cream cones with extra sprinkles.” She scrunched her face in disbelief and Landen rubbed his nose alongside hers.

Hope sighed in the dramatic way she has, placed a hand on her hip, and pinned him with her most serious expression. “Then what do you still have to figure out?”

Sometimes it really is that simple.

Later, we talked a lot about that day. About that entire year. About how Hope would ask him frequently if his boo-boo hurt and how he realized that she wanted him to get better because his behavior was hurting her.

This year he began coaching the men’s soccer team at the state university just outside of our home in Sacramento. And of course he coaches Hope’s pink-shin-guard, sock-wearing team on the weekends. He coaches both teams with equal enthusiasm—one of the many things I love about him. He never does anything halfway.

He’s even remained passionately committed to controlling his anger disorder. He takes his medication religiously and still attends therapy twice a week. The guys he coaches would probably love to see him doing yoga with me in our living room every morning.

If you glanced at us right now, you’d probably be envious. We look like the perfect all-American family. I’m hugely pregnant, Hope’s healthy and bright and beautiful, and my husband is handsome and successful. But if you look close, you might see our scars. We don’t hide them. Like the broken seashells I once loved to collect, what marks us is what makes us who we are.

We wear our scars proudly, the one’s we got on our way here. But we are here now. Walking into an ice cream shop as a family. Smiling, teasing, laughing. This is our happily ever after, where we keep each other still in smaller ways that don’t involve seizures or angry rages—ways that need only a kiss, a hand on the knee, a hug. And this is where we will stay. Together. Loving each other with everything we have. Forever.

Dear Dr. Kirkowitz,

You don’t know me, but my girlfriend was scheduled to have laser removal surgery of a hematoma that’s pressing on her brain several weeks ago. I’m writing to explain why she didn’t.

I’m sure you get tons of letters like this one. Letters asking you to make an exception, to find time in your already slammed schedule for someone’s loved one. I don’t know that my letter will be any different or that it will stand out enough to make you take it seriously. But my hope is that it will. Because Layla—that’s my girlfriend—is the most amazing girl, and she deserves a shot at a long, happy life more than anyone I know.

When we were in high school, Layla taught me about patience. She taught me to overlook the unkindness of others and find value in life beyond the day-to-day hassles that we tend to focus on. I grew up with an abusive father, who, as it turns out, isn’t my father at all. Layla grew up without parents, because hers were shot by a mugger in front of her when she was just a kid. She was injured in the attack and her medical condition is a result of that injury. Most people would hold on to that, use it as an excuse or a place to lay blame for their problems. That’s what I did. Not Layla. She uses it as a way to remind herself to appreciate the fleeting happiness that life has to offer. She sees the good in people—even people like me.

As I write this, I’m in a treatment center. I have a serious problem with anger. Most women would have cut me loose long ago, but Layla has stayed by my side, even when I’ve become the worst version of myself.

During the past few years, Layla’s strength and dedication have taught me about love. I grew up unsure as to what that word meant. My mom said it often, but when I needed her to stand up to my dad for me, she didn’t. So most of my life I questioned whether or not that word had value. If it existed in the truly unconditional form so many people claimed to feel. Until I received an opportunity to live my dream—to play professional soccer in Spain. No one was more surprised than me when the girl I loved showed up at the airport, uprooted her life, and moved to Spain with me. And I learned yet another valuable lesson. A dream is worthless unless the person you love is a part of it.

And this is the part where I make my desperate plea. Layla couldn’t have surgery a few weeks ago when she was scheduled to because she is pregnant. As I write this, she is somewhere around eight weeks along. As much as I’m ashamed to admit it, I didn’t take the news that we were expecting very well. The procedure you perform would have most likely saved her life, and if something happens to her now, then by getting her pregnant, essentially I am killing the one person I love more than life itself. The fact that she is willing to risk her own life to protect the life of our child is typical Layla. She’s kind, selfless, and beautiful inside and out. I wish that you could meet her so you could see for yourself what my words can’t do justice.

Layla is due in May, and it’s my hope that you can arrange to be on standby so that as soon as the baby is born she can have the procedure. I realize that this is a lot to ask, and I know that my chances of getting this request granted are slim. But what were the odds that an Army brat like myself, an undeserving jerk with a temper, would get even a small amount of time with an angel?

I’ve already taken up enough of your time, but I have one last plea for mercy. You see, I have nightmares. In them, I’m taking my child to visit his or her mother in the cemetery. Because all they know of her is a cold marble stone instead of the warm, compassionate woman that she is. I’m not just asking this enormous favor for me. I’m asking for the unborn child that deserves to know what a wonderful mother they have. I’m asking for my girl. I’m asking that you give her a chance to be the kind of mother everyone should be fortunate enough to have.

I’m asking for my family. The one that I may or may not ever get a chance to have. I don’t deserve it. But Layla does. I’m in this treatment facility so that I can be the very best father that I can. So that I can give our child what I never got. A happy home full of love and laughter. And patience. And acceptance. And hope.

You are my only hope right now. You’re literally all I’ve got. Please consider my request. I can’t offer you much except maybe World Cup tickets, but whatever I’ve got, it’s yours.

I’ve included both my and Layla’s contact information below.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Landen O’Brien