easier to be who they all wanted me to be, rather than fight them.”
For a moment he doesn’t say anything. I wonder if he sees that we’re two sides of the same coin. Both trying to prove we’re worth more than what we look like or how good we are at something, more than what other people say we’re worth.
He shakes his head. “I guess you do understand. What changed for you?”
“How do you know I have changed?”
He picks up the ice pack, sits back, and places it under his calf again. “For one, you’re not dragging around a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight in the form of your ex-husband. And I don’t know, there’s something else.” He makes a V with the fingers of one hand and points them at his eyes. “You’ve got the same determined look I see in some rookies at their first training camp. They’re usually the guys who’ve come from nothing, and the NFL is their chance to get out of poverty, or to help their family. Those guys have a higher chance of making the team because they’re playing for more than fame.”
“Just like you?”
He nods. “I was pretty damned determined.” He points his long index finger at me. “But I want to know what happened to you. Stop dodging the question.”
Busted.
I should just tell him the rest. I’ve already told him most of it anyway. “A couple of years ago, I went to Guatemala with a medical relief organization. They let me go, even though I have no medical training. Brad and my parents thought it would be good PR because Brad wants to make a run for the US Senate in the next few years. I’m sure everyone thought I’d go as an observer and not get my hands dirty, but that’s not what happened.” Warm satisfaction fills me from the inside out when I think of that time. “I scrubbed bed pans, shoveled ditches, and did any and all crap jobs they needed done. It was the best month of my life.”
“Really?”
I’m not offended by the surprised tone in his voice. “Nobody was more surprised than me at how much I loved it. Funny thing about sick people, they don’t care where you’re from, what you look like, or if you have status or not. They only need help and want to feel better.”
“They were lucky to have you on the trip.”
I’m shaking my head before he stops talking. “No, I was the lucky one. The Guatemalan people are so kind and generous. Most live in abject poverty and have lived through terrible things. But there’s a sense of contentment that permeates their lives. I’d never seen anything like it before. They enjoy and celebrate things that we take for granted or dismiss as unimportant.”
“Yeah, not much contentment here in the States.”
I try and fail to stop the tear that rolls down my cheek. “It changed me. Watching those people fight for a life that most Americans would dismiss as pitiful and worthless helped me see that I was fighting for nothing. I’d taken the path of least resistance, had every material thing I could ever want, and I was miserable. It was humbling.” I laugh and swipe at another tear. “They also thought I was too skinny. Some of the women called me esqueleto, skeleton in Spanish. It became their mission in life to fatten me up. I gained seven pounds while I was there, even with all the physical labor.”
I wait for him to comment on that, but he says nothing.
“The weight was the first thing Brad mentioned when I got off the plane. Pretty sad that I was so thin you could notice seven pounds. But that was one of the two final nails in the coffin of our marriage.”
He takes the ice pack from under his leg and stands to take it to the sink in the kitchen. “Just drop it in here?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.” I’m not sure if he’s bored with the story or not. I know it’s not very meaningful to anyone but me.
He returns to his seat on the sofa. “What was the other?”
“The other?”
“The other nail in the coffin.”
“Oh, when I got home, Maggie was really sick. In fact, that’s why I came home. I’d planned to stay two more weeks with the organization, but Donny called me and said the doctors had told the family to prepare for the worst.” I pull my legs into the chair until my