Not in the Playbook

Leo was flushed and breathing hard when she pushed open the door to her therapist’s office. Her father sat in the oversized burgundy chair by the window, the one Leo usually occupied. Jennifer stood by her file cabinet, closing a drawer.

“Sorry I’m late.” Leo dropped her book bag and moved toward the couch.

“Mr. Lightfoot?” Jennifer’s voice was satin. “Leo is more comfortable in that chair if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, of course. Sorry, I didn’t know.” He awkwardly stood and moved to the couch section closest to his daughter. He folded his hands on his long legs. Despite the coldness of the late afternoon, which seeped through the series of tall narrow windows of aged glass set into freshly painted wood frames, a thin sheen of sweat appeared on Joseph's forehead.

Leo instantly wanted to stop the meeting; her dad looked miserable. Maybe she didn’t need to know. Perhaps she could keep everything the same, go back to her life before she started counseling and before she realized her voice had a right to be heard.

“Leo?” Jennifer’s eyes were supportive. Nothing was being pushed on her. Leo knew that though difficult, this was something she had to do to move forward.

“Dad…” Her voice was soft as if she could ease his pain through gentleness. “…we never, ever, talk about it. There are a few pictures, but I want…” She paused and looked at Jennifer, who nodded in encouragement. “What I need is to know. How did she die? What is my mother’s story?”

****

Emily’s story. The easy part. Joseph turned to look directly into his daughter’s expectant eyes.

“I was eighteen, living with my mother and Paul. I was on the high school football team and working at the local grocery store.” Leo listened intently, drinking in this new information. “My experience was limited. You would think being a quarterback, I would be confident. But to tell you the truth, I wasn’t quite sure where I fit in. I was shy. On the field, though, I was fast with a strong, accurate arm.”

Joseph took a long drink from the glass of water Dr. Baker poured him and continued. “It was my second year as the starting quarterback, the fall of my senior year, our opening game against rival Fort Gibson. The first half was ugly. But early in the fourth quarter, I got in a seven-yard rushing touchdown and two-point conversion to bring us to an even fifteen-fifteen. Fort Gibson fought back, taking an eighteen-fifteen advantage on a twenty-nine-yard field goal.”

Am I losing her? Joseph looked questioningly. Leo had not moved an inch, her eyes riveted on her father, she gave a barely perceptible nod, and he continued. “Somehow, with slightly over three minutes left in the game, we pulled together and marched sixty yards down the field. The crowd was cheering wildly, a sea of orange and black. I remember looking into the stands and seeing my brother next to my mother. They were on their feet, an unlikely pair, stomping and waving their arms back and forth with the chanting throng. With twenty-five yards to go, the plan was to pass to my receiver, but he was being double-teamed. In a way that defies the playbooks, I saw an opening. The path was clear in my mind. I knew I had the speed to do it, and so I followed my inner map. Weaving in and out, maneuvering through the defense, I stumbled into the endzone. With ten seconds left, we took the lead and won the game. The next thing I knew, out of the celebratory crush, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen emerged. She threw her arms around me and kissed my cheek! She said I was amazing, and then she was gone as quickly as she had appeared. I found out later that her name was Emily. She was a cheerleader, and her family had moved to town over the summer. My world changed that night.”

How do you explain how new love floods, the way feelings course through your veins, the way once your heart and lungs are reached, your previously nutrient-depleted blood becomes saturated with life-giving oxygen so that you feel an inexplicable fullness, a sense that anything in the world is possible? Joseph painted the picture, to the best of his halting ability, of the evolution of their relationship that started with an unexpected kiss to something secretive but intentional. He explained how the moment he found out he was going to be a father, he was so consumed with joy he was ready to run to the county courthouse. He wanted to shout from the water tower that he was in love and starting a family. He dreamed about this since his father left when he was a boy. He wanted Leo to know how much he had wanted her, how sure he felt, how he knew with absolute certainty Emily was his true love and their lives were just beginning.

“Her family knew nothing about me. Emily said if they knew, they would break us up. I guess I was from the wrong side of town, not what they wanted for her.” Joseph was introspective. “Emily knew our time was finite. I was in love, oblivious.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “The first time I started fully grasping the gravity of the situation was when she told me about the pregnancy. I wanted, no, I begged her to get married. Emily was terrified, and she said her parents couldn’t know. If they found out, she’d be forced to have an abortion. So, we kept you a secret. Your mother was always slender, and as the months advanced, she started wearing longer, baggier tops. The night she went into labor, four weeks early, was the night her parents found out she was pregnant.”

