Million-Dollar Throw (22 page)

On the third Valley possession of the fourth quarter, with five minutes left in the game, Nate dropped back in the pocket and threw a perfect spiral to a wide-open Pete running a straight fly route. Another Valley touchdown. LaDell ran the conversion in this time.

Game tied, 14-all. And the Patriots had every ounce of momentum on their side.

One more score and they would go to the championship game. Or, just as possible, one Dennison score and
they
would go. Now what felt like the first game of the playoffs had turned into sudden death.

Before they kicked the ball off, Malcolm Burnley came over to Nate.

“I like basketball, don’t get me wrong,” he said.

Nate grinned. “Nothing better than that first day back in the gym.”

“But I believe,” Malcolm said, “that I would like to have me one more big football game before we go there.”

Then he banged his helmet, hard, against Nate’s the way the linemen did with each other all the time and said, “We’re gonna go out and stop these suckers now. Then you’re gonna get back on the field and take us on home.”

“I’m supposed to do all that for
free
?” Nate said.

“Well, I can’t pay you a million dollars,” Malcolm said. “But I will take you to Joe’s afterward.”

“Who could pass up a sweet offer like that?” Nate said.

Malcolm made sure Nate had his chance. On third-and-two for the Browns, Malcolm steamrolled his way into the backfield and sacked the quarterback. The Browns were forced to punt. Ben made a fair catch at the Patriots’ 40-yard line. With two minutes and change left, the game was still tied.

In the huddle Nate said, “Okay, this is the way we roll,” and told them the play. “Exit 15 E,” they called it. A fifteen-yard square-out to Eric, a timing route. Done right, the ball would be waiting for Eric as he turned back to face Nate. Nate just managed to get the pass off before he got flattened by the Browns’ blitzing middle linebacker. He only found out when he got up that he’d thrown a strike to Eric.

First down Patriots, on the Browns’ 48.

Nate nearly got buried again on the very next play, barely managed to throw the ball away before what felt like the entire Browns’ front four hit him.

When he went down, somebody stepped on his right hand.

He didn’t know who got him. Could have been one of his own blockers. All Nate did know was how much it hurt. Like someone had jabbed a needle right into the top of his hand.

He didn’t cry out at the bottom of the pile. Didn’t grab the hand when he stood up, as much as he wanted to, not wanting anybody to know he was in any kind of pain. Just waited for the pain to go away.

Only it didn’t.

When he got back in the huddle, leaning forward, hands on knees, he was at least able to make a fist, figuring that if he could do that, he hadn’t done anything really bad. Like break something.

Nate wished he could call a time-out, put some ice on it, even if it was just for a minute. But they weren’t wasting one of the two time-outs they had left. And then everybody would see he’d done something to his throwing hand, including his coaches. Who might want to take him out.

And Nate had decided: He wasn’t coming out until next season.

He got the read off Coach Hanratty’s board. Another pass, this one to Bradley. It made Nate smile, made him think of one of his mom’s expressions: no rest for the weary. He was going to keep throwing, sore hand or not, until they were in the end zone.

“You okay?” Malcolm said when they broke the huddle.

“Yeah. Just got the wind knocked out of me,” Nate said.

He got under center and made sure to receive Malcolm’s snap with his bottom hand, his left hand, more than his right. He felt a quick jolt of pain anyway. But then his hand was on the laces and he was dropping back into the pocket, and the only thing that concerned him was delivering the ball to Bradley over the middle with something on it.

He did. A perfect spiral. Bradley gathered it in and fell forward to the Browns’ 36-yard line.

A minute and thirty left.

They crossed the Browns up then, running the ball twice in a row in their hurry-up offense, the second time on a direct snap to LaDell with Nate lined up in the shotgun. They had another first down and Nate called his second-to-last time-out. Thirty seconds left. Ball on the Browns’ 24.

Plenty of time.

As Nate walked toward the huddle, he looked over to the sideline, past his bench. Abby was right where he’d left her, staring right at him. He patted his heart twice and hoped she saw.

Their last run of the day was a quarterback draw by Nate. He ran up the middle, thought he might go all the way, but got tackled from behind at the Browns’ 10.

First down and goal.

He spiked the ball, wanting to hold on to that last time-out for dear life.

Eighteen seconds left.

He looked over to Coach Hanratty. The hot read was the same play they’d run to Bradley a few plays before, only this time Bradley was supposed to be right between the goalposts when he came open.

As though Bradley were the SportStuff target now.

There was this amazing quiet you got in the huddle sometimes, even in moments like this, even when it was all on the line, even with both the Dennison fans and the Valley fans making as much noise as they were. Nate looked up into the faces of his teammates. He smiled and told them the play, feeling the way he hoped they all felt:

That this was exactly where they were all supposed to be.

He set up in the shotgun. Malcolm gave him a perfect snap and even with that, Nate fumbled it briefly, being too careful to protect his right hand. But then he got a handle on it and took a couple of extra steps back.

Watched it all play out in front of him.

Watched as everything seemed to happen at once.

Bradley made his cut, broke free, turned around between the posts. The ball, a bullet, was already halfway there. The force of the pass seemed to surprise even Bradley, as many times as he’d caught Nate’s fastball, as much arm as he knew Nate had. This one knocked him backward and knocked him over.

But his feet were still in bounds when he landed, and so was Bradley, and the ball was cradled to his chest.

Valley 20, Dennison 14.

