29 29 At this point, I might have better luck finishing this tree pruning with a kindergartner’s pair of cut-and-paste scissors. My long-handled pruning shears are officially dull.
Not unexpected since I’ve asked a lot of these shears over the last two weeks. I worked my way through most of the tree rows, honing each branch into a veritable work of art. But it was more than busywork: proper pruning means allowing each limb to get the right amount of sunlight, while also thinning them enough to keep the trees from overproducing fruit, which can lead to anemic product and disease. And thanks to Cooper, I now have more seasons ahead of me, so keeping my trees healthy and productive is vital.
But these shears need some love. I’ve attempted to sharpen them myself, but either my technique or my tools aren’t up to snuff. It’s time to let a professional have at it. Time for Garrett.
A quick drive into town and I find the co-op parking lot nearly empty. Garrett and I haven’t spoken since his Dr. Phil speech. Here’s hoping his rural sensibilities will keep him from asking any particularly pointed questions, since I don’t even have all the answers for myself yet.
He’s on the phone when I step in, but he gives a wave and smile. I set my pruning shears on the counter and flip through a stray farm catalog that’s tossed in a pile nearby. Garrett wraps up the call, then shoves the phone under the counter.
“Johnny, long time no see.” He gives me an easy, but curious, look. “Things going OK?”
Closing the farm catalog, I set it back where it was. “Meh. OK, yes. But that’s about the best of it.”
Garrett picks up the shears and runs his thumb over the edge of one blade.
“Have you been pruning T-posts with these? Jesus.”
“That’s why I’m here. Do you think you can do anything with them?”
He squints to get a closer look. “I’ll try, but these can be tricky. Give me a minute and I’ll run them over the blade in back.”
Garrett wanders toward the back, then disappears behind a stack of boxes towering in the storage room. I hear a machine whir to life and the sound of metal grazing over a sharpening stone. I grab another farm catalog and skim a few pages before setting it back down when nothing interests me.
A television set is mounted to the wall above the front counter, tuned to a sports station that’s reporting on golf, with the volume turned down low enough that there’s only the faint sound of polite clapping from people interested enough in golf that they would actually attend a tournament. Being that I’ve gone without a television for years, I can’t imagine why I would want or need one at my place of business, but having seen Garrett’s boss a time or two, perhaps it makes sense. He looks like he might spend most of his non-working hours perched in a comfortable recliner, talking about all the ways such-and-such athletes could perform their jobs better.
Coverage of the tournament cuts for a commercial break. After various spots for male demographic–targeted products, a raven-haired anchorwoman appears on the screen to report the day’s sports highlights. After only a few clips of an MMA fight, I’m nearly bored enough to look away.
Then Cooper’s face appears in the little box to the right of the anchor’s head. It’s his team head shot, the one where he looks especially unfriendly. The low volume means I can’t make out what the anchorwoman is saying, so I start to shuffle through the masses of junk on the front counter, looking for a remote control. Finally, it peeks out from underneath a modern-day-useless phone book. I grab the remote and begin to jab at the button to turn up the sound, just as a clip of Cooper starts to play.
He’s outside his team headquarters, glowering and grasping the strap of his gym bag like he’s considering the best way to use it as a weapon. The profile of a reporter peeks into the screenshot as he makes his way over to Cooper at a dead trot.
No. Shit, shit, shit. It’s Bodie Carmichael. Cooper hates this guy—even more that he hates the rest of the media. There’s an immediate instinct to swoop in on a rescue mission. I just don’t know who I should save first: Cooper or the greasy reporter who’s one nosy question away from a fat lip.
Bodie makes it to within a few feet of Cooper. Cooper looks up and his already stony face grows darker.
“Good to see you up and around, Lowry.”
Cooper nods. Then Bodie poses a simple question, one any seasoned athlete should be able to answer while still giving up nothing.
“What’s next?”
I hold my breath and wait for the screen to go black when Cooper inevitably decks anyone within swinging distance. But he doesn’t do what I expect. He doesn’t snarl or snap. He doesn’t grab the camera or go for Bodie’s neck.
It’s worse.
Cooper Lowry falters. He looks straight into the camera—right at me, I’d swear—and hesitates. Then his expression becomes broken.
“I have no fucking idea.”
The viewers hear a bleep, of course. But I hear what goes unsaid. The restless fear of a man without a plan.
Garrett comes back into the room and notes the look on my face, then swings his gaze to see what’s captured my attention. His shoulders sag and he lets out a little gusting sigh.
“You know that clip’s a few weeks old, right? They’ve been on this story for a while now. The whole retirement thing—will he or won’t he?”
Somewhere along the way, in the days after it became clear I was out of options, I’d kind of forgotten about what Cooper was dealing with. The possible end of his career, the decisions he was faced with about his future. Even when we were in his truck after the auction sale and he brought it up, I was so wrapped up in my own bullshit that I didn’t take it all in. Cooper was losing the only life he’d ever known. What he needed, more than anything, was to find a new home for all that determination and drive.
Then he went and gave me my world back, a second chance at everything. All he wanted in return was the same, the opportunity for a second act—with me, just so long as I was sure.
The reality was that Cooper and I needed each other as much as we wanted each other. And while I might have once thought that sounded a little too co-dependent to be sane or reasonable, I know that isn’t our truth.
Our truth is bigger than self-help buzz words. Our truth is two people who met at the right time, knee-deep in their own cruddy catastrophes, who deserved the possibility of better days to come. All we had to do was take it one step at a time.
The first step? Bring Cooper home.