Quarterback's Secret Baby(64)

"Yeah, yes," I stammered. "I mean, they don't know what kind of support she'll need when she wakes up but she's going to - she's going to wake up."

My throat was thick again but I choked the emotion back down. Tasha had spent the night with me, yes, and for a few brief hours, it had felt like old times, like a reprieve from real life. But she was businesslike as ever, her tone caring but also distant. I could hear her doing things in the background of the call, the clinking of dishware being put in the sink, the whirring of a blender and the running chatter of Rosa. Tasha was busy. Tasha was always busy, because she had to be.

Two days later, my mother woke up. Within thirty minutes we knew she was still herself. She had no memory of the accident and she seemed very confused about why she was in the hospital but she was herself, I could see it in her eyes when she looked at me - and at my dad. The first full sentence out of her mouth - if you don't count "I love you" - was directed towards my dad.

"Did you water the flower beds?"

My mom was OK. Well, she was mentally OK. It was going to be days, weeks even, before we knew what she was capable of physically. It was decided that I would go back to Brooks to finish the semester, write my final exams and pack up my life there. After the draft, decisions would be made. I wanted my parents to come to wherever it was I was going to be living, but no one knew where that would be. The day of my flight back to California I asked Tasha to meet me for coffee in town but she declined. That wall had gone up again, the wall that was always, always there with her. She wasn't mean - she was actually kind and supportive the whole time, even offering to visit my parents after I'd returned to Brooks, just to make sure everything was OK with them. But it was just like it had been in high school - as if the evening we'd spent in each other's arms simply hadn't happened. Or, if it had, that it was no big deal. If it hadn't been for the turmoil of my mother's accident and the uncertainty surrounding the upcoming draft, I don't know how I would have handled it at all.

In July, shortly after I received my final exam results - solid B's across the board - and a week or so after my mother went home from the hospital, I was drafted, as predicted by seemingly every sports journalist in North America, first overall by the Dallas Cowboys . My agent - Barry - who my dad had overseen the hiring of back in January, wanted me to allow TV cameras to film me when it happened but I just wasn't up to it. So I found out in my dorm, sitting on a leather sofa with a few of the stragglers who still hadn't left for the summer. We watched it on TV and celebrated with a few beers. According to the other guys, it was apparent that the two main factors being celebrated were a)my newfound riches and b)my newfound access to 'top-shelf pussy.'

The riches were going to help. It was costing my parents over ten thousand dollars a month to employ two people to help with my mother's care and provide them with the needed equipment, and even at that price, it wasn't going to make even a tiny dent in my new salary. I was rich. As for the pussy, I wasn't sure. I was, by that point, pretty used to the status-quo. The status-quo being women threw themselves at me and I declined. Maybe I would wake up one day and Natasha Greeley would be a faded memory, maybe I wouldn't. It was stupid of me to sleep with her when I went back to Little Falls but I never could control how I felt around her.

That night, she sent me a painfully brief e-mail.

"Hi Kaden! I saw you got drafted by the Cowboys - congratulations! I'm also happy to hear your mother is well on her way to healing. I'm just messaging to let you know that my life is pretty hectic right now and I think it's best for both of us if we move on from everything. But I want you to know that I care about you and I wish you the best. Try not to spend all your money on sports cars, OK? - Tasha."

I should have been on top of the world. My phone was buzzing every few seconds with new interview requests, well wishes and congratulations. I wasn't ungrateful, I just felt oddly empty. The dorm, shorn of the posters and furniture and detritus that comes with young men, was barren. My voice echoed around the bare room when I spoke. And now I was off to Texas, a place I had never been before that was now going to be my home. For how long? I didn't know.

I called my parents that night. The first thing my mom asked me was whether or not I had a place to live in Dallas.

"Barry's taking care of that," I told her. "He's already got someone looking for a place and if it isn't sorted out by the time I get there, there's a hotel close to the training ground where I can stay. A nice hotel."

"OK, Kaden," my mom replied. She spoke slowly and with great care. I could hear her choosing each of her words before she spoke. "Does the hotel have a kitchen? How will you eat?"