Page 51

ONE MONTH LATER

“You can wait here,” Heath tells me. “We’ll bring you up to a suite in a minute.”

I reach into the pocket of Fitz’s letterman jacket and pull out a ticket stub. “I’m in section 143.”

Nick sighs from beside me. “Fitz has a suite. You don’t need to buy tickets.”

“I don’t want to be up there,” I tell him. “I want to be closer to the field with?—"

“Here he comes.”

I lift my head. I thought these guys were big , but they’re larger in uniform. It’s like trying to see over a building. But I manage. I’m pretty sure I’d see the smile on Fitz’s face from Kansas.

Heath and Nick step back as he approaches.

“Well, look at that,” he says, tugging on his high school jacket, which I wear over his Rebels jersey.

“And…” I turn my cheek where I had Lo write #5 in bright blue on the way to the stadium.

I take it back. Now I’d see the smile on Fitz’s face from California

“Did I do good?” I ask, holding my arms up and spinning.

Fitz reaches out, grabbing my waist. “You did great.” He drops a kiss to my lips.

“Good,” I say, leaning back slightly. “Now go and do something greater for me.” I send him off with another kiss and a gentle push.

I hold my ticket up again, showing it to Heath. “Which way do I go?”

* * *

“Next time, we’re up in the suites!” I don’t know if Lo realizes how loudly she’s screaming. “This is fun and all, but I can hardly hear myself think!”

I agree, sitting in the stands in the end zone is fun. More fun maybe than I initially expected. But maybe I wasn’t thinking this through. From one end of the field, it’s harder to see what’s happening on the opposite side, which is where the Rebels are lined up, somewhere on their own eight yard line.

But what I do see is the score, and much to everyone’s surprise, having an interim head coach hasn’t done much to bring doubt to a potential Rebels dynasty. We’re about to close out the first half up by fourteen points.

“Oh, oh, go! Throw it!”

I have to check the Jumbotron to see what exactly is happening, but by the time my eyes find the screen, the play is dead. I think Fitz took a sack because they’re lining up the ball farther back than where we started. “Are we on the one yard line?”

“No, no.” Lo squints. “I think the three.”

I belly laugh and look at her. “Is that seriously any better?”

She takes my hand and nods. “It totally does! Football, it’s a game of inches, Parker.”

I’m not sure Lo even knows what that means, but I let her have it, even though the Jumbotron reads THIRD AND 18. I think we need more than just a few inches.

And apparently, Fitz has what we need.

I grab and squeeze Lo’s hand. “Is he… is he running ?”

“He’s running!” Lo screams, probably because she didn’t hear me. But she’s right. “Fitzy! Go! Run!”

I hold my breath as I watch what feels like a stampede of navy blue Rebels jerseys make their way down the field, doing their best to block the whites of the other team. But Fitz doesn’t need all that much blocking. He runs like his life depends on it, like he has no time to waste. I start screaming before he crosses into the end zone, but it’s short lived. Because he keeps running, and when Lo’s jaw falls open, I finally get it.

He’s running straight to me.

Before I know it, Fitz reaches up, hoisting himself onto the padded wall. He’s half sitting, and I grab onto his jersey so he doesn’t fall.

“What are you?—”

I pause when he lifts up his helmet and gives me a kiss. “How was that?” he asks, his chest heaving.

I smile, pulling his helmet down. “Pretty fucking great. Now go do it again.” With a gentle push, I send Fitz onto the field and into the waiting arms of his teammates, who celebrate as they jog to the sideline.

Boos surround the stadium, which make me shake my head with confusion.

“Oh, oh, come on, ref! They’re newlyweds!”

I grab Lo’s arm. “Wait, what happened?”

“Look.” She points at a small yellow flag just beside the padding of the base of the goalpost. “They gave him a penalty in the bank.”

“That’s not fair!” I huff. “For what?”

Lo smirks at me. “For loving you.” She laughs.

“I guess it wouldn’t be the first time.” I let go of her as the Rebels’ kicking team takes the field, but now, fifteen yards further back.

