[Thursday, November 22, 1990]

Mr. Taylor's wife was accepted to UT Southwestern medical school for the following spring, and so the couple moved to Dallas. They invited Tami and Eric to their new house for Thanksgiving dinner.

Over the phone, Tami's mother grumbled, "I thought you'd have Thanksgiving at the parsonage."

"Dallas is an hour closer than Tyler," Tami told her, "and we can only afford to take the one day off. Eric needs to be at practice Friday, and I have to work. We'll see y'all for Christmas."

As Eric drove to his father's house on Thanksgiving morning, he said, "This in-law holiday juggle is going to be fun over the next twenty years."

"What happens in twenty years?" Tami asked. "Do they die, or do we stop going to holiday dinners?"

"I just thought it was a nice round number."

The Taylor's new house was a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, one-story rambler in a semi-urban neighborhood on the outskirts of Dallas. The house had a small, fenced-in back yard, a two-car garage Mr. Taylor had converted to a shop, and a separate breakfast nook and formal dining room. Tami had no idea why a childless couple needed so many bedrooms, but perhaps Mr. Taylor was anticipating many overnight guests. After all, Eric's aunt and uncle were staying with him tonight, and along with them, their three-year-old daughter.

Julie became a sort of plaything to Eric's little cousin, who repeatedly tried to dress the baby in her doll's hats until Karen announced, during halftime, that dinner was served.

Over dinner, Eric and Mr. Taylor discussed the NFL draft. "So you aren't going to declare your intention to enter the draft early?" Mr. Taylor asked. "The deadline is January."

"I think I need another year to play and improve," Eric told him.

"You want to get picked higher, Eric, I understand that. It means a better contract. But since the strikes in the 80s, even the lowest rookie contract pays very well these days. Certainly better than in my day. The important thing is to get your foot in the door, and if you do that early, even at the bottom, you'll have a better chance to work your way up than if you wait another year."

"I don't think you understand, Dad. It's not likely I'll get my foot in the door now. I've been told the odds are not good that I'll be drafted this year. Next year, my odds will be better. If I apply now, I'll have to renounce the rest of my college eligibility. What if I don't get picked? I'd be throwing away my last year to play. I'd be throwing away my full scholarship. I'm one year from a B.A., Dad. A college degree! It's something to fall back on. Whatever happens, I'll have that to fall back on. So if I don't make it to the NFL as planned, I don't end up - "

"- Like your father, you mean?" Mr. Taylor asked. "A mere working-class man?"

"That's not what I meant," Eric muttered.

Mr. Taylor looked at Tami as though he suspected she had talked Eric out of declaring early, but she hadn't. She'd simply agreed with his opinion that it was better to wait until after his senior season.

Eric followed his father's gaze. "We discuss things," Eric said. "I take Tami's opinion into account. But I make my own decisions about football. This is my decision, Dad. I've talked it over with the coaches, and they think I'm doing the smart thing too. I'll have a better chance next spring."

"Very well," Mr. Taylor said. "It's just…If I had done things a little differently, if I had moved earlier in my own semi-pro career, if – "

"- This is my life," Eric insisted. "My life. I'm not finishing your life for you. You have a life, Dad." He glanced at Karen. "And a pretty good one, too, if you'd just open your eyes and see it." Eric stood and tossed his cloth napkin on the table, next to his china plate. "I'm going to the bathroom."

Mr. Taylor sat in his chair, drumming his fingertips against the tabletop.

"Well," Eric's aunt May said, "I think this turkey you made, Karen, is about the most tender meat I've ever tasted. Did you baste it in something special?"

"Oh, I just – "

"- I do see you, Karen," Mr. Taylor interrupted his wife. "And I love our life together."

"I know, darling," she said, and glanced around the table uncomfortably. "Perhaps you should go talk to Eric."

Mr. Taylor rose and left the dinning room.

He and Eric returned less than ten minutes later, their voices trailing down the hallway as they approached.

