Twenty-Five

EVERY YEAR SIX teams draw the short straw and have to play on Thanksgiving Day.

While Abby loved the chance to sit at home and watch back-to-back football all day, this year, the Raptors were one of those teams. Sunday to Thursday always made for a short week of recovery, but at least they got to play at home.

The Saints would have to travel, on top of only getting four days off, but they’d all have over a week afterwards to rest up for the last big push into the end of the regular season.

The Raptors would also go into this almost-double header with a six-and-three record and a two-game, on-the-road winning streak behind them. Scott’s stats had improved all season long. He and the team were peaking at exactly the right moment, if they could only hold onto the momentum.

The only downside, aside from having to play on Thanksgiving, was how long it had been since their bye week, or so Scott had lamented to Abby.

“I’m going to need all ten days after Thanksgiving to rest up.”

It would be a weird year, too, because Dylan’s custody-mandated holiday in New York would fall right in the middle of their court battle.

Though Lindsay had cancelled the last two times his visit had fallen on Thanksgiving, even Scott had to admit it wouldn’t make the best impression for her to do so again this year.

So, Abby would go to the game alone, sit beside Kelly, who had fast become a good friend, and hope like crazy Scott could bring home two wins in a row. Nine-and-three would make for a great start to December.

That had been the plan, anyway. Then, a week before Thanksgiving, Cara called her. “Don’t look at Hooper’s latest article, hon.”

“What, why?” Against Cara’s advice, she popped open her laptop.

“I mean it, Abby. At least call Scott before you do. It’s his fault, anyway.”

Abby’s palms went slick with sweat as anxiety curled a tight knot through her stomach. “What’s going on?”

She tapped the keys to bring up The Charleston Herald’s main page, then clicked on the Sports section.

“You’re already reading it, aren’t you?” Her friend’s sigh of resignation echoed through the line. “It’s talk. Idle talk. It doesn’t mean anything. Everyone knows Zack Hooper is a hack.”

But she didn’t hang up.

Abby’s eyes flitted over the first few headlines, then caught on the word football .

FOOTBALL FLOOSIE’S TRUE COLORS SHOW

Gold-Digger Girlfriend of Local Hero Quarterback Doesn’t Bleed Black and Silver

Hometown hero and Raptors Quarterback Scott Edwards has had, like most pro football players, his fair share of off-field romances, but the glitter is off his current one to local girl, Abby Barclay, after it leaked she is unemployed and has been for the last three years.

“Is he serious?” Reading farther, her mouth fell open.

“Lies,” Cara hissed.

“Well, I mean, technically, yes, but my work with Gen is only part-time,” Abby replied, forcing a deep breath into her constricted lungs. “It’s nice that Activities hired us, but it’s not like I have benefits or whatever. And they have no way of knowing with Will’s life insurance I’m fine.”

Ignoring Cara’s sputtering, she continued reading until she got about half-way through the article. “Mentally unstable,” she screeched, then, realizing she did sound that way, tamped down her reaction and reread…

After battling depression in the wake of her husband’s death, sources close to Ms. Barclay suggest her trauma has not fully resolved and she may be ‘a ticking timebomb,’ as evidenced by her recent mental breakdown during the Raptors game against the Detroit Lions a few weeks ago.

“Right? Ridiculous,” Cara scoffed. “I can’t for the life of me figure out who would say something like that about you, never mind in an interview. There’s no one who doesn’t love you.”

Abby could think of a few people, right off the top of her head, who didn’t love her, but she figured it wouldn’t help to say so.

“Anyway, that’s all the important stuff,” Cara said.

“The rest of the article is nothing but speculation about the Raptor’s season.

Not even good speculation, either, because they’re doing so well lately.

You should call Scott, though. Like I said, it’s his fault.

Maybe one of his teammates said something. ”

“I doubt it.” Abby paused, chewing her lip. “There’s nothing in this that’s outright wrong, except the specifics of my employment status, and maybe my current mental health, and who knows? ‘Sources close?’ It could be a janitor, a former patient, anyone.”

“You know,” Cara observed with a hint of steel in her voice, “it wasn’t long ago you were scared to death of this exact thing happening. Waking up one morning and being all over the internet because of Scott.”

A soft, delicate smile turned the corners of Abby’s lips upwards. “Yeah, I guess so.”

The wind stripped from her sails, Cara sighed. “You love this guy?”

“I do.”

Her voice hardened again. “Then tell him to fix this mess.”

Abby hung up, then dialed Scott.

“I am so sorry, Abby.”

Tempted for a moment to play dumb, she decided Scott had enough going on in his life without adding to his stress levels, so, instead, she reiterated Cara’s words. “It’s okay. It’s idle talk.”

“But it’s not true. How can they publish something like this? It’s... it’s slander.”

“Well, I’m not going to say I’m thrilled that people are speculating about my mental health, but I doubt quoting a source counts as slander, and as for the rest, nothing else they said is wrong .”