Eight seconds left.

For the conversion Nate threw a fade to Eric in the corner and he outjumped the safety for it. Valley 21, Dennison 14.

Malcolm squibbed the kickoff. It seemed like half the Valley team tackled the kid with the ball, absolutely buried him at the Browns’ 35.

The horn sounded. The Valley Patriots were in the championship game against Blair. It was still football season after all.

A
bby’s doctor had to push back her tests a week because he was called out of town. So Nate didn’t have to say good-bye to her until the Sunday before Thanksgiving, four days until the big throw.

Only the throw didn’t feel nearly as big right now as Abby leaving, even if he was sure in his heart that it wasn’t for good.

Man, Nate thought. Man man
man.

How did we ever get here?

It seemed like just the other day that she was standing next to him at the SportStuff counter, practically ordering him to sign up for the contest. Now she was going into the hospital and might be going off to Perkins for good after that and there was a “For Sale” sign in front of her house same as there was Nate’s. And there was so much he wanted to say to her, so much he felt like he
needed
to say. But he didn’t, not wanting to make things worse—at least for now, he kept telling himself—than they already were.

So the two of them stood in her studio, what had always been her special place, all of her paintings still covered, while her parents packed up the car.

“How’s the hand, by the way?” Abby said.

“Perfect.”

“Liar.”

“It must be exhausting,” he said, “knowing all the answers before you even ask the questions.”

“Well, it is, actually,” she said, smiling. Doing anything to lighten the mood. “But then I lie down and take a little rest, and I’m as brilliant as ever.”

She was the only one he’d told about getting stepped on, making her promise not to tell anybody else. The hand was still stiff a week later, and he still wasn’t able to grip the ball as firmly as he wanted to, which took some of the snap off his throws. But the coaches hadn’t said anything or seemed to notice anything wrong, and neither had any of his receivers. Nate wasn’t throwing as accurately at the target in the backyard, but he told himself that was just nerves as the big night got closer.

He’d told Abby because, as always, she saw right through him and kept asking him what was wrong. He couldn’t lie to her.

Now in her studio she said, “I don’t see why you couldn’t even tell your parents.”

“I explained that,” he said. “I don’t want there to be any excuses if I miss.”

“You’re not missing, remember?”

“Right,” he said. “Silly me. How could I forget?”

He sat down in his chair. She was standing in the middle of the room, staring at him. There was more on his mind than a hurt hand.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just relaxing. And my hand is fine.”

“There’s something else,” she said.

“Abs, I know you’ve heard this from me before, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You holding back on me, Brady?”

“Just holding back so I don’t start blubbering like a little girl.”

“Okay,” she said. “That is extremely insulting to little girls.”

“Good point.”

“So you’re not holding back?” Still staring at him, as if she still had 20/20, even though she could see only a few feet in front of her now.

If that.

“Holding on is more like it.”

“You’ll see me on Thursday night, remember?”

“You promise you’ll be there?”

Abby patted her heart the way he did on the field. “Promise.”

Her mom called up to her then, said it was time for them to go to Boston. Abby closed the space between them at what felt like the speed of light, or sound, and hugged Nate as hard then as she ever had, as if she never wanted to let go.

“Love you, Brady,” she said.

“Me too.”

“You’re gonna make it.”

“We’re both gonna make it,” Nate said.

“I still believe in happy endings,” Abby said. “Just so you know.”

“Me too,” Nate said again.

They walked down the stairs together, Nate taking great care that she didn’t see his arm behind her, ready to catch her if she stumbled, even though she was using her cane.

When they were on the front walk, Abby’s mom and dad wished Nate luck, told him they were rooting for him, said they’d see him on Thursday night in Foxboro.

Nate shook hands with Mr. McCall and then Mrs. McCall. He didn’t say anything more to Abby. They’d said everything they needed to say to each other upstairs.

He watched her climb into the backseat, hook up her seat belt, smile at him through the window, and press her hand to the window. Nate pressed his against the outside. Then he heard Mr. McCall start up the car and slowly back it out of the driveway, away from the big, expensive house that was as much for sale as his was.

Nate walked out to the street and watched the car make a right turn on Eden Road. He stood there watching even when he knew Abby couldn’t see him anymore.

Stood there wondering about happy endings, and just how many of those you could hope for in your life.

Then he rode his bike home and got his ball and tried to throw it through a twenty-inch hole, making sure he followed through even when his hand hurt, making three the number today, telling himself he wasn’t going inside until he put it through the hole that many times.

He was working on number three when the back door opened and his dad shouted loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. He’d made a sale on a house, a big one on the north side of town.

Nate smiled. Then he turned and made one more throw.

Money.

T
hey had decided, unanimously, that they would celebrate Thanksgiving on Friday, that there would be no turkey or Thanksgiving dinner or anything else until they got back from Foxboro. No matter what happened in Foxboro.

The SportStuff people had arranged for them to spend Wednesday night at a Courtyard Boston hotel, just a few minutes away from Gillette Stadium. A limousine would pick them up at five o’clock, even though kickoff wasn’t until eight thirty. Nate and his dad knew why. They’d seen firsthand when they came to Patriots games that traffic getting in and out of Gillette could be rougher than the Patriots’ defense.

As soon as they arrived at VIP parking, they were to be greeted by Doug Compton, SportStuff ’s vice president in charge of public relations, who would take them up to the company’s luxury suite.