Here is where the story gets complicated. He glanced at Dr. Baker. Her expression was solemn, but beneath it, he read support in her calm lake-gray eyes. “Your mother’s parents believed that the adoption agency had taken care of everything. They were under the assumption that the closed adoption was complete, that this nasty chapter in their daughter’s life was over. You were a guarded secret.

“Emily gave me full custody. She tried to visit every two weeks or so when she knew her parents were out of town or otherwise occupied. As you know, my mom died from a heart attack in the winter of my senior year. With her life insurance money, Paul and I moved from the trailer on the outskirts of Tahlequah to our house in town.” He took another drink of water, assessed how his daughter was doing, and plunged ahead.

“I graduated high school and was in college working toward my degree in teaching. A kind lady across the street watched you when I was in class. Between the neighbor, me, and Paul, you were never alone. There was no need for daycare. Emily came when she could. Those moments we had together as a family made the periods of separation bearable.

“Then, one evening, when we were expecting her…” Joseph’s voice was almost a whisper. Leo leaned forward. “You were looking out the front window, waiting for her to come. I heard you call Momma, Momma? Momma! And you started to cry. I rushed to open the door for Emily, afraid of what happened to cause you such distress. There, where your mother usually stood, was an envelope with her handwriting on the front.”

Leo’s face, an expression of intent absorption, was slowly replaced by bewilderment. “What are you trying to say?” Leo leaped to her feet, looking stunned and confused. She started to pace. “Oh no?! Her gravestone has her birthdate….” Leo’s whole body suddenly became still, taut, as the realization seeped in, water finding minute cracks in the bedrock. He could tell that her intellect was fighting what her core had just acknowledged. Her utterance was barely audible, “But no death date.”

He interrupted, “Leo, I never called the stone a grave.” Seeing her face infused with stress, as though she might break at any moment, his voice became a cushion. “I always said memorial stone. And I never said she died or passed. I would always say she moved on.” This was a simple truth.

Leo put her hands over her face and shook her head back and forth in disbelief. Her body and voice quivered on the edge of hysteria; she dropped her hands by her side. “And tell me, how is a three-year-old supposed to know the difference between a grave and a memorial stone? How is an eight-year-old expected to know that her mother is alive because there is no death date? How is a twelve-year-old, a fifteen-year-old, expected to know these things?” And hitting her, in the center of the hot tears and dazed fury, was the knowledge she was supposed to notice. When she was ready, she was supposed to ask, and her father would have told her.

“I didn’t know what to do, Leo,” his voice implored, “You were distraught and calling out for her. You stood before me in a yellow gingham dress stained and shredded from your search for your mother with your big brown eyes full of tears. I felt angry and utterly helpless. How do you console a little girl whose mother walked away? I wanted to give you something solid to touch and focus on.” He couldn’t gauge how his words were impacting his daughter. He wanted to reach out, hold her, and help her, as he thought he had been doing so many years ago. “I did what Lightfoot men have always done when challenged, jumped into hasty, sometimes ill-conceived, action.” He sighed. “After a few weeks, when I was sure she wasn’t returning, I tucked you into your car seat, and we headed out to the quarry, where you picked out a beautiful rose-colored memorial. You chose the stone, and you chose the spot. The site was meant to be a place where you could seek solace, remember and connect on some level with your mother.”

“You let me think she was dead.”

“It was never meant to be a deception.”

Trickery, fraud, had her whole childhood been built on this? A dismantling foundation, a false narrative? Unabated anger came swiftly. Leo turned for support from Jennifer. The session had deteriorated. Leo was supposed to be in control. Dr. Baker looked apologetic; she bit her lower lip. When she broke eye contact with Leo and looked toward Joseph, an extended exchange passed between them, communication without words, a new level of betrayal was revealed.

“Wait, Dr. Baker, you knew?” The treachery seemed unbearable. Leo steeled herself, willed herself not to break down any further, not in front of the people who purposely concealed her truth, people she had implicitly trusted.

Dr. Baker’s voice was even. “Remember when I asked you if I could bring your dad in to clarify some things? You gave me permission.”

“But not to perpetuate a lie!” Leo looked from her father to her therapist, who was now standing by his side, deceitfully united against her. Her heart was racing like a caged animal, desperate to escape. “I am done!” She glared at Dr. Baker. “You’re FIRED. No more therapy sessions, no more falsehoods!” Leo moved closer to the exit, and then she directed her fierce gaze at her father. “You too, Dad. I can’t believe you! I’m finished with you all.”

She raced down the rear stairs into the back alley, shadowy with dusk’s bitter breath. Razor-sharp particles of ice assaulted her exposed skin. Crouched behind the dumpster, the smell of rotting produce choking the air, her bike on its side to avoid detection, she pulled out her cell phone. With trembling fingers, she found Jake’s contact information and sent this message: —I need out, NOW—