After a beat of silence, surprise colored his tone. “But what about the work you do with Gen?”

“Oh, it’s work, for sure,” Abby assured him. “But not full time, and I don’t get paid much for it.”

Scott spluttered for a moment before she took pity on him.

“It’s... complicated? I think HR kind of took pity on me after Will died.

I’d quit being an EMT, and then I showed up, trying to volunteer in pediatrics—his department—with this dog.

Therapy dogs are a lot more prevalent, now, but they weren’t back when we started, so they didn’t quite know what to do with me.

They offered me a kind of contractor position.

I’m under Hospital Activities, but I do my own thing, make my own schedule.

I’m not on-call, but I am, and I’m not full time or salaried.

They told me when I started, they couldn’t pay me much, but I didn’t mind.

We don’t need much, and Will’s life insurance was. ..a lot.”

Abby swallowed. When the first check came in, she’d fallen to pieces over it. Crumpled to the floor, sobbing, unable to touch the little slip of paper.

Blood money , she’d called it. I’d rather have him back.

Then, Gen, still little more than a gawky pup, had crawled into her lap and grabbed a lock of her hair. She’d been distracted enough to make it through the next minute, the next hour, the next day.

“Anyway, we were both so busy with school and stuff, we didn’t do a big wedding, so my parents helped with the down-payment on our place instead of throwing a huge, fancy bash.

After Will died... Well, we’d been smart with our money, and with our planning.

Plus, the car that clipped him was a corporate vehicle, so there was a settlement, there, too.

I paid off the mortgage, but the rest...

I kind of put away. Like I said, Gen and I don’t need much, and there hasn’t been anything else to do with it, so. ..”

“Abby, what are we talking, here?”

She bit her lip. Will had been a successful pediatric surgeon, despite his relatively young age at his death. He’d done well for himself, for them. They’d taken out life insurance policies for both of them for the standard ten times their rate of pay.

“Umm, a little over three million? I haven’t checked it lately, but in March I meet with an accountant, for taxes. With interest, I think it’s about four million, now.”

Scott choked. “You have more saved than my last contract paid me.”

“But I thought the Raptors...”

“Oh, yeah, no, they did. I meant in San Diego.”

“Gotcha.” She paused, gathering her courage. “I know you like to pay for stuff, but that’s why I always offer to split it. I can make my own way.”

Scott didn’t answer for a long moment.

Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything, but he had refused to talk about his friends on the team, about Lindsay, and now they were in the middle of this mess together. She wasn’t going to make it worse by ignoring yet another thing that could divide them.

“I didn’t realize. I assumed, of course, you were working, but I didn’t want to hazard a guess at what you made. You’re independent; I’ve always respected that, but I wanted to take care of you.” He huffed a laugh. “I guess you didn’t need me to, did you?”

“Scott, no, it’s not like that. I didn’t want—don’t want—you to ever think I’m with you for what you can do for me.

I hate how this money came to me, I hate talking about it because it’s so wrapped up in what happened, but if it can do anything good, maybe it can be proof I love you for you.

I don’t need you. But I still want you.” The line went quiet again, but it wasn’t a fraught sort of silence anymore.

“Well, I’ll talk to publicity and my agent and see what they think.

They might want to push back, or they might think the best course of action is to play dumb.

It’ll probably depend on whether the story goes viral.

It’s bad timing, though. Mark called me yesterday to let me know the judge is ready to schedule our next hearing.

I guess Lindsay thought it would be worthwhile to expedite the psych eval. ”

“I expected it to take longer.” Abby tucked the phone between her chin and shoulder as she scooped a cup of kibble into Gen’s bowl, then ran water over it in the sink.

“Me too, but I guess you can pay to have them process it faster. I only met with him last week.”

Dancing around her feet, Gen followed the bowl to her mat on the floor, then waited until Abby gave her the quiet okay to eat before burying her nose in it.

“So, when will it be?”

“He said after Thanksgiving. We’re getting into the holidays, but Mark thinks this case is moving a lot faster than normal.”

“Well, maybe we’ll get lucky, and it’ll be over by Christmas.” Abby smiled, picturing Christmas morning with Scott and Dylan.

It had been a long time since she’d celebrated with more than a couple presents on the floor under the one potted plant on her bookshelf.

Her parents always sent something, no matter how chilly their relationship had turned in recent years, and Will’s parents did, too—one of the few ways they’d remained a part of her life after Will’s death.

While her own parents had struggled to understand the depths of Abby’s grief, Will’s parents had wanted to share theirs all too viscerally. When she couldn’t reciprocate, they’d given her space, but made sure she’d known she never left their hearts.

For years, their gifts had threatened to drown her in fresh waves of devastation, but maybe Dylan’s custody hearing being over by Christmas would make this year different.

Maybe, for the first time, she’d be able to open their gifts without suffocating in the guilt of having failed their son.

Maybe she’d even find it in herself to send them something, too.