Page 3 of A Longtime (and now NFL player) Nemesis

She went inside and trudged to her old bedroom. The walls were still the same peach color they’d been when she was in elementary school. When she’d gotten older, she’d wanted to paint her room a peaceful sage green with silver accents. She’d made a Pinterest board which included a wall-to-wall bookshelf and white canopy bed where she could retreat to read or sketch.

The only thing from that inspiration board she ended up having were the books—not the bookshelf. She’d picked up dozens from the town’s thrift store. Even though Olivia had moved out of the house, she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of them.

A thick envelope sat on top of her dresser. She opened it and counted the bills. Nine thousand in a stack of twenties, fifties, and hundred-dollar bills. Matt had scrawled a note on the envelope with Carson’s address. The place was a luxury cabin with a guest house and pool. If she left now, she wouldn’t be there until at least four-thirty.

She tapped the envelope against the palm of her hand and debated not going. She shouldn’t have to deal with this. Normal families didn’t have these sorts of problems. For a moment, she let herself wish, once again, that her family was like her friends’. Responsible parents with steady jobs who splurged on their kids and gave them unwanted career advice. Siblings who posed for the camera in family vacation photos. Not brothers who embezzled from their bosses and left you holding the bag—or in this case the envelope.

And yet how could she turn her back on her brother? She’d been a second mother to him from the time she was in sixth grade. That’s when their father had packed his things and left.

Matt had come home from school talking non-stop about the baseball team. He’d wanted to play in the city’s youth league since third grade when his friends had all joined.

As soon as their father got home from work, Matt shoved the application form at him.

Their father waved it away and made a beeline to the fridge. “Those teams are expensive. We don’t have the money for that.”

Matt followed him, bouncing on his heels with undimmed excitement. “Coach Quinn said if you agreed to be the co-coach, they’ll waive my fee.”

Even back then, Olivia saw Coach Quinn’s offer for the charity it was. Their friends’ parents knew their family didn’t have money.

Her father shook his head and pulled a beer from the fridge. “I don’t have the time.”

“But it would be fun,” Matt insisted.

Her father shut the fridge door with a thud. “I said I don’t have time. That’s the end of it.”

Matt’s eyes, so happy just moments before, filled with tears. His chin wobbled and sunk to his chest.

Olivia had been peeling potatoes at the sink with her mother, cutting off the skins and leaving the vegetables pale and exposed. She didn’t speak, just looked imploringly at her mother to see if she could change his mind.

Her mother never saw that look. She slapped her hand against the countertop. “You don’t have time for any of us, do you? But when it comes to hanging out with your friends in bars, you have plenty of time and money for that.”

After that gauntlet was thrown down among the potatoes, the fight escalated. It wasn’t the first yelling match her parents had had, but it went on longer and became louder, the two of them throwing accusations at each other until her mother spat out, “I never should’ve married you!”

Her father slammed his beer can on the counter. “That’s something I can fix!” He stormed out of the kitchen and punched the family room wall, leaving a gaping hole there as an exclamation mark.

Olivia’s mother followed after him. “If you want to fix something, start with the wall!” More shouting reverberated down the hallway.

Olivia stood, silent and tense, the peeler still gripped in her hand, waiting for it to be over. The fight ended with her father packing things into a suitcase and stomping through the front door.

The whole time Matt had been clutching the baseball form to his chest like a shield. Their mother didn’t come back to the kitchen. She stayed in her bedroom crying. The already peeled potatoes grew pink from neglect. Olivia took over her mother’s spot at the counter and did her best to cut them, slicing at them like they were the cause of the problem. The chunks were uneven, a messy massacre. She threw them into the boiling water anyway.

Olivia wanted to tell Matt, “I’ll pay the fee so you can play baseball.” But at eleven years old, she didn’t have the money.

Over the next days and months, she wondered if everything might have turned out differently if she’d had some money stashed somewhere—if she’d saved all her birthday cash instead of spending it, if she’d had the foresight to know she’d need it.

She offered her brother the only thing she could. “I’ll practice baseball with you sometime.”

He stared toward the front door, the paper growing limp in his hand. “Do you think Dad will come back?”

“Probably,” she said.

“What if he doesn’t?” Matt sounded so worried, so afraid. His brown eyes had turned into wide circles of despair.

“Mom won’t ever leave.” The words weren’t quite true. Their mother had her own way of leaving, of retreating into herself when depression struck. “I won’t ever leave you,” Olivia amended.

She’d done her best to fulfill that vow.

Olivia slipped the envelope full of money into her purse and sighed. She probably ought to go now. That way when she talked to her mother tonight about the situation, Olivia would know just how much trouble Matt was in.

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