"And he says, the quarterback sneak!" Mr. Taylor concluded.

Eric cackled.

"So you get it?" Mr. Taylor asked. "It wasn't the milkman after all."

"Yeah, I get it," Eric said as he entered the dining room, smiled at Tami, and resumed his seat.

Later, when they were headed back to Waco, Tami asked, "How did you and your dad make up that fast? You've never made up with me that fast after a fight."

Eric shrugged. "We're guys. But I better make the draft my senior year, or I'll never hear the end of it."

[Saturday, November 24]

Baylor lost the last game of the season against the Texas Longhorns at the home stadium in Waco.

Mr. Taylor looked down at Julie, who was snuggled against his chest, all fifteen pounds of her. "You're wearing the onesie," he said. "And it's all snapped up."

"I had to buy a new one," Tami confessed. "In the next size up. She outgrew the old one."

"Do you still have it?" he asked with alarm.

"Yeah, it's in the giveaway bag."

"Well don't give it away!" he insisted. "You should make it into a bandanna, for next season."

Tami was about to tease her father-in-law for his superstition, but then she considered that Baylor had lost today. And, really….it couldn't hurt. "I just might do that."

[Sunday, November 25]

Tami gave the onesie to her mother when she visited on Sunday and asked her to make something out of it. Mom had once sewn their clothes, after all, when they were little.

"Bandanna, huh?" Tami's mom asked. "Garret thinks this onesie was responsible for Baylor's victories?" She shook her head. "Popish superstition."

"He's Episcopalian, Mom, not Catholic. And he probably goes to a Baptist church with Karen."

"I doubt he goes to church at all. And he suggested a bandanna? How very silly." She seemed to think for a moment. "Let's make a scarf. It's cold during playoffs."

[Tuesday, December 18, 1990]

Final grades came out for the fall semester, and neither Eric nor Tami did as well as they had hoped they would. Eric had earned 12 credits, with a C in his World War II class, a B in Sports Medicine, and an A in both P.E. classes. Tami had earned 15 credits, with a C+ and a B- in her core classes and Bs in her psychology classes. As a consequence, she was not offered a renewal of her partial academic scholarship for the spring semester of her junior year, which required that she maintain a minimum 3.2 GPA.

Once again, she wondered if Mr. Taylor was right, if she had bit off more than she could chew.

To add insult to injury, she had been told she could no longer bring Julie to work. Julie was rolling over now, from front to back and back to front again. In fact, she'd already learned to do a log roll to get from one end of the room to another. She was dangerous.

Eric and Tami scoured the spring course catalog and tried to find a way that one of them could always be home with Julie, but it just wasn't possible. Eric was going back to work at the bookstore on weekends. Tami was changing her hours at work. They did what they could, but they figured out they were still going to need a babysitter for 20 hours a week. Their savings was down to only $3,000. Tami wasn't sure how that had happened.

"Tuition is going up to $2,900 this spring," Tami said. "And I have to pay all of that this time."

"So we take out more student loans," Eric told her. "And we try to spend less money next semester."

[Thursday, December 20]

Tami's mother had the baby for the night in Tyler. Eric drove Tami to a bed and breakfast on Lake Tyler.

"I thought we were going to try to cut back on our spending," she said.

"Just one night, babe. It's our anniversary. We survived the first year. We have to celebrate. It's a cake walk from here on out."

"It's also your 21st birthday in a couple days."

"Two birds, one stone," he said. "That's frugal, right?"

She glanced around where they stood, taking in the scenic inn, the heated, outdoor pool, and the lake. "It's very romantic," she said. "I like it."

"It's a great place for a birthday blow job."

She shook her head.

"I'm just thinking of ways we can cut costs," he assured her. "And that gift won't cost you anything but a little time."

She kissed his ear, took his hand, and said, "Let's check in."

