Hail Mary (21 page)

And unleashed a blood curdling scream.

Fuck, fuck, fuck
, Michael thought, irrationally angry and mortified at Mary’s primal scream. He knew it had to be a shock. After the last person had seen his back, he’d made it his personal mission in life to make sure no repeats ever occurred. He never stripped in front of his teammates. He never exposed his back to the women who he was infrequently with.

Nothing lasts forever.
He’d done his able-bodied best to shield her, but she’d had the bright idea to turn on the fucking lamp. Made him wish he’d removed the light bulb earlier. Grabbing a pair of sweat pants on the floor and the closest shirt he could reach to cover himself up, Michael fled from the bedroom.

~ * ~ * ~

Mary covered her mouth, for a brief second wondering if this was some sort of dream that had morphed into a nightmare. She and Michael had been happy, making love, him on his way to grab another condom. Then everything changed when she switched on the light and glimpsed his back for the first time. Discordant events that hadn’t made any sense were explained by what she’d witnessed. Michael always insisted they make love in the dark, often keeping his shirt on when they fooled around, despite her best efforts to the contrary. Even when they showered together, he always made sure his back was turned away from her. Now, all those times she’d felt the ridges on his back and wondered why he would swiftly remove her hands and either place them on his ass or on his waist, she knew what he was doing. Trying to avoid the current clusterfuck she’d unwittingly caused.

His back revealed a pattern of scars that despite their age, demonstrated a viciousness defying reality. Various shapes and sizes, they lined his back. Some resembled whip marks, while others were circles raised on his skin. Puckered. Angry.

Wanting to be close to him and tell him without words they could work through this as long as he forgave her reaction, Mary pulled on one of Michael’s sweatshirts, its size dwarfing her and landing somewhere in the vicinity of the tops of her thighs. She followed the light edging out from the kitchen and found Max nudging Michael’s hands while he stared out the kitchen window. He cursed when she uttered his name.

“When you’re ready, I’ll drive you and Max home.” He still hadn’t turned around to look at her.

“I don’t want to go home, Michael,” she whispered, willing him to turn around and look at her. He was such a proud man. This had to be killing him. Her approach and how she handled the conversation they were about to have, would determine the course of their relationship.

“I want to stay with you. I want to be with you.”

“You don’t know me, Mary. You don’t know the first thing about me and you certainly wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me if you did.”

“I think you should let me be the judge of my thoughts and my feelings, Michael,” she calmly responded. If she let him take her home now, they were doomed. If their relationship was going to last, she needed to fight for it and fight for it right now.

With blinding insight that almost brought her to her knees, she knew exactly why he never discussed his family.

Taking a chance, she walked up to him and for the second time that night, wrapped her arms around his middle. While he stiffened, he didn’t pull away. She decided to make another plunge into the deep end. It had been on her mind for the last few days. It no longer made sense for her to keep her feelings to herself.

“I love you, Michael, and I know everything I need to know about you. I know you bought Max a special bed so he’d have a comfortable place to sleep when we come over. I know you always see to all of my needs before looking after any of your own. You always make sure I have enough covers, that I’ve had enough to eat, and that I’m never cold when we’re together. I know you open doors for old ladies and I know that I absolutely trust you with my heart.”

As her words hit his ears, shudders racked his body from head to toe. Yet, he still refused to turn around and look her in the eyes.

She continued. “I love you and I want to know everything about you, good, bad and indifferent. That includes what happened to your back. I want to know not because it’s going to be easy to hear it, but because I want to share your pain and your burdens with you. Relationships are a two-way street. I never want you to think you can’t tell me something, especially about something in your past. Our pasts and our families affect us and shape us, but they don’t define who we are.

“Come back to bed with me, Michael. If you’ll feel better, we can turn off all the lights and you can, I hope, tell me about your back. If you’re not ready to, I’ll be disappointed, but I’ll wait, because you’re worth waiting for. I want you to tell me because I’m important to you. And you want to share important details of your life and your family with me. Not because of some displaced sense of guilt or obligation.”

