Promise Me

I could sense a difference in Dominick. He was no longer withdrawing. “Why can you want to get help and my mom doesn’t?” He asked. I heard the hurt in his tone of voice.

I shook my head. “I don’t know Dom. I wish I had an answer for you.”

“Thanks for telling me this Coach. I won’t tell anybody. I still think your dad is being an ass though. You’re trying. My mom isn’t trying at all.”

I glanced over at him and looked Dom in the eye. “Sometimes, you have to reach rock bottom to realize you need help.”

He snorted. “If she hasn’t reached rock bottom yet I wonder how bad her rock bottom has to be.”

“Each person’s fall is a little farther than others’,” I told him.

Nickolas appeared in the doorway with Maddie and Skylar behind them. “We have to go Dom. We have twenty minutes to get home.”

Maddie walked out to the porch swing where her brother and I were sitting. She touched my jaw where Dad hit me. “Are you okay Coach?” she asked.

“I am,” I replied. She threw her arms around me and whispered in my ear something I’ll never forget.

Man, these kids were killing me. I hugged her back. Then I rose from the swing and walked them to the yard. “Be careful going home.”

“We will coach. I’ll see you at practice tomorrow. Skylar why don’t I just drop the kids here in the morning instead of you coming out to get them?” Dom asked.

“That’s fine,” she replied.

We watched them drive away. Gramps joined us in the front yard.

“You know who their mom is?” He asked.

“No,” I replied glancing over my shoulder at him.

“Nickolas told me this afternoon. Small world. Betsy’s uncle Frank who was her mother’s brother had a kid named Tebo, he’s about Declan’s age. He died, I think eight years ago of a heart attack. Tebo’s daughter Delilah is his mother. She’s thirty-two. She had Dominick when she was sixteen.”

“We’re related to them?”

“You are,” Gramps agreed.

“Did you tell Nickolas?”

“I didn’t. I thought maybe you would like to tell them,” Gramps replied.

“Why didn’t Grammy ever spend time with them?” I asked.

“Because her dad kicked her out when she was eighteen. She cut them out of her life completely which cut out Frank and his family out too.”

I nodded.

“She works in the diner every day during the breakfast and lunch crowd. They have to be home before she gets home at six.”

“Nickolas told you that too?”

“Yes. He also told me she gets high every night. Sometimes with a male companion. They make sure they are home because they are afraid she will disappear and not come back. They only go to Dom’s football games.”

“That isn’t good,” I said.

“No, it’s not. Dominick is just waiting to turn eighteen and he’s going to take the two younger ones from her.”

I glanced over my shoulder at my grandfather. “We need to help them.”

“Yeah, we do. I just don’t know how yet. Give me some more time with them. I’ll figure it out.”