The Baller: A Down and Dirty Football Novel - Vi Keeland Page 0,78

to give me a reason. She was my reason.

“Marlene is survived by her daughter, Amanda, and her granddaughter, Willow. She may not have been my blood, but she was there through all my sweat and tears—so she’s my family, too. I know Marlene wouldn’t want any of us to cry today. She’d want us all to find that one good thing and hang on to it until things get better. But to truly honor the life of Marlene Garner, the next time you see someone having a bad day, make them a batch of oatmeal-raisin cookies in her honor. It could mean more than you’ll ever know.”

I was overwhelmed with emotions when Brody was done. When he returned to his seat between Delilah and me, he saw me crying and leaned down to whisper, “Find that one good thing that this brings, Willow. It’s what she’d want you to do.”

My breaths stuttered as I looked up at him. I kept quiet, but all I could think was, This brought me back to you.

Chapter 34

Delilah

After the graveside service, I had to go back to my office, and Brody had to go to practice. Tomorrow morning, I was due to head up to Buffalo for the day for an interview, and I hadn’t even started my research. This time of the year, right before playoffs began, the station spent a lot of time and money gathering interviews with prospective playoff teams. Depending on who actually made it in, a lot of them would be archived and never aired. Buffalo was a long shot for a last-minute wildcard slot in the playoffs.

My desk was a mess of papers when Indie interrupted. It was already almost eight, and I had more work to do before I called it a night, but her visit was a welcome distraction anyway. She plopped down on the visitor’s chair in my office, a box in her hands.

“Come on in. I wasn’t busy.” I waved at the disaster that made me look busy. But the truth of the matter was, I couldn’t really focus. The sadness in Brody’s face, the way his voice broke as he spoke in church today, had deeply affected me. It was all I could think about.

“I made you something.”

“You made me something?”

She looked around my office. “Is there an echo in here?”

“I’ll probably regret it.” I tossed my pen onto the desk and leaned back in my chair. “But let’s see what you made.”

Indie reached into the box. “This is you.” She had constructed a stick figure of sorts. Binder clips had been snapped together in various ways to make two legs, two arms, and a body. The metal of two clips formed a neck and attached a stapler remover that acted as a head. The way the staple remover had its mouth open, with sharp prongs, made the figure look more like a roaring dinosaur with sharp teeth.

“I think you have too much time on your hands.”

“I’ve had two hours a day to fill since you haven’t been around to hang out with the last few days.” She reached into her box again and pulled out another creation. “This is Brody.” The carefully created clip art looked just like the one of me, only a full head taller.

“We look like we could be related.” I arched an eyebrow.

She ignored me and took another creation out of the box. This one was easy to identify: it was a snake sculpted out of paperclips. The body coiled around, and again, a staple remover was attached as the head. At least the fangs and open mouth seemed a little more realistic on a snake. She placed it on my desk with the other two.

“Why do you have three staple removers?”

“I don’t. I came into your office while you were in Mr. CUM’s meeting and stole the one out of your top right drawer. I saw Fred Nagel was in the meeting, too, so I stopped by his office on my way back and swiped one from him. By the way, why does his office smell like ass?”

I laughed for the first time in days. “I didn’t know it smelled.”

“You mean you haven’t sniffed the entire floor yet?”

“Shut up.”

Indie rearranged her figure art on my desk, moving the snake between Brody and me. “The snake’s name is Willow.”

“Why am I not surprised?” After the service yesterday, Indie had talked my ear off. While I was focused on Brody, Indie had been watching Willow. She was certain from