“There’s no relationship,” Cole said. “She’s helping out with my niece. End of story. And if you want this job, I suggest you shut up about it. Got it?”
Asher’s grin only partially faded, and he didn’t respond.
“Got it?”
“Yes, Coach,” Asher said.
“Great. So, are you ready to demo a bathroom?” He turned and walked toward the first-floor bathroom. Cole had already removed the toilet and tub, but he’d left the real demo for Asher. “I’m going to get you started, and then I’ve got an errand to run.”
“You’re going to leave me alone?” Asher looked downright terrified. “You know I’ve never done this kind of work before, right?”
“That’s why I’m going to show you what to do before I leave.” Cole picked up a sledgehammer and handed it to Asher.
“What’s this for?”
“Therapy,” Cole said.
Asher frowned.
“I’ve already prepped the room,” Cole said. “So all I need you to do is remove the old plaster and the tile.”
The kid held the sledgehammer loose in his hands. “How do I do that?”
Cole took the hammer back, moved a few feet away, then hauled off and hit the wall as hard as he could.
Asher jumped at the sound. “Dang, Coach.”
Cole handed over the hammer. “Your turn.”
Asher took the tool but stared at it, unsure.
“You can’t mess it up,” Cole said. “And sometimes, I’ve found this is the best way to deal with your anger.”
“You think I’m angry?”
Cole studied his quarterback silently until the kid looked away. “Got every right to be.”
Asher refused his eyes.
“You think I don’t get it, but I do,” Cole said, really not wanting to get into any of this but certain he needed to—for Asher’s sake. “My mom left us when I was about your age, and my dad dropped us off at Haven House in the middle of the night. Had no idea when he’d be back.”
Asher’s shoulders dropped, and he finally looked back at Cole. “Really?”
Cole nodded. “Hard not to be mad about all that.”
Asher stilled. “Did she ever come back? Your mom?”
Cole shook his head. “My dad did, but he was different. He remarried a couple of years later. Has a new family now.”
The kid’s jaw quivered. “What if my mom doesn’t come back?”
Cole remembered asking Steve that same question. Being on your own at sixteen was terrifying, especially when you felt responsible for a sibling.
“You know she didn’t leave because of you, right?” Cole said, surprising himself.
“You don’t know that,” Asher said.
“Sometimes parents are working things out,” he said. “They’re supposed to have it all together, but they don’t. They’re just human, like you and me.” He said the words without thinking, and only after they were out did he realize it was true. Asher’s mom left because she had things to sort through—not because her kids were bad kids. Not because they drove her away.
That was her problem. Not Asher’s.
Same way it was Cole’s mom’s problem. Not Cole’s.
The realization smacked at him as he tried to unpack what that meant. He looked at Asher. “It wasn’t your fault.”
The kid’s face fell.
“You know that, right?”
Asher shrugged.
Cole stood still, the words not your fault racing through his mind. Asher wasn’t the only one who needed to hear it. To know it, in that deep place of knowing. “Parents sometimes suck, Ash.” Cole grabbed the hammer, squared himself off, and slammed into the plaster with the full force of his strength. At his side, Asher jumped. Cole cracked into the wall for a third time, letting out a shout to accompany the crack. Adrenaline shot through his veins. He was both invigorated and out of breath.
“Your turn.” He held the tool up to Asher again, and this time, the kid took it with a purpose behind his eyes.
He moved, squaring off the same way Cole had, then swung the hammer behind him and banged it into the wall. The plaster cracked, and Asher lined up and hit it again, each blow stronger and louder and harder than the one before.
After he’d put a decent hole in the wall, he stood back, out of breath. He wiped his face with the back of his arm, and Cole could see he was working to keep from crying.
He slapped a hand on Asher’s shoulder. He wasn’t good with emotions, but he understood Asher’s better than most people. And he could stand here and belabor the point, or he could get out of the kid’s way and let him beat up on the bathroom while he worked out his anger.
“I’m going to go,” Cole said. “I won’t be long, but everything in here needs to go. You can’t mess it up. When you get to the wood inside the wall, stop.”
Asher gave him one firm nod, and Cole turned to leave.
“Coach?”
He turned back and found Asher glassy-eyed and red-faced. “Thanks.”
The word hung there between them, saying so much more than either of them had. Asher had an ally in Cole and now he knew it. And that was more important than any football game.
29
Cole pulled up in front of Connor’s house and turned off the engine. What was his brother-in-law doing to distract himself? During Cole’s divorce, staying busy had saved him. He imagined that went double for a man whose wife had died.
He knocked on Connor’s door, waited a minute, then let himself inside. “Connor?” The house was eerily quiet.
It had been a few days since Cole had seen him, and now he was kicking himself for letting time pass. He should be checking in every day. “Connor?”
His mind raced back to the summer before his sophomore year. Maybe it was because he’d touched on the topic with Asher or because this moment, walking into an eerily quiet house, conjured familiar feelings. Whatever the reason, he was back there in a heartbeat.
He’d just finished football practice, and after waiting for a ride for half an hour, he concluded his mom had forgotten to pick him up, so he ended up walking all the way home. He was annoyed because he was a junior and he wanted his own car, but they couldn’t afford it. Maybe this would prove to his parents it was time he got one. They lived on the outskirts of town, so it wasn’t a quick walk, and halfway there, it had started raining.
When their small house came into view, he saw his dad’s truck in the driveway, but his mom’s Ford was not, which was strange because Dad should’ve been at work, and she should’ve been home.
Without thinking, he broke into a run, pushing open the front door just as the rain started slamming harder into the pavement, as if it were a warning of the storm that was about to ensue.
“Mom?” Cole called out as he closed the door behind him. He walked into the kitchen and found his father standing at the counter, staring at a piece of paper and holding an open bottle of beer.
“Cole,” he said, almost as if he’d only just then remembered he had a kid at all.
“You guys forgot to pick me up,” Cole said. “And I called, but no one answered so I had to walk home in the storm.” Water dripped from his hair, running down his back and puddling on the floor.