Old Fashioned - Becker Brothers

I sighed, disappointed in myself, and more than that, frustrated with where to go from here. I understood why Sydney took Parker back to do a full assessment. He was limping. He was claiming he was hurt. He was showing all the signs of not being okay to go back onto the field. It didn’t matter that he was faking, to a responsible and professional athletic trainer, he was hurt.

And had it been our previous trainer, Perry, who’d done what Sydney had tonight, I would have appreciated him taking his job and the safety of our players seriously.

I’d judged her too harshly, and placed blame on her for something that was entirely Parker’s fault.

And, maybe, partially mine, too.

“It’ll all work itself out, Son,” Mom said, leaning down to kiss my cheek as she passed by me and into the kitchen. I could tell when I glanced up at her that she saw the warring thoughts in my head even when I didn’t speak them out loud. “Now, eat up. You’re not allowed to leave that table until that plate is empty.”

She patted my shoulder and continued into the kitchen, and I stared down at my full plate of lukewarm food as if it could somehow solve my problems.

I knew I, alone, was responsible for that.

I just had to figure out how.Later that night, home alone with the glow of my laptop screen the only light in my living room, I felt another rush of adrenaline.

It had been more than a month of entries in Dad’s journal since he’d mentioned the Last Will and Testament he’d found while cleaning Robert J. Scooter’s office. Every night, I’d translated an entry from Latin to English, just to be disappointed that it spoke only of the new branding initiative or some other boring board discussion. It was frustrating, and more than one night of work on the journal had left me feeling deflated, like I was wasting my time looking for something that didn’t exist.

But that Friday night, knowing I wasn’t ready to sleep, I’d translated two more entries.

And what I found in the last one stole the last shred of hope I’d been holding onto that I’d get any sleep at all.Something has been eating at me.

It’s been over a month since I found Robert’s will. I should have told Patrick about it, but I didn’t. The truth is, I haven’t told anyone — not even my wife.

The scary part is that I’m not sure why.

All I know is something is telling me to hold onto it, and — against every moral code I’m built on — I’m considering reading it.

I know it would be wrong. I know what is inside that sealed envelope is private and important. I should hand it over to his family, over to Patrick for him to read with their lawyer.

But… curiosity is eating me alive.

And something else.

It’s hard to explain, which may be why I’ve kept it all to myself, but… I feel drawn to this document, like I found it for a reason.

It’s as if a ghost is whispering in my ear.

But maybe it’s just the devil.SydneyIt was an awful thing, to look around the park in search of blunt objects that could knock my ex-husband out, but it was all I could do in that moment.

It was all I could focus on to get me through the bi-weekly bullshit parade I had to endure with him, where he told me all the ways I’d fucked up by leaving him, and I sat there and pretended to listen, all the while counting down the minutes until he was gone and it was just me and Paige again.

I longed for sole custody of my daughter just as much as I hoped it would never happen. I never wanted to have to speak to Randy again. I wished so badly to leave him in my rearview mirror as a mistake I wished I’d never made.

But the truth was, I wouldn’t even if I could.

Regardless of what we had been through, if it weren’t for him, my daughter wouldn’t exist — and I couldn’t imagine a life without her.

I also knew it would kill her to be told she’d never see her father again, because as much as he was a class-A prick to me, he was a damn good father to her and always had been.

And so, twice a week, we met in a public space to trade Paige back and forth, and I endured my ex-husband’s crap in the name of my daughter.

“Mayor Barnett approved a nine-percent raise for me,” Randy bragged, puffing out his chest as he assessed my reaction.

Of which, there was none.

“I knew he would, of course,” Randy continued, eyes skirting over the park a bit as if he was still on duty before they found me again. “I mean, after all the trouble he’d found himself in with the Scooters… all the drama with his daughter not marrying that politician…” Randy clicked his tongue. “It’s been a mess to clean up.”