Page 80 of Coach
“Left where?” I asked.
“I went to live in a farm town in Minnesota. I have cousins up there. Jesus, it’s cold enough to freeze your teeth off in January.”
I smiled but didn’t interrupt. He looked like a man lost in time.
“My dad worked with his hands, built barns, fences, houses—anything needing building. He didn’t talk much unless he was mad. My mom . . .” He paused, swallowing. “She was tired—always so damn tired—like life had worn her out by thirty.”
“Tired?”
He sucked in a breath like it pained him. For a moment, I didn’t think he’d say any more, but then words began to tumble out, more words than I thought possible for the stoic man.
“My mom wasn’t weak. People always think tired means weak, but it doesn’t. She was just . . . worn. Life wore her down like water over stone. She raised three kids while working nights at the packing plant and still made breakfast every morning like it mattered. My dad didn’t lift a finger inside the house, and he sure as hell didn’t lift one for her, but she kept going. She never smiled much, not because she wasn’t happy—maybe she was once—but because there wasn’t any room left in her for things like joy or softness.
“Or dreaming.
“I used to watch her nod off at the kitchen table, coffee in one hand, bills in the other. That kind of tired doesn’t come from just work; it comes from being invisible too long.”
It wasn’t until we sat in silence for a long stretch—the kind of silence that no longer felt charged, just comfortable—that I asked, “What made your mom so tired?”
Shane’s mouth tightened. I saw it happen in real time, the muscle in his jaw working like he waschewing through memories.
“She carried everything,” he said. “Bills, groceries, bruised feelings, expectations. My dad wasn’t cruel—not really—but he made sure his silence did the talking. She worked nights at a packing plant for twenty years, came home before the sunrise, made breakfast for three kids, did the laundry, and still packed our lunch every day—even my dad’s—like she owed him something.”
I wanted to reach out, to grip his hand, to offer some kind of support, but his whole demeanor kept me frozen in place.
“I’d find her asleep at the table sometimes, her elbows on the bills, a cup of coffee gone cold in her hand. She’d wake up and pretend it didn’t happen, pretend she wasn’t carrying us kids and the whole damn house on her back.”
Shane shook his head, his gaze drifting far away. “She never complained, never yelled. She just . . . faded, like the color draining out of a photograph. By the time I was sixteen, I realized she hadn’t laughed in years, not really, not a deep-in-your-belly laugh that fills a soul.”
“When did you leave?”
“As soon as I graduated high school,” he said in a whisper. “I told myself I was doing it for me, for something better, but I think I just couldn’t watchher disappear anymore.”
He looked down at his hands—those hands that built things, that held tools with precision and strength—and for a second, I saw the boy he must’ve been.
“We used to be so close,” he said, his voice somewhere in a past decade. “I think that might’ve been the last time I was close with anyone.”
I cocked my head. “You and Stevie seem close.”
That made him chuckle. “Stevie’s like a badass, uncontained ball of fire. In some ways, she’s like my sister, but we work together. There’s still a line there, you know?”
I shrugged, understanding—but not really.
“She’s great and all. I couldn’t run my shop without her, but she’s not family, not like . . . like what I saw the other night at trivia. Hell, you’re closer to your players than I am to anyone in my life—and they’re kids. I’m too messed up for anyone to want—”
I reached out and let my fingers brush his, then placed my hand over his.
His body stiffened, and his mouth clamped tight, but he didn’t pull away.
“She . . . Mom needed me, and I . . . I just left.” His voice cracked, breaking my heart with it. “I didn’t have to go . . . I just . . . couldn’t stay. I left her to carryit all by herself. And the worst part? I didn’t even look back or visit or offer to help. God, I’m awful.”
“Shane—”
“I’m sorry. God, Mateo . . . I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to go into all that.” He blinked, then looked at me like he’d surprised himself.
“I’m glad you did.” I shook my head. “I like the man I’m learning about.”
His gaze intensified, a laser homing in on its target, then he exhaled like he’d been holding it for hours and let his eyes wander again. “I used to think I’d go back someday, make peace or prove something, maybe just help her out a little. I don’t know what I planned to do—or when, or how. I guess . . . I built something here instead.”
