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“I think he has more than a little of his mother in him.”
“The smartass part comes from you.”
“And the psycho stubborn part . . . who do you suppose he gets that from, you?”
Maggie was on the verge of upping the ante when an elderly couple approached them. “Excuse me,” the man said, “Mike and Maggie Nash?”
The Nashes nodded.
“I’m Charlie Kelly. This is my wife, Mary.”
“Nice to meet you,” Nash said as he shook the man’s hand.
“My grandson plays for Langley.”
“Ohh . . . great,” Maggie said.
“Not today. Your boy pounded us. Pretty damn good player,” he added gruffly.
“Thank you,” Nash said.
Kelly looked across the field, his cloudy blue eyes unfocused, his bottom lip trembling ever so slightly. “I just wanted to say hello.” He couldn’t look at Nash. His wife hung close to his side. “And thank you. I was in the Navy and then I put in forty years at Langley. Clandestine service . . . operations . . . spent most of my time in Europe. What you did,” he finally looked at Nash, “it made a lot of us proud . . . and there’s not many of us left.” He shook his head and then said, “I just thought you should know that.”
Nash was caught off guard. He stammered for a second and then said, “Thank you, sir.”
“Charlie,” the old man said, “please call me Charlie.”
“I will. Thank you, Charlie.”
“Well . . .” he said as he looked toward the cars. “We’ll see you around.”
“Sure,” Nash said.
“Very nice to meet you,” Maggie said. As the older couple moved toward the parking lot, Maggie said, “That was nice.”
“Yeah. We don’t do enough to celebrate those guys.”
Jack returned from the middle of the field with Rory and a couple of his teammates. “Mom,” Jack said as he came speeding up, “are you really going to let Shannon drive?”
“I don’t think it’s any of your business, young man.”
“Well, if she is,” Jack suddenly produced Rory’s lacrosse helmet, “I’m wearing this.”
“Okay, that’s it . . .” Maggie took a step and reached out to grab the sleeve of his sweatshirt but again he was too quick. He darted off across the field. Maggie composed herself as she came face to face with Rory and his two friends. “Nice game, honey.”
“Thanks,” Rory said. “Can Will and Ben sleep over?”
“Well,” Maggie said, caught a little off guard, “your father and I are going to dinner, so Shannon is going to be in charge . . .” Her voice trailed off and she turned to her husband to see if it was okay.
“Nice game, boys,” Nash said.
“Thanks, Mr. Nash,” the two boys said in unison.
“I’m fine with you guys staying over. Have you asked your parents?”
Both boys said they would and ran off to find their parents.
“We’re going to dinner tonight?” Nash asked his wife.