Michael gently turned around in her embrace until he faced her. His eyes shone bright with unshed tears, but he didn’t look away and the tears didn’t fall. Instead, he placed his hands around her head and kissed her tentatively and sweetly on the lips, quickly, and rested his forehead against hers.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he offered. Naturally, he was still blaming himself in this scenario, not leveling any responsibility where it belonged, on her.

“You never scare me, Michael,” she disagreed. “It was a shock to see what’s happened to your back. I wasn’t prepared for it and I overreacted. Not your fault, but mine.”

“Let’s go back to bed,” he urged against her lips.

“Let’s,” she agreed, placing her smaller hands in his, and let him lead them back to the bedroom. Once there, Mary doused the light, lost the sweatshirt and climbed into bed, waiting for him. A couple of seconds later, he slid beneath the sheets and reached for her, taking her hands in his and bringing them to his lips, while they lay on their sides, facing each other.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” he asked, settling next to her.

“I’m ready for anything with you, Michael,” she reassured him, wanting to remind him there was nothing they could not confront together.

He coughed. And coughed again. And yet again for a third time before he started.

“My father was one mean son of a bitch. My size, maybe bigger. Like me, he played high school football in Texas. High school football’s a big deal in Texas, unlike here. I grew up with him constantly reliving his high school years in Larson, where we lived. He was a couple of years ahead of my mom and knocked her up his senior year and her sophomore year. With me.

“They both blamed me for ruining their lives. My dad graduated from high school, but had to take a job in a tire factory, one of the few jobs in Larson. My mother waited tables at the local diner.” He paused and Mary allowed him the rest, not wanting to spook him with any of the questions swirling in her mind.

“I’m not sure when my father started beating my mother. I think my first real memory is sometime when I was three or four, I’m not sure which. She’d made some eggs of some sort, scrambled, I think. He came home, drunk after working a midnight shift and pissed off for no reason. I don’t think he actually ever needed a reason. He backhanded her so hard when she offered him some eggs, the pan flew out of her hands and eggs dripped all over the walls.”

Mary squeezed his hands to let him know he wasn’t alone, silently urging him to continue, assuring him he could do this.

“My father liked to mix it up with me and my mother. Sometimes, he’d go off at her, backhand her, slap her, and punch her depending on his mood. He liked to kick her with his steel-toed boots. I’m not sure, but I think, looking back, she suffered a couple of miscarriages, which was a blessing for those poor fucking kids. With me, he preferred to use his belt. From the belt he moved on, I think in an effort to mark me permanently. He would take the iron, fire it up and place it on my back. Other times, he would decide to use my back as an ashtray for his cigarettes and cigars.”

Chapter 16

Listening to Michael’s deep, slow tones in the quiet darkness, Mary felt her heart break. She felt as though she were ready to shatter and splinter into a million different pieces and could not fathom how hard this was for Michael. Pride for him for doing this, for sharing his background with her swelled within her soul.

“Looking back,” he whispered, “I think both blamed me for how their lives turned out. My father had the belief that without me, he would have gone to college and maybe even pro. I think my mother would have preferred anything than what she received from Don.”

“Who’s Don?” Mary asked.

“Sorry. He’s my father. Don and Sue Ellen Santiago.”

Mary was grateful for the darkness tonight so Michael wouldn’t witness the storm in her eyes, full of pain, love, and even remorse. Her eyes moistened as she rapidly blinked in a vain attempt to stem her tears. His reluctance to discuss anything related to his family or his upbringing now made perfect heartbreaking sense.

~ * ~ * ~

“Don had big, huge hands the size of meat cleavers. His steel-toed boots connected with my ass more times than I can remember.”

Laying there, letting the memories play back like a movie reel through his mind, Michael realized he’d gripped Mary throughout the course of the conversation and never wanted to let her go.

