“Payton, I realized I’ve been an idiot. I’ve been trying to play the game by their rules and they don’t want me,” he said as he stepped forward and slipped his hand beneath my chin to lift my face. “I did a shitty job of setting this up, but I wanted to ask you if you’d accept the job as the Storm’s new general manager.”
“You’re shitting me,” I said and then watched as Dax let out a loud laugh as he shook his head. “You’re asking me to be the GM?”
“Indeed, I am,” he nodded. “Will you accept the offer?”
“You’re serious?”
“Payton,”
he said in a tone that told me he was.
“Of course I’ll take the offer, you idiot!” I shouted as I flung my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. Dax wrapped his arms around me and pulled me off the ground as I raised my hands to signal a touchdown and whooped loudly before I grabbed the sides of his face and kissed him hard.
#
The next day, Dax called a press conference and made the announcement that the Storm had hired the first female GM in the history of the NFL. The press went wild speculating exactly how I’d gotten the job, and while not all of the theories were complimentary, I decided not to spend time caring much about the ugly side of print media. Instead, I focused the task at hand and got to work making a quick mid-season trade.
I’d had an inkling that something was wrong when Riggs had been hit hard during the Bears game, and I’d known since the beginning of the season that the Storm were short on backup quarterback talent, so I’d spent most of my time in my training position looking for a way to bring Cal McKenzie to the team. With less than a week left before the mid-season trade window closed, we were cutting it close. Dax approved the trade of two special team members to Cleveland in exchange for buying out McKenzie’s contract. They let him go without a fight, and by Thursday we had an experienced backup quarterback throwing the ball with Gaddis.
When Dax asked me why Cleveland had been so eager to let McKenzie go, I told him they were already three deep in talent and that they didn’t like the fact that McKenzie didn’t always play by the rules. That sealed the deal, and with McKenzie at the helm in place of Riggs, the Storm took off like a rocket.
In quick succession, the Storm beat the Vikings, Washington, Houston, and routed Jacksonville at home 35-14 as the fans went wild. Soon there were Storm flags flying from every business and home west of I-90 and south of 47th Street. The Back of the Yards became the home of the Storm fan base, and as the team headed into a second match up against the Vikings in the first annual Thanksgiving game at Storm Stadium.
We stopped by Gram’s before the sun came up that morning to drop off a load of groceries that she intended to give her various guests. Dax tried to convince me that Whole Foods would deliver it if I just called and told them what she needed, but I hadn’t wanted to miss out on the sights and smells of Gram cooking Thanksgiving dinner. It had been a long time since I’d joined my family around a table for a holiday meal, and being at Gram’s felt like the perfect balm for all the pain I’d felt over the past few months.
When we entered her little stone house, Gram was covered in flour as she rolled out the dough for half a dozen apple pies. She’d baked the pumpkin pies the night before and was fretting about whether the turkey would be ready in time. I offered to help, but when Dax muttered under his breath that I should let it go because this was her MO, I laughed and said I was sure the meal would be fantastic. She agreed to hold off on serving it until after the game because she wanted to watch her boys win. Dax kissed her cheek and said the car would be there to pick her up at 10 so she could make the eleven o’clock kickoff, and she patted his cheek and told him how proud she was of him for doing so well with the team and for finally coming to his senses and hiring me as the GM. I hugged Gram and told her I’d save her a seat next to me and have a nice Manhattan waiting for her when she arrived.
“Darling girl, you are such an unexpected blessing,” she said as she kissed me and then patted my cheek, leaving a floury handprint on my face.
We told her we’d see her soon, and headed off to the stadium. I was concerned that Johnny wasn’t well enough to play despite the fact that the doctors had run every test they could and found no evidence of any lasting brain bleeds or damage. I’d read the research and I wasn’t convinced that putting him back on the field only six weeks after he’d taken such a hard hit was a good idea, but then I wasn’t the coach. As we settled into the skybox, I crossed my fingers and hoped that Nick knew what he was doing if he put Johnny on the field today.
We spent the next few hours walking around the stadium checking in with the security staff and winding our way down to the locker room where we wished the team good luck before heading up to the skybox. I looked at my watch as we settled in and saw that it was well past ten. Just as I started to ask Dax about Gram’s car, his phone rang. He looked at the screen and then sent the call to voicemail.
“Who was it?” I asked.
“Wrong number, I think,” he said shrugging. He settled in next to me and handed me a frosty glass of Fat Tire Ale.
“Isn’t it a little early for this?” I asked.
“Holidays don’t count,” he grinned as I laughed and took a drink from the cold glass.
Kickoff came and went and still no Gram. Dax tried calling the house, and when he got no answer, we assumed that Gram had gotten sidetracked by the turkey and would be here as soon as she got it all straightened out. When the second quarter started and there was still no sign of Gram, Dax called the car service and was told that the driver had been waiting outside of the house for more than an hour and that no one responded when he knocked.
Dax gave me a worried look as he tried the house again. Still no answer. He looked at his phone and then muttered, “I wonder if…” as he punched the wrong number and then put the call on speaker.
“Cook County ER, this is Betty,” a voice on the other end said.
“I got a call from this number about an hour ago, and I’m looking for my grandmother, Eleanor Connor?” Dax said. “Is she in the hospital?”
“You’re her grandson?” the woman asked. “What’s your name?”
“I am. David Connor,” Dax replied with a worried frown. The woman was silent on the other end of the line long enough that Dax said, “Hello?”
“Yes, I’m still here,” she replied. “Mr. Connor, I’m sorry to tell you this, but your grandmother was brought into the ER this morning in cardiac arrest.”
“What the hell?” Dax shouted. “Where is she? How is she? Can I speak with her?”
“Mr. Connor, you’re going to need to come down to the ER and talk with the attendant on duty,” the woman said calmly. “Can you do that?”