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Welcome to the Church of The Reverend Cotton Mather.  This story is
the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or downloaded 
for the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for anyone to 
download or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as long as 
there is no intent to charge money or barter for the privilege of 
acquiring this material.

   (Copyright 2002, revisions c. 2007, R.C. Mather)

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PLAYING THE GAME

A Novel

by R.C. Mather




- 11 -

THE MOTORCYCLE PROMISE



By the time I dragged myself out of bed the next day, it was almost
noon. I had a soccer game to play. After that, I was supposed to go
over to work with Davey and Kip again. I called Molly while I was
eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast.

"Hi," I said when she answered the phone. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel great," she said. I could almost hear her smile in her
voice. "A little sore, but even that's going away. How are you?"

"I'm a little tired, but I'll be okay. I've got a soccer game this
afternoon, and then I have to go over to the Wilkinsons. Are you
doing anything tonight?"

"I was going to go over to Tessa's. Want to come along?"

"Sure," I said. "What time were you going?"

"We're going shopping this afternoon, but we should be back around
five. Ummm... Sean?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Bring along a couple of those... things you got yesterday, okay?"

It was a good thing I was sitting down, because my knees turned to
water as soon as she said that. "Yeah, of course," I said. "Anything
you say."

"Good. Just remember that, and you'll get along with this Irish lass
just fine," she said with a laugh.

The soccer game was a laugher. I was playing with a club team that
consisted of guys from all over our area, not just from our
community. The team we were playing was just a pickup team thrown
together for the summer league, and they were not very good. All
summer long, I had played just about every position on the field,
including keeper, but I was learning that I really liked playing
defense, and especially right-side defense. My coaches discovered
that I had a knack for stealing the ball more often on the right
side, and I would streak up the sidelines until I was past the
centerline. Depending on how my opposition reacted to this intrusion,
I would either continue down the field, switching positions with my
right midfielder, or I would loft the ball across to our offensive
players in the middle, and let them take over. Against teams with
weak midfielders, I could make it almost all the way down to the
penalty line before crossing the ball, and a couple of times I was
able to waltz the ball in and score from the side when the defense
was still scrambling around trying to cover all our players down the
field. At any rate, the coach pulled most of his starters, me
included, for the entire second half, because we were already up 6-1
by halftime. Even so, we ended up winning 9-3, and I was feeling
pretty good.

I went right from the game over to meet Davey and Kip. We warmed up
and stretched, and played Heads-Up for about fifteen minutes. After
taking a drink break, we started on a game of Keep-Away with me in
the middle. The boys were still prone to standing still and waiting
for the ball, instead of moving to it on a pass, and I hoped that
Keep-Away would make them see why they had to move on the ball.
Passing into open space, give-and-goes, and leading the receiver were
still too advanced for these little guys, but they were working hard
toward being better soccer players. I knew that when the fall season
began, they would be more skilled than most of the other kids in
their age group.

We ended up our session by playing Heads-Up on the way back to their
house again. As we got there, Lori opened the front door to let an
older man out. He was dressed in a dark suit, and was wearing a loud
pink and yellow tie. He shook her hand, walked down to his car parked
at the curb, and drove away without a second glance at the boys or
the house. Lori, as usual, invited me in for lemonade while Kip and
Davey ran upstairs.

"I hate having to do some of these grown-up things sometimes," she
said, almost to herself, as she poured four glasses of lemonade over
ice.

"What do you mean? Is it something to do with that guy who just
left?" I asked.

"That was my insurance man. He was dropping off more papers for me
to look over. Just when I think I'm healing, something comes up to
open up old wounds," she muttered. Tears were starting to form in her
eyes, and her lower lip was trembling.

I stood up, alarmed, and put my arm over her shoulder. "What's the
matter, Lori?" I asked concernedly.

She dropped her head to my shoulder and sobbed. Her shoulders were
shaking, and I could feel, underneath the weight of her hair, that
the skin on the back of her neck was hot to the touch. After a few
moments, she collected herself, straightened her shoulders, and gave
me a quick peck on the cheek.

"Thanks, Sean, for your support." She moved over to the counter and
pulled some tissues from a box and wiped her eyes. She stepped back
to the table and sat down heavily.

"My husband died last year," she said quietly. She was looking down
at her hands as they methodically tore apart the tissues. "He was in
a motorcycle accident just about a year ago, over Labor Day weekend.
Massive head injuries, internal bleeding, broken leg, two broken
arms, punctured lung. They had him on a... m... machine for five
days, until they finally said that he was brain-dead and would never
recover. I... I told them to pull the plug, and he died an hour
later. He was twenty-eight years old."

She looked up at me then, and the tears started running down her
face. "Don't ever get on a motorcycle, Sean. Promise me. My boys
think the world of you, and I won't have them go through something
like that ever again, if I can help it. Promise me, Sean."

Her eyes were pleading as she looked at me miserably. It wasn't a
real big stretch for me to make such a promise, since my mom and dad
already had forbid my older brother Michael from ever riding one. I
knew my turn for the "No Motorcycle" lecture at home was next.

"I promise, Lori. No motorcycles."

She looked at me for a moment more, perhaps gauging my sincerity,
before finally nodding, accepting my promise. She picked up the
scraps of tissue to wipe her eyes, until she finally realized that
she had torn them into useless bits. She got up and took a handful
more from the box on the counter, and crossed over behind me, and
wrapped her arms around my neck, hugging me fiercely from behind.

"Thank you, Sean. I don't know what I'd do without you. I can't tell
you what a huge difference you've made for me. And for my guys," she
added. She let go and came back around to sit at the table again. Her
eyes were still red, but she was much more composed now. "Anyway,"
she continued, "since then, I've had to do more of the grown-up
things that Tom used to take care of for us, and I don't like it. But
I do it, because the boys need me to do it. But really, Sean, I'm
still just a kid at heart. I'm really not that far from being a
teenager myself, at least in my own mind," she said with a rueful
smile. "I know you probably think of me as being older, but I'm
really not."

"Actually, I don't. When I first met you, I thought you were the
babysitter or something, maybe a college kid working for the summer,"
I said.

She blushed just a little. "Thanks, Sean. Even if it's a little
white lie, I appreciate it. Are you sure you don't have a
girlfriend?" she asked teasingly. "I may just claim you for my own,
then."

Now it was my turn to blush.




(Continued in Chapter 12)


  
PTG11