“When I was eight, I found a stray dog in town. Some kind of mutt, I think, brown and black, built like a lab, but with some retriever or setter. I brought him home to try and sneak him something to eat.” He paused while Mary continued holding his hand and stroking his arm with her other hand, silently communicating her support. Lying there still disbelieving he was having this conversation. Still not fully believing she loved him. And fairly confident as he recounted his tale, she’d bolt at the first chance and never look back. “I guess Don wanted to ensure I didn’t make the same mistake twice. He took out his shotgun and shot the dog in front of me. Made me bury it in the backyard.”

“Oh, Michael.” Mary broke her silence.

“He liked to refer to Sue Ellen as a fat, filthy whore.” Don’s raspy voice was as clear in Michael’s ears as it had been all those years ago, accusing his mother of unmentionable acts in front of his only child.

“Did your mother abuse you too, Michael?” she asked.

“No. Not like Don. When I was younger, she tried to protect me. A few times, she pushed me behind her and tried to calm Don down. Why, I don’t know. Nothing worked with that man and I don’t know why it ever took her so long to realize it. She’d send me to my room where I’d only hear what was going on, but I didn’t have to see it. Depending on the weather, she’d send me outside occasionally.

“It was only when I got older that Don turned his frustration on me. He was careful to hit me where the welts and bruises were covered up by my clothes. I think at first, he tried to hide it from Sue Ellen.”

“Say a word of this to your mama, boy, and I’ll beat her worse than you. And make you watch. You want that, you little fucker? You understand me?”

“His drinking progressively got worse, at least from what I can remember. Eventually I realized if I stayed out long enough, Don would be passed out by the time I got home. Over the years, Sue Ellen quit saying much, hardly talking to either one of us. Like me, I think she tried primarily to stay out of his way. Evasion as a survival tactic.”

“How come no one helped you, Michael? Your teachers had to know what was going on.”

He shrugged. “It was more than twenty years ago, Mary. And Larson, Texas then and probably now, was stuck in the 1950s. No one questioned any man or how the man treated his family, including his wife and kids. I sure as shit didn’t say anything.”

“What about where your mother worked? Someone knew what was going on.”

“It’s a small town, Mary, where people stay out of each other’s business.”

“This isn’t business, Michael. This is abuse.”

“I know exactly what it is. I lived through it. I’m telling you that times and the town were different than 2011 in Portland, Oregon. It’s not right. I know that now. But that’s what it was like back then.”

“I’m sorry. I’d like to travel back in time and ask your teachers what they were thinking. Even if you think you hid everything, they had to know. My guess is you were completely withdrawn and/or acted out with authority figures.”

“Actually, it was an educator who was responsible for getting me out of the house. I started playing football in eighth grade and continued playing when I was a freshman. In my sophomore year, Coach Duncan called me into his office after our game. I can’t even remember what game it was, but he told me due to my speed, the school had decided to move me up to varsity. I played both offense and defense like everyone else at Larson High School.

“Playing on Larson’s varsity squad got me noticed by a guy by the name of James O’Brien, the coach of Catholic Central High School’s football team. After I finished my sophomore season, O’Brien approached me about playing at Catholic Central in Dallas. He offered me a full scholarship, but due to the distance between Larson and Dallas, I would have to board there during the year and I’d have to get my parents to sign off on it.”

O’Brien had been one slick salesman. “Because you’d be doing us a favor by playing for us, we’re happy to pick up your tuition and room and board at Central. Your grades are good enough and we have the ability to do this.”

If Michael could have signed himself up the day O’Brien presented his offer, then and there, he would have. He couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of Larson and would have done anything, gone anywhere, for any reason, if he could run away and never look back. His only struggle had been with leaving Sue Ellen. As Michael had aged and gotten longer and bigger all over, he’d done his best to shield both of them from Don and he knew there was no way Don would agree to him leaving. Michael had left O’Brien in Duncan’s office and pedaled as though there was a fire on his ass to Tiny’s diner with the permission forms in hand. Sue Ellen spotted him when he ran through the door and offered him a seat and some pie.