My Foolish Heart (11 page)

Bless Lucy for the bag of groceries she'd left this morning, probably reaped from her own pantry, or Issy would be relegated to the half-eaten fish burger and the cold corn.

“This same God . . . will supply all your needs . . .”

Okay, He'd supplied food, but that wasn't her real need, was it? She could barely look at Lucy's kindness without weeping. What was she supposed to do with verses like
“For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength,”
or even,
“Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus
”
?

She didn't know whom to blame for her failure, because she'd certainly spent hours begging God for peace. For strength.

So that left her where?

She picked up the cup, blew over the surface. From the living room, she could hear the replay of her show. Elliot always chose the best calls to replay on Sunday nights. She would take notes, sometimes checked into the forum, but not many discussions happened on Sunday.

Now, she heard her voice as Pride invited her to her wedding.

“Okay, Lauren. I'm so sorry, but I can't come.”

“Why not?”

The
why not
hung in Issy's mind even as the conversation continued. She winced at the tremble in her voice.

She was tired of the
why not
s. Tired of sitting here every Sunday, listening to her church family worship from afar, knowing her father was probably listening too.

She reached up to touch his picture on the fridge, the one with him and his championship team her senior year. He was being carried off the field, dripping wet from the water bucket, on the shoulders of his team. And beside him, also carried, Seb Brewster. They were looking at each other, their hands locked above their heads. In a way, Seb had been the son Coach Presley never had.

“Daddy, I miss you,” Issy whispered.

The worst part was, he lived only a mile away.

Past the highway, over the hill, in a room facing the lake. But the care center where he lived on a breathing machine might as well be across the Pacific in Bangkok.

Or in Napa Valley.

At least they had the telephone. Their daily phone call kept their prisons from strangling them.

She pushed open her cardboarded door, padded out to the porch. Night bathed the yard, the air cool, scented with pine and the heady fragrances of her hydrangea, her daylilies, the Pilgrim and tea roses.

“Come . . . see me, Isadora. I miss . . . you.”

His voice in her head, the memory of their conversation this afternoon, could turn her inside out. It wasn't enough that he could only talk when his ventilator expired the air from his lungs, but the short bursts of speech, dying at the end, always sounded like the end of his life. Every sentence, every phone call, every day could be his last.

“I want to, Daddy. I'm getting better. I am running around the block now and even to the coffee shop.” Okay, she'd only run there once and hadn't gone in, but technically, she'd touched down in the parking lot.

“Don't let it rule . . . you . . .”

It had taken all of thirty-seven seconds for Coach Presley to kick in, for her father's go-get-'em tone to color his speech. She could almost see him pacing the sideline, yelling encouragement, his body more muscle than fat even at fifty, his dark hair containing just a touch of silver at the temples.

“Try to understand, Daddy. It's like, when I think about leaving the house, going into town, I can see what could happen. Every possibility. And then I start to feel this unraveling deep inside. After that, it's not about what could happen, but rather me making a fool out of myself. Sweating and crying and losing my mind in front of the entire town. I did it once—”

“Funeral. Everyone understood.”

“I locked myself in the bathroom of the funeral parlor and they had to call the police to get me out.” Her voice pitched low, even as she sat on the sofa in the privacy of her parlor. “They had to sedate me. And hospitalize me for three days.”

He knew this, of course, but he'd been fighting for his life in Duluth's trauma ward at the time. Besides, how could he possibly know how it felt to hold her mother's hand as she bled out, trapped in a burning car? How it felt to watch the EMTs haul her father away, gray and unmoving? How her world had dismantled right before her eyes?

Her hand went to the scar on her forehead, raised but hidden by her hair. Just a scalp laceration. She'd been back home, walking into her empty house, by six the next morning.

“I am praying for you. . . .”

She flinched at that. “Please don't talk to me about God. I know, I know—just ‘cast my cares on God.' Believe me, I have—”

“Honey . . .”

“The thing is, I can't figure out if I abandoned God, or if . . . well, if He abandoned me. But I'm broken, ashamed, and it feels like God is doing nothing to fix me. So, please, can we not talk about God?”

Part of her wanted to yank her diatribe back, even now. But sometimes she just had to say it aloud, to acknowledge the truth. She simply didn't matter to God. She'd embarrassed Him enough.

“It kills me . . . see you trapped,” her father said softly, and she imagined him sitting on the side of her bed, brushing hair from her face with his big, wide-receiver hands like he had when she was seven.

She wiped her cheeks, held her breath in.

“I want to see you free, married . . .”

“I know, Daddy. But that's never going to happen.” After all, who would want her, a girl who could barely leave her yard? Talk about a ball and chain.

“You win or lose in your head.”

“Oh, Coach, love isn't a football game, you know.” But she grinned, and she could almost see his smile on the other end. Or wanted to. She gritted her teeth and gave up on wiping her cheeks.

“Yes . . . every night, you coach . . .”

“I give advice, Daddy.”

“You're a coach at heart.”

Just like her old man.

Now she sipped her tea, letting his words seep into her heart. Oh, she wanted to be like him. Storming out onto the field with the right plays, not letting defeat—or the fear of it—keep her on the sidelines. Believing in her players, seeing their potential, coaching them into strength.

She should start with herself. Because if she couldn't coach herself out of this dark place, how was she supposed to help others get over their fears, reach out with their hearts for love?

She got up, turned off the back porch light, returned to the family room. Her show was just ending and even as she heard her voice calling out hope, in her mind she heard Elliot's doom.
You need to do something to boost ratings. . . .

Please, God. Don't let me lose the show, too.
She stood there, staring out at the indigo darkness, the droplets of stars peeking through the canopy over the lake.
Help me figure out a way to save the show.

