Page 36 of Hell Bent

I said, “Wait. You said you’d never had a dog.”

He stilled. Just … stilled. And said, “I didn’t.”

“But …”

“My dad died when I was seventeen.” He was still aiming for ease, but it wasn’t quite coming off. “Foster care for a few months, that’s all.”

I thought about the whining I’d done to him about my family and inwardly cringed. “What about your mom?”

“I don’t know. Left when I was little.”

“Did she have a … a drug problem?” I asked, probing cautiously. “I’m trying to imagine a mom leaving her kids, and I can’t, unless it’s something like that.”

He shifted on the stool and took a sip of beer. I said, “If you don’t want to talk about it, I get that.”

“No,” he said. “It’s a fact, that’s all. Yeah, she left, and yeah, I was in foster care. A few different places. It’s hard to place a seventeen-year-old boy, and I was …” He stopped again.

“You were grieving your dad,” I said.

“Well, yeah, if you want to call it that. Pancreatic cancer’s vicious, and you bet I was mad about it. Mad at the doctors who hadn’t caught it sooner. Mad at my dad for leaving me alone, stupid as that is. Mad at the whole world, because I was scared. You don’t get to be scared, so I was mad instead. Soccer was the only thing I cared about, and the only thing where being mad can make you perform better, but you can’t play all day. I did my best to take care of Dad, which meant I missed most of a month of school that autumn, when you add it up. I didn’t miss any soccer, though. The school wasn’t happy about that, but as far as I was concerned, I had my priorities straight.”

My hand was on his arm, because I couldn’t stand hearing this. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Yeah, well …” He shrugged. “It happens. It wasn’t for long, and I was seventeen, not nine.”

“Why were you on your own, though? Wasn’t there any other family?”

“Not close by, and not that wanted to take on a seventeen-year-old with a chip on his shoulder. And my sister had just started med school all the way across the country in Vancouver. Luckily, I didn’t need them, because I got taken on byNewcastle the next summer. Soccer club, Premier League. That’s England, and not the fancy part. The good news is, I’m from Ottawa, so not put off by wind and rain and snow and general weather unpleasantness. The possible bad news is, I’m not even a high-school graduate. You heard it here first.”

“It must have been hard to leave everything you’d known, though. Were you even eighteen?” What did I care whether he’d graduated? It was obvious he was plenty bright.

“Well, some of what I’d known wasn’t all that hot,” he said, “which made it easier. I had to be eighteen to sign the contract and to leave school, but you can bet my birthday was the day I did sign it and left the country. No worries about my lonely self over there. I only lasted four years.”

“Why?” I asked. “As talented as you are … why?”

“You might think so,” he said, “but sports aren’t just about talent and skill. They’re about discipline. Humility, because you can’t get better unless you can be told what you’re doing wrong, and then change it. Good habits. Hard work. Emotional maturity, you’d call it. There’s a difference between being good enough to be drafted and being good enough to make it long-term, and that difference is mostly injuries and discipline. I didn’t have that, so I ended up at a team further down the league, and then in Houston, where Iwasgood enough—for a while—and possibly a little smarter, too. That was still pro soccer, just paid a whole lot less. Now, that’snota place for a Canadian.”

“Sounds like you’ve spent a lot of Christmases alone, though,” I said. “Or did you see your sister? Or—wait. You said you’re Jewish. A lot of Hanukkahs, I guess.”

Some more shifting on his stool. “No, on my sister. She’s still in Canada. We aren’t as close as we could be. I’ve been gone too long, and she’s busy. Also, my dad was Jewish. You’re only Jewish if your mom’s Jewish, and you’d call him more of a secular Jew anyway. No dreidel-spinning for me, but that’s fine. It’s all fine, because I’m a lucky man. Landed on my feet every time. Now I’m kicking those field goals, wondering how I lucked into that one. It helps that I don’t expect to stay. Almost nobody does in the NFL, so you have to make your peace with that. And with the money part, too. Put away as much as you can, have a plan, and don’t worry too much about tomorrow.”

“How?” I asked. “How do you deal with the uncertainty?” He looked at me for a long moment, and I said, “Don’t tell me if you don’t want to, but it would be useful information. I have to confess that I find it—” I stopped.

“How do you find it?” he asked.

“Terrifying,” I said. “At times.”

“Well,” he said, a smile twisting the corner of his mouth, “there’s that, too. I meditate every morning. That helps. And I put money away, like I said. I do my best to take life as it comes. It’s a process, acceptance. Takes practice. Fortunately, I know how to practice.”

Ever since I’dmet Sebastian, I realized with the kind of jolt that’s nearly physical, I’d thought about myself. I’d been cautious, and there was nothing wrong with that, but I’d also been blind. Assuming that because he had confidence and money—how much money, I couldn’t tell, but the NFL didn’t pay poverty wages—he’d try to run me over. I hadn’t taken the time to look. I hadn’t taken the time tosee.

I was still wrestling with all that when he set down his nonalcoholic beer and said, “We should probably get you home. It’s nearly eleven.”

I wanted to say something. I just didn’t know what.

The drive back across the bridge was quiet, because hemay have felt the same way. When he pulled into the KOA, though, he said, “Now, see, why did I share that?”

“What?” I asked. “No. I’m glad you shared it.”