Dirty Tackle: A Football Romance (14 page)

“So you played judge and jury with my life. How old is she exactly then? She’s eight?” I nodded. “Eight years, Maddy. You’ve had eight years to tell me the truth. I’ve lost eight years with my daughter. You denied me that. For that, I will never forgive you,” he said. His voice was low and said in a growl.
 

I had never seen the side of him before. I realized that my idea of us becoming a perfect family after I told him the truth had been nothing but a kind of pipe dream.
 

“I was going to tell you after the funeral. This was part of the reason why I took the job at Gilmore to begin with. It brought us closer to you, and I knew I’d have an opportunity to tell you. I thought that once you knew, then we would be close if you wanted to have a relationship with Scarlet.”

“She said she doesn’t know who her daddy is. So you never told her either,” he said.

“I thought it was for the best. I was planning to tell her after I told you.”

“I want to see her. I want you to tell her now,” he said.

I knew he was hurt, and he was angry with me, but I felt my maternal instinct kick in. “You’ve had a great loss, and you’re angry. Now is
hardly
the time to tell her the truth.”

“You owe me. You owe me a relationship with my daughter, and I want it to start right now. Hell, I want to take her with me back to the city. I have eight years that I need to catch up on!”

I started to back away from him then towards the house. This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting at all. “Now hang on a minute. I’m not saying that I won’t tell her and that you can’t have the opportunity to spend time with her. But she doesn’t know who you are. She doesn’t know anything about you except for what she has seen on TV on Sundays. Even if I thought it was a reasonable idea to let you take her with you, there’s no way that I would let you take her right now. She has school in the morning, and I’m taking her back home tonight. It’s important for her to stick to a routine because she just started at a new school.”

Shane shook his head at me. “No, you go in the house, and you get her now. We’re going to tell her the truth together. The time for lies is over.”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Look, I know you’re upset. I understand that. But you getting angry at me and threatening me and my daughter is not the way to take care of this now, Shane. I will call the police.”

I saw his eyes widen that. “Are you kidding me right now? You would call the police on me after you kept me away from my daughter for eight years?”

“Shane, I need you to calm down and think rationally about what you are asking. Look, if you want to meet Scarlet properly, you will give me time to tell her the truth.”

“No. I want to be with you when you tell her. I want to be there if she has any questions about me, and I want to be able to answer them for her. Especially when it comes the fact that she is going to think that I knew about her all this time, and I didn’t want to be with her.”

I regretted threatening to call the police already. Now I was starting to understand what he was thinking when he had demanded to talk to her together. He was afraid I’d say something bad about him, and that made me feel even more ashamed. He was officially thinking the worst about me.

“How about we agree that we will tell her together. But, I don’t think tonight is the right time, do you? It’s going to be important that she sees that you and I are okay. Right now, she’s just going to see how angry you are at me, and I don’t think that’s the best way to do this.”

I could see that he was struggling with what I was telling him, but it made sense. As long as I didn’t shut him out anymore.

“Tomorrow at 3pm after she gets out of school. Hancock Park. The benches by the playground. I’ll meet you there, and we’ll tell her together. You owe me that, Madeline.”

Without getting my agreement, he spun on his heel and headed back towards his car. I watched as it pulled away and felt like I was about to shatter into pieces. That was when I caught the movement of the curtains in the front window. I turned just in time to see Scarlet pull away from the curtains. I took a deep breath and somehow managed to fight off my tears. It wasn’t time for that now. Especially when I had a feeling that everything was going to get a whole lot worse before it got better.

I was nervous. I had changed my outfit three times. I had barely gotten any sleep the night before. Today was the day that the rest of my life was going to change forever. I had come home to my condo and tried to drown my sorrows in a bottle of scotch, but then I realized I didn’t want to be hungover on the day when I officially met my daughter. I wanted to make a good first impression. I wanted her to be proud of me. I wanted her to be excited once she found out that I was her dad.

I knew that there was probably some kind of status that came along with being a kid of a pro football player, but I didn’t want to trade on that for her to think I was cool. I just wanted her to like me. I wanted her to like being around me, and I was nervous because I had zero experience being around kids. I was at a distinct disadvantage. So I was up and ready to go hours before our scheduled meeting time at the park. I just hope that Maddy kept her word and that she showed.

I couldn’t eat anything. My stomach was in knots. Marvin had sent me a text asking me how things had gone at the funeral, but I had only offered a couple of one-word replies before he figured out I had no interest in chatting. I didn’t even know how to bring this situation up to tell anyone. I knew that there were other guys on the team that had families. I didn’t really pay attention all that much because those were the guys that never came out what we would go out and party after games. They always had to go home to their wife and kids, but when I thought about it, they didn’t see all seem all that upset about it or like they thought they were missing out on anything.

This was just a world changing event. I was a father. I needed to start cleaning up my act and behaving like one.

It made me ashamed to think of all of the stories that have been written about me even fairly recently about following my trail of parties and women. Had Scarlet read any of those things? I know there been a couple of not-so-flattering stories on TV a couple of times, but I didn’t imagine that she probably watched the evening news or read any entertainment articles.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons Maddy kept her away. Maybe—

I couldn’t follow that train of thought.

I looked at myself in the mirror to check my outfit for the hundredth time, and that was when it occurred to me that maybe I wanted to bring her something. I found myself standing in the toy section of FAO Schwarz wondering what would an eight-year-old girl want.

I wandered up and down the aisles staring at pink Barbie dolls and stuffed animals and all sorts of toys that would help a girl playhouse I supposed, and I was at a loss.

