That shut them all up.
“You will respect Ms. Clark just as you respected Mr. Perry when he was in the position. There will be no foul remarks, no whistling, no slanderous talk, and no other behavior that your mother would classify as disrespectful and skin your hide for. If any of you fake injuries to get time on her table, or pull any kind of crap that makes her uncomfortable, you will have me to answer to — and trust me when I say the punishment will not be pretty. Am I understood?”
There were mumbles of yes, coach in response.
Part of me wanted to be annoyed that this even had to be a conversation, but the other part of me was glad he was setting the standards for his team from the start. He didn’t allow it to get past those first remarks made, and he was making it clear what was expected.
More than anything, it was a sign of respect for me.
One I appreciated.
“Good,” Jordan said, nodding once. “Ms. Clark has studied sports medicine in depth and had past offers to play with college teams.”
His eyes found mine then, and my brows folded. How did he know that?
“We’re lucky to have her,” he finished, with his eyes still on mine. I could feel the sincerity in them, the belief he held for the words he’d just spoken.
And something else.
Something else I couldn’t quite place.
But before I could dissect it further, he clapped his hands, barked out an order, and the team fled out of the locker room and onto the field.They don’t tell you anything about motherhood.
When you’re pregnant, you think they’re telling you everything. You think the baby books and the unsolicited advice from family members and older mothers in town cover just about everything you’d need to know — and everything you never wanted to know, too.
You think you’re prepared. You know that it will hurt, that the pain won’t matter once that child is in your arms, that your life will never be the same. You know not to expect sleep, and that your breasts will swell until you feed, and that your priorities will shift to completely center your world around this new, tiny human you’ve created.
But what no one tells you is that from the moment that first cry rings out in the hospital, you will be terrified.
They don’t tell you that you’ll worry if you’re breastfeeding long enough, or if you should breastfeed at all, or if you fed them the right food once they were able to eat solids. They don’t tell you that as much as that kid’s first steps will amaze you, they’ll also make your stomach drop in fear. They don’t tell you that for the rest of your life, you’ll wonder how your actions affect that little human you made — are you screwing them up? Are you giving them a complex? Are you going to be the subject of their future therapy appointments?
Will they end up like their father, angry and impulsive and vindictive?
Or is there more of you in your child?
And if so, is that even a good thing?
It was enough to drive a person mad — which, I was convinced, was a permanent state of being for most mothers. We just knew how to handle our insanity, how to live with it and somehow get our shit done. You had to learn to quiet the fears and anxieties, to fake it till you made it, to do whatever it took to make ends meet and keep your home a safe place for your child.
Some days it was easy.
Some days it was impossible.
And every day, as a newly single mother, I worried.
“This is gonna be our year, Mama,” Paige said, splaying her tiny hands over the laces of the football in her hands as she watched the Tennessee Titans press conference. They were her favorite team, and she idolized Mike Vrabel like he was her father.
In a twisted way, I wished he was.
“You think so, huh?” I asked, smiling at her from the kitchen where I was browning hamburger meat for dinner. I hadn’t had the energy to do more than whip up a box of Hamburger Helper that evening, not after my first day of work. And it wasn’t that Paige would mind — she was a kid, she didn’t care. But it seemed I was always on a cycle of mom guilt, thinking I should be doing something better.
Or everything, really.
So, the fact that I hadn’t come home and made a fresh, balanced dinner weighed on me a bit as I stirred the meat.
“I know so. Look at coach,” she said, gesturing to the TV before her hands were on the football in her lap again. “He looks…” She stopped, struggling for the word.
“Confident?” I suggested.