She closed her eyes, longing to hear something, feel something. To know the peace that Jesus promised.

Instead,
The Bean
's opening music played.

Through the window, she saw the neighbor's light flicker on; then he came out to the front porch and sat on the steps. Duncan—she should find out his real name—settled down beside him. Something moved inside her as she watched him run his hand over the animal's head. Despite his wounds that gave him every excuse to be jaded, even angry, he seemed kind. At peace, in a way.

If only she hadn't blown that so badly, if she wasn't so horrified by her own actions that she would make a point of never talking to him again, she might pray for another chance to meet him. In him she might have found someone who understood exactly what it felt like to be trapped inside something bigger than yourself.

He might have even figured out how to be set free.

6

No man will respect you unless you respect yoursel
f
!

Coach Presley's voice had chased Seb across three states, all the way to Deep Haven, and now, even into his sleep.
You can't blame others for your mistakes!

Seb lay there, blinking into the early dawn, his narrow bed soggy with sweat, and everything hurt. His shoulder. His head—probably from too much sun on Saturday, because he'd turned down Big Mike's offer to hang out. Definitely his chest, where Lucy's razored gaze had left a bruise.
What are you doing here?

Why did he think that coming back to Deep Haven would help him find the man he'd wanted to be? Because no, he didn't respect himself, and it had all started right here.

Seb pushed himself out of bed, wandered to the bathroom, hearing his father's snores motor down the narrow hall. He'd scrubbed away the mold layering the tiny shower and now could almost make out his warped image in the mirror over the sink. He'd also tamed the kitchen, moved the weaponry out of his bedroom, and opened the window to encourage fresh air to scour the trailer.

After Seb threw water onto his face, he pulled on a shirt, some shorts, then grabbed his running shoes. He took them out to the deck and put them on as the sun heated his shoulders.

Mostly out of a latent habit, he took the town route, the one that passed in front of the grocery store, the gas station, and along the lake. Today, the breeze from the lake slicked off the sweat as he settled into his pace.

As if he'd traveled back in time, the memory of Lucy rose from the quietness of the morning and latched on to his thoughts.

You want to study with me?

He'd sat on his motorcycle outside the school, too much hope in his voice.

She'd stood there, hands on her tiny hips, a messenger bag over her shoulder, wearing a pair of jeans and a pink blouse, looking so clean and smart. Then she'd smiled, and his words had vanished.

Even now, the memory of that spring, the summer months with Lucy, could fill him with a new breath, a sort of happiness that could deceive him. In those moments, he wanted to rewrite their ending.

Perhaps he could blame that hope of a new ending for driving him back to Deep Haven.

He ran past the fish house, where Arnie and Bubs were pulling out on their fishing boat for their early morning trip. Across the street, the bookstore remained dark. He ran up the hill, pushing hard.

He'd lucked out by partnering with Lucy, out of all the girls in their junior English class, for their spring semester project on Jane Eyre and her Rochester, a man throttled and deformed by his early mistakes. Sometimes, after they worked on their presentation together, after Seb had spent two hours watching Lucy twirl her beautiful caramel hair between two petite fingers, after she'd laughed so easily at his stupid jokes, after she'd made him feel smart and heroic, he imagined himself as Rochester, calling to her across the moor.

He could still hear that voice, sometimes, calling in his thoughts.

Seb cut his run past the care center, toward the school, picking up his pace.

Indeed, he'd become Rochester, a man unable to forget the one woman he ever loved, despite his mistakes.

I'm waiting, Seb, until I find the man I'll spend forever with.

The dawn slid across the tennis courts in front of the school, and Seb angled toward the football stadium. He always ended with a couple quick forties, then jogged the last half mile home in low gear.

I'm right here, Lucy. Right here.

As he rounded the school, he heard voices.

Or rather, a voice.

“Push through the pain, boys! Don't let your body control you—control your body!”

The words had the power to whisk him back through time to hell week under Coach Presley, when he'd lost ten pounds in two days, mostly in sweat and vomit. Sure enough, there they were, eighteen football hopefuls in workout gear, running bleachers.

The other coach stood on the track, watching. Taking notes.

“Push it, and you'll find out your new bounds.”

Seb recognized the words, had heard them a thousand times in his own practices. Hearing them from his competition, however, raked a chill through him.

He'd returned to Deep Haven believing he could finally return to the man he'd wanted to be. The man of honor that Coach Presley had wanted of him. And that meant taking up the Presley coaching mantle. No, Seb didn't have a degree or even years volunteering, but he had Coach Presley's old plays in his head and the desire to reach into the past and find the old glory.

He hung on the fence, stretching, watching, reluctant to take the track. Instead he'd just stay and watch and chew himself out for not assembling his team at 6 a.m., in the cool of the day. In fact, he had nothing but a vague idea of what he might do this afternoon during their first practice, intending to lean on his instincts. Back in the glory days, they'd never failed him.

When he'd lost his last job just weeks ago, instincts—and possibly desperation—had sent Seb home. Desperation also landed him on Mitch's doorstep begging for the coaching gig, a chance to coach their old team back to victory.

As he watched, the players descended the bleachers, and the coach wound them in, ordering them on a water break. The teens hunched over, grabbing for breath, some of them holding their sides, others falling to the turf, breathing hard. Coach Knight walked up to a few—he had a funny walk, as if he might be nursing a football injury too—bent down, and talked to them. He stepped away fast, awkwardly, as one spewed his breakfast onto the turf.

Knight even looked like a coach—thick, sculpted arms, wide shoulders, a red baseball hat. Probably an Ohio State logo on the grid.