“Can I help you find something?” I found an employee standing next to me.

“I’m looking for a gift for my daughter,” I said. Then I realized my mistake when it became obvious that the employee had recognized me. That was something that I was going to have to have my agent send out a press release about when everything got settled. The whole being a minor celebrity had its distinct disadvantages. “I mean, my niece,” I said quickly to cover my flub. The clerk started to nod, but I could tell she didn’t believe me.

“How old is your…niece?” she asked.

“Eight,” I said.

“Does she have a Wii U? There’s a pretty neat game called Super Mario Maker where she can design her own game levels,” she said.

I had no idea if Scarlet had a Wii U. “No, I don’t think she does. How about I get her one of those?” I said, figuring worst case I could bring it back.

“Yes sir, they are right over here,” she said as she took me over to the technology counter.

It was over a thousand dollars later when I finally left the store. I had purchased the Wii U, all of the accessories for it, and every game available. I could tell that I had made the sales clerk’s day. But I didn’t know what Scarlet had and what she didn’t have, and I wanted to make sure that after today, she had everything. I would make sure that my daughter didn’t want for a single thing.

I got into the car and made my way to Hancock Park. I looked at the bag of goodies next to me on the car seat. I thought about if I would give it to her right away, but then I decided that it should probably wait until after we broke the news to her. If she completely hated me and wanted nothing to do with me, I would feel like an idiot standing there with a bag full of things she wouldn’t want.

When I got to the park, I saw that I was the first one there. My stomach growled. Tension was always eased with some food. I put in a quick call to the nearest pizzeria. I figured every kid liked pizza. That seemed like an easy win in making a good first impression.

I got out of the car and made my way over to a nearby picnic table. I sat down and waited. It was ten minutes later when I saw the car pull up slowly next to mine. Maddy got out of the car with Scarlet next to her. I felt my breath catch in my throat again when I saw her. She was as beautiful as her mother. But then my thoughts darkened. Hopefully, she hadn’t picked up any of Maddy’s manipulative tendencies.

I could see there was a look of confusion on Scarlet’s face as they approached the table where I sat waiting.

“Hey there,” I said trying to keep my voice even. I clasped my hands together underneath the table. I didn’t want Scarlet to see they were shaking.

“Hi, Shane,” Scarlet said shyly.

“Hey,” Maddy said. I barely acknowledged her with a short nod.

“Let’s sit down, sweetie. Take a seat here next to me,” Maddy said as she pushed Scarlet toward the table.

Scarlet looked back and forth between us with a confused expression. “What are we doing here, Mommy? Why is Shane here too?”

Maddy took a deep breath, and she looked in my direction. I realized that she probably didn’t know what to say any more than I did. I wasn’t intending to be the one to say anything at all; I just wanted to be present to hear what she said. I didn’t want her to misrepresent me or anything that she and I had had back then.

“Shane is here because we have something to tell you,” Maddy said. Her voice softened and dropped a notch. “You know you’ve been asking me a lot of questions lately about where your daddy is and who he is.”

Scarlet nodded. Then a look of wonder came across her face as her head swiveled toward me. “Are you my daddy?”

I had never heard been on the receiving end of a question that struck such fear and awe in me at the same time. Maddy started to say something, but I put up my hand to stop her. “Yes. Scarlet. I am your daddy. Is that okay?”

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but when the little girl flew up out of her seat and dashed over to me to wrap her arms around my neck, I realized I was lost. It didn’t matter that this was the first moment that she knew that she belonged to me. In that moment, and forever after that, I was completely hers as well. I felt the swell of an instant connection to her that was completely unexpected. I also knew that I was never going to let her go. She was mine.

I saw Maddy’s face over Scarlet’s shoulder as I hugged her tightly to me. There were tears in her eyes. They slid down her cheeks, and she wiped them away giving me a soft smile. I didn’t return it.

I let Scarlet be the first one to break the hug. I found that I wasn’t ready to let go of her yet, but now that I knew she existed, we had all the time in the world to get to know each other. “Ask me anything you want to know,” I said as I pushed a stray strand of hair out of her face. She gave me another quirky smile. I knew that smile well. My mother had told me that I had it too, usually when I was about to get into some mischief.

“What’s your favorite color?” she asked.

This wasn’t what I expected all, and for the next forty-five minutes, Scarlet peppered me with a myriad of questions that didn’t come close to the ones that I had expected her to ask. I supposed it was because she was only eight years old. This situation was new to both of us, and I took my opportunity to ask her questions too.

Our pizza arrived in the meantime, and I discovered that I had been right. She liked pepperoni pizza, and she barely lost any steam in her line of questions as we ate.

I found out that her favorite color was green. Her teacher’s name was Mrs. Ballard, and Scarlet thought she was the best teacher ever. She had just started at her new school a couple of weeks ago when her mom moved to D.C., and she had already made three fast friends. Her favorite food was mashed potatoes. Her favorite sport, of course, was football.

When she said that, I gave her a high five signal, and she smacked my hand as hard as she could. I pretended that it hurt and wagged my hand in mock pain. “You’re strong for such a little girl,” I said.

Scarlet put her hands on her hips with a miffed expression on her face. “I’m not little anymore. I’m eight. I’m practically an adult.”

At this, I couldn’t stop the burst of laughter from my chest. My daughter was comical. I heard Maddy’s laughter as well, and that was when I realized that I had pretty much tuned her out of the entire conversation. She had stayed in the background, which I appreciated. These first few moments getting to know my daughter were more precious than I could have even imagined.