Lo hands me my beer and I’m bringing it to my lips when I spot Fitz on the sideline. He’s got a headset on, so clearly he’s talking to someone else. But he smiles, letting me see that dimple from a distance, and what he mouths to me, I hear above the cheers of tens of thousands of fans.

Rebels Only.

* * *

FIVE YEARS LATER

AMERICA’S SWEETHEARTS AT HOME IN A NEW ERA

Rebecca Morris

The Boston Journal, Sports & Style

The first time I met Parker Rhodes in a Boston hotel room, I had no idea what was about to hit me. And I had no idea, 5 years later, that the hits would keep on coming. But the reason for this is a testament to Rhodes’s persistence, resistance, and as she jokes darkly, “good coaching from my husband.”

I’ve met with Parker two other times since that day in the hotel. One of those times I accompanied her on a plane from Boston to Washington, DC, where she was heading to testify in front of a congressional committee in support of a bill against institutional child abuse. It was September, prime football season. It also was also the last fall her father would spend in office, losing his re-election months later.

With us, of course, was her husband, Fitz, who missed practice to be with his wife. It’s something you imagine doesn’t fly for starting quarterbacks. But considering it was his former coach who had a hand in Parker’s story, The New England Rebels easily made an exception.

“They were very supportive of that,” Fitz tells me. Even though it’s been a year since he retired, he still palms a football. So little has changed, except his receiver is his two year old, Clara, whom he squats for when tossing the ball.

“Go long,” he tells her.

But Clara toddles off. “No, no.”

It’s hard to tell who little, dark-haired Clara resembles more at the moment, so I ask their opinion.

“She’s her mother re-incarnated,” Fitz says as he follows Clara toward her playhouse, a miniature version of the Rhodes home I visit today, complete with a robin’s egg-colored door.

“He says that because her favorite word is no.” Parker laughs from where we sit on the patio of the couple’s home, that they built and moved into before their daughter was born, in the town where it all started.

It’s hard to imagine Manhasset ever has a day that isn’t beautiful. Nestled on the south shores of Massachusetts, the small town has managed to hold onto the charm it was founded with. It seems fitting that a love story that once captured the hearts of the nation was born in such a special place.

But the homes Parker and Fitz grew up in are long gone—his figuratively, and hers under new ownership.

“Do you miss Captain’s Cottage?” I ask. If I squint, I can make it out on the other side of the cove.

Parker shakes her head. “It was never mine to miss.”

“And your family? Do they miss it?”

“You’d have to ask them.”

Not long after Parker’s father left the White House, he and his wife returned to the home that has been in the Montgomery family for generations. But their full time, civilian tenure there didn’t last long. As Parker’s story gained more and more coverage, the townspeople ran them out, quite literally.

“I saw a lot of coverage of the demonstrations on the street,” she tells me. “I never went.”

The property went up for sale months after Walter and Candice Montgomery became permanent residents in Florida and was purchased by Parker and Fitz before being sold to the town for fifty dollars.

“There’s so much history there,” Parker says after she asks me if I’ll join her in the kitchen so she can make her daughter lunch. “For me, the place had my best and worst memories. But it was just a house. I can still keep the good memories, like all the ones with my grandmother. I’m working on letting the bad ones go. But for people who care about this town, this country? It’s a gem. I mean, Abe Lincoln spent a weekend there. People care about that. Just not us. We aren’t history buffs.”

What Parker cares about, I point out, might one day be read in history books.

She snorts. “I don’t think I’m that interesting.”

Even if she weren’t, her work is, and it began that day in the hotel five years ago. I pull out my phone, showing her a clip of her first congressional hearing.

“It is my testimony that instead of children and teenagers receiving help at therapeutic schools like the one I went to, employees often punish mental health matters and behavioral issues instead of treating them. Therapy is often supplemented with atrocious methods of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. More often, these children—and I include myself—are worse off than the day they were admitted.”

I hit pause. “Are you better now?”

