Julie and Matt flew to Philadelphia for the summer visit that was planned well before the startling revelation of her father's long-ago affair. Their plane got into Philadelphia International Airport at 11 AM on Saturday morning, and Gracie's birthday party was at three.
When the Taylors came to pick them up, Julie didn't hug her dad, and he didn't try to hug her. He just put their suitcase in the trunk and nodded at Matt. Matt nodded back. But Julie threw her arms around her mom, hugged her tighter than usual, and then squatted for Gracie's hugs and kisses.
They all made small talk on the drive back to the house. Jobs. Weather. Traffic. You could cut the tension with a knife. Somehow or other, they made it through the birthday party for Gracie. Julie's baby sister had four school friends at the party, including some crazy, silly girl named Piper. Gracie was a little wild herself, Julie thought, and she prided herself on being the easy child by comparison.
"Sugar high," Mom muttered as she watched the kids scream and laugh and run circles from the dining room through the kitchen to the hallway past the living room and back around. She looked tired to Julie, and the fact made her even angrier at her father, who busied himself the entire party with grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, filling up water balloons for the little girls to play with in the back yard, cutting cake, sweeping up the kitchen floor - anything to avoid looking Julie in the eye.
The last child left at 7:00 PM, and Julie's little sister was put through a regimen of showering, teeth brushing, night clothes, and "wind down time," which involved sprawling across Dad's lap as he sat in the recliner and watched old Looney Tunes cartoons with her. Mingled with Julie's anger was an unexpected pang of jealousy. She hadn't been Daddy's little girl in a very long time.
At Gracie's bedtime, Julie went into her little sister's room to read and talk to her just as her father was preparing to leave it. Their dad was sitting on Gracie's bed and bending down to give her one last hug and kiss. Julie leaned against the door frame, her eyes fixed on the floor. She heard the sound of her father's lips against her sister's forehead and sensed him stand.
She'd watched her father with Gracie before, in a scene very much like this, back in Dillon, after her affair with her T.A.. At the time, Julie was thinking, Gracie is the daughter who hasn't yet disappointed him. But at this moment, she was thinking, Gracie is the daughter who doesn't yet know enough to be disappointed in him.
"Nite, Daddy," Gracie said as he neared the open frame of the door.
"Nite, baby girl. I love you." He glanced at Julie. His mouth opened, but he didn't say anything. He hung his head and scurried out.
[*]
Matt sat alone in a lawn chair on the back porch of the Taylors' house, his legs stretched out over the wood planks. Surprisingly, the Taylors had a bigger yard than they had possessed in Texas. People thought of Texas as a place of sweeping land, but most of the houses in Dillon didn't have much to speak of in the way of yards. This one was lush with grass, and a strong, old oak tree stood tall in the center. Flowers encircled the tree, and shrubbery lined the house on either side. A white pickett fence - the thing of story books - marked the property line and provided privacy from the neighbors. The only thing missing was a dog, but Julie had never been able to talk her mother into one, and Matt supposed Gracie had fared no better.
Matt was watching the fireflies flashing on and off in a desperate dance to attract a mate and listening to the crickets sing their hopeful songs of love when he was startled by a hand extending a beer in front of him.
"Want one?" Coach Taylor asked.
Matt looked at the beer. He was twenty-two now, after all, so he figured it wasn't a test this time, and he took it. Perhaps he shouldn't have, in case it was a peace offering of sorts. He was not ready to make peace. Man to man he might have, with no women in between, but Julie's disillusionment had hurt her badly, and his powerlessness to erase his wife's pain had turned a low burner on beneath his anger, which simmered somewhere in his gut.
Coach settled in the chair next to him. They drank in silence, beneath a porch light that was missing one of two bulbs, until Coach Taylor ventured some small talk about football, the next season, the weather…nothing of substance. When Matt didn't respond, his father-in-law fell silent.
"Character," Matt said into that silence. "Character is who you are when you think no one is watching."
Coach Taylor looked like he was chewing tobacco. He wasn't of course, but his face had that look about it. Maybe he was chewing the inside of his cheek.