[Tuesday, December 25, 1990]

Eric and Tami went to Christmas dinner at the parsonage. Mr. Taylor and his wife drove down from Dallas to join them. "The Taylors get two holidays with you," Tami's mom grumbled.

"You invited them," Tami reminded her.

Pastor John insisted on reading the Gospel accounts of Christ's birth in Luke and Matthew before dinner.

"You have a great reading voice," Karen told him. "You could do broadcast, if you wanted."

Mom looked at her husband with a hint of admiration.

Shelley would be graduating high school in May, but despite all of Tami's efforts, she couldn't talk her into college. "I'm taking a gap year," Shelley said over dinner.

"What's that?" Eric asked.

"It's where you do something real for a year," Shelley said, "instead of just submitting to becoming a cog in the wheel."

She'd quit the cheerleading squad at the end of the semester, even though she had reached a competitive level and might have had a very real chance at a full scholarship. She was wearing a black beret now, and hanging out with the arty kids.

"What's going on with Shelley?" Tami asked Pastor John during a private moment, when she caught him alone in the kitchen, escaping the talk of football that filled the living room. He was wiping down the countertops.

"She wants to backpack across Europe for a year after she graduates," he said.

"What? Alone?"

"My son Jeremy and his wife Jen have volunteered to accompany her if she insists on it."

Tami almost never thought of the fact that she technically had a stepbrother. She had only seen Jeremy once since her mother had married his father. "Aren't they on mission?"

"They've left the mission in South America. The church there is self-sufficient now. They're trying to decide on their next life move. They want to see Europe too."

"So you're encouraging Shelley?" Tami asked.

Pastor John draped the washcloth over the faucet. "Tami, I'm making sure she's safe when she does what she's going to do anyway. Jeremy has a lot of experience in foreign countries."

"She has to go to college."

"She has to walk her own path," he said. "It will wind its way home, eventually. God is like a magnet. He draws all things to Himself."

Their dad would have whipped Shelley into shape, Tami was sure, instead of talking of paths and magnets. "Four years ago, she was on target," Tami said.

"Four years ago," Pastor John reminded her, "you weren't."

Tami shook her head. She felt like he was going to suddenly grow long hair, put a flower in it, and crack out a guitar on the altar. He was over fifty. Why was she the adult? "Aren't you even going to try to convince her to go to college?"

"The older I get," Pastor John said, "the more I realize how little power I have."

Tami sighed and left him in the kitchen. She sought out Shelley, drew her aside, and gave her an earful about this gap year plan. Shelley was unmoved.

When Tami returned to the living room, Karen was telling Mr. Taylor, "We need to hit the road if we're going to get back to Dallas before dark, darling."

"Karen has to work tomorrow," Mr. Taylor said, rising from the arm chair and holding a hand out to his wife. "Thank you so much, Barbara, for your hospitality and extraordinary cooking."

Tami's mother took Julie off her lap and set her on the floor and rose to bid the Taylors goodbye.

Eric and Tami walked them to their car. Mr. Taylor slipped Tami an envelope. "Merry Christmas," he said. "Remember we're closer now. Dallas is just an hour and a half from Waco. I can usually set my own schedule. If there's an emergency, the babysitter cancels the night before, whatever…you need someone to watch Julie for a day, just call."

"Thank you, Mr. Taylor."

"Garrett," he insisted.

Tami waited until the car was driving away to look inside the envelope.

"What is it?" Eric asked.

She pulled out the wad of $50 bills and counted them. There were 12. One for each day of Christmas. "Wow!" she exclaimed. "Business must have gotten off to a great start in Dallas!"

"We've got to stop accepting money from our families," Eric said. "We've got to learn to make it on our own."

Tami put an arm around his waist. "No one makes it on their own," she said. "And we'll do the same thing for Julie one day."

"Julie is not getting knocked up and married at 20," Eric insisted.

"I meant we'll help her with college!" Tami shook her head and turned back toward the parsonage.