“You can’t tell?” she jokes. “I mean, better is relative. I have horrible days and really great ones. I find work helps me have better ones than worse. But that wasn’t always the case. The wrongful death suit for Sarah Griffen was very difficult. But it was the most important thing I’ve ever done. In some ways, more important than testifying in front of Congress.”

“Because Horizons closed shortly after?” I ask.

Parker shakes her head. “Because Sarah and her family deserved that win. And look, one facility closed. More have opened. There still is work to do.”

The work Parker talks about her non-traditional lobbying work which she manages through a Non-Profit she began called Our Hope, which offers support to victims of the troubled teen industry.

“I spend a lot of time in DC now. I never thought I’d be a Montgomery in politics.”

“You’re not,” Fitz says, coming into the kitchen with Clara tucked under his arm. He goes to the sink, holding her so she can wash her hands. “You’re a Rhodes.”

The two share a sweet, gentle smile.

Parker quarters grapes, adding them to the plate with her daughter’s sandwich. “It took me almost a year after the election to find a therapist I was willing to trust. That’s what I mean by being worse off. If I had someone like her when I was struggling with a lot of life’s issues in an unhealthy way as a kid, all of this could be avoided.”

I ask if she’s still in therapy.

“God, yes.” She takes Clara from Fitz so he can wash up properly. “I have a lot to work to do on myself to be the best person for her. I want her to be proud of me. Therapy and riding my horse Bernard, those things really help me manage my struggles.”

She sits Clara down at a small white table and brings her the plate. I ask what she means by that. Parker tips her head to the side, motioning me to follow her to the living room. As I leave, Fitz takes a seat—or as much as he can in the small chair—with his daughter at the table that comes up to his shins.

“What you do is very noble.”

Parker shrugs. “I carry a lot of baggage. It took me almost a year to find a therapist I was willing to trust. I was diagnosed with OCD, PTSD, a panic disorder. It’s very heavy. I’ve been on and off medication for years. Right now I’m not taking anything. I might be in a few months. I have to accept that the things I carry don’t ever go away. Sometimes I’m just better at carrying them than others.” She lifts her head, looking over my shoulder and into the kitchen. “But I have wonderful help.”

I look back. “Seems Fitz very much enjoys being a girl dad.”

“He’s a greater dad than a quarterback.”

Parker and I sit until it’s Clara’s naptime, which she strongly objects to. Fitz and I return outside while Parker takes their daughter up to her room.

“Do you miss football?”

He throws his head back and laughs. “Of course. Not everything though.”

I point out that he at least left the League on a good note and with a positive legacy.

Fitz agrees. “Who doesn’t want to win a Super Bowl the year they announce their retirement? That was a great way to go, you’re right. The rest of the stuff…” Fitz waves his hand. “I don’t feel great about it. I could’ve said something sooner.”

The retired quarterback is talking about his former coach, James Foller.

“A lot of people said you shouldn’t have said anything at all.”

He nods. “You’re right. That’s because when you win, people don’t care about what it takes to get there. I didn’t. But we should. There isn’t a grey area between tough and abusive coaches. Because the truth is, if it can happen at that level, it’s happening at all levels. The more we let it happen, the more it just becomes written off as the norm. Then it’s expected. And then it becomes even harder to challenge.”

I smile. “That sounds like something your wife has said in one of her speeches outside the Capitol.”

“I learned a lot from her. I still do.”

Fitz has been to the Capitol with Parker many times. I pull out my phone as she takes a seat on the arm of his chair.

“Do you remember the first time?”

The video I show them is cut from just before the earlier one Parker and I watched in the kitchen, the day of her first testimony. Instead, here, the focus and question was posed to Fitz as the two of them walked up the steps of the Capitol.

“Fitz, you once said politics is something you don’t tend to comment on, but you’re at the Capitol today for the hearing?—”

“I wasn’t aware child abuse was a political issue. Maybe you know something I don’t.”

Parker reaches down, smoothing her husband’s hair back. “He got the remote that night for sure after that.”

Regardless of what wins or losses might be ahead of them, one thing is clear. The couple once coined America’s Childhood Sweethearts have won the biggest thing of all—each other .