"That's what your little sign said, in the locker room, right?" Matt asked. His voice grew more sarcastic: "Did you bring that one with you here to Pennsylvania?"
"You think I'm a hypocrite," Coach Taylor replied, "because I don't want the young men I coach to fail in any of the ways I did." He put the neck of his bottle to his mouth. He looked like the brew was bitter when he swallowed. "That's not hypocrisy, son. That's maturity."
Matt could feel the burner turning up, the anger boiling and rising. "I'd never cheat on Julie. Never."
"Good. That's what a father-in-law wants to hear." Coach Taylor put his fingers on the bridge of his nose and leaned forward in his chair. His eyes were closed. He looked like he might be praying, but Matt had never seen him pray, except before football games and before dinner. For ball and for food, for the things he loved, but not for the things he feared.
Eventually, Coach put his hand down, let it dangle over the chair, and opened his eyes. He didn't look at Matt. "I hope," he said, "you never do anything you ever have to be ashamed of."
Except Matt already had, hadn't he? He'd been ashamed, years ago, when Coach Taylor had come to haul his drunk ass from the hospital. He'd been ashamed when he'd fled Julie to find himself and left her without a call. None of that was the same as cheating, but given what Julie had told Matt about her mother's versions of events, Coach Taylor might have felt something like the vulnerability, confusion, and anger that had once driven Matt. When Coach Taylor said Matt had nothing to be ashamed of, had he forgotten those things? Did his father-in-law really hold none of that against him?
The door opened. Mrs. Taylor came out and slid a hand on her husband's shoulder. Coach Taylor placed his hand over hers and closed his eyes. He looked like he was praying again, but this one looked like a grace, Matt thought. A thank you, God. Coach Taylor kissed his wife's fingers.
"Gracie's lights are out," Mrs. Taylor told her husband. "Julie's alone in the living room at the moment."
Coach Taylor stood up and disappeared inside while Mrs. Taylor slid down in the now empty chair next to Matt. She asked him about his art. That was something his father-in-law never did. Matt didn't think Coach Taylor respected his chosen calling in life. Mrs. Taylor had been supportive, though - she'd even purchased a painting of his, one that he'd been proud of even though it was so little like the rest of his work. It had featured a torn-up football lying in the remote corner of an overgrown field, and, on the distant horizon, a sun just beginning to rise. Matt had painted it when he first came to Chicago. He'd been thinking about the past he'd left behind, about the future he was trying to grasp.
Matt had looked for that painting when he came in the house today, but he hadn't seen it on any wall. He supposed it could be in their bedroom - the only room he hadn't been in today - but it was probably still wrapped and stored somewhere in the garage, almost a year later, or leaned in a corner in the basement. Mrs. Taylor probably hadn't really liked it. She'd probably bought it because she was being nice, maybe trying to slip the struggling couple money in a way that wouldn't damage Matt's pride.
"How are y'all doing out there in Chicago?" she asked.
"Good," he said.
He noticed she looked tired, a little older than he'd remembered her looking. She was probably the most beautiful forty-something he knew, but there was a weariness about her eyes he hadn't noticed before.
"What are your plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year?" she asked.
"Dillon. See my mom and grandma for Thanksgiving. We were planning to do Christmas here. Just the 24th through the 26th. We can't get much time off." Were planning, he'd said. He wasn't sure how Julie would feel when the time came around.
"We'd love to have you then. Eric's excited about the possibility of having a white Christmas, especially now that Gracie's a little older and can get into the sledding. He loves watching her do that. We never could do that in Texas."
How did Mrs. Coach do it? Matt wondered. Remain so calm? Was this really the woman who had once stormed off from her newlywed husband and refused to return his calls? And now, she'd just learned a mere week ago that her husband had a son by another woman, and here she was...talking about how he wanted to take their daughter sledding.
Matt's in-laws had an entire history, a life before his life, a marriage that was even older than he was. He'd always known that, of course, but it was just a fact. He hadn't really thought about it before – that the Taylors' marriage, their marriage itself, was older than he was. He'd been through so much as a teenager that it hadn't occurred to him, until this moment, just how very young his world still was.