My mom is still up when I get home. She’s in the kitchen making banana bread. She doesn’t sleep well when my dad isn’t around.
“You played great tonight,” she says, giving me a hug. She smells like vanilla and brown sugar. “I’m so proud of you. I texted your dad the score.”
The buzzer on the stove goes off and she pulls out two pans of bread.
I don’t realize how hungry I am until the smell hits me. She carefully removes the bread from the pan and sets it on a plate as I grab the butter.
“Were you at Pizza Barn this whole time?”
“I didn’t stay that long. Anton wasn’t feeling great,” I say quickly.
My mom cuts us each a slice of bread, and I spread a thick slab of butter on my piece. It melts and soaks into the bread.
“Careful,” she says before I take a bite. “It’s still really hot.”
The bread tastes so good. I quickly devour it then cut myself another slice right away.
“It looked like Anton got taken down pretty hard by that big guy at the end of the game,” she says. “Is he all right?”
I want to tell her about Dr. Wilson and Anton’s concussions, but I know if I do, she’ll call Anton’s mom. I take another bite of bread and just nod at her.
“He’s fine,” I mumble. I’ll see how he is in the morning. Maybe Anton’s right, I think. Maybe I’m making a big deal out of nothing. But a louder voice in my head is telling me that Anton isn’t all right. I’m just too much of a coward to tell anyone. I have to have Anton’s back in this. I let him down on the field and I can’t let that happen again.
“I got a call from your dad,” my mom says. I had been so in my own head I had forgotten she was there. “He’ll be here for your playoff game. He’s sorry he missed tonight. He wants you to call him in the morning.”
“How did he get off work?” I ask. “I thought they needed him to work all weekend.”
“He found someone to fill in for him. He’s driving back Thursday night,” she answers. “He’ll be here sometime Friday morning.”
I worry about my dad driving all that way with little sleep, and I know my mom is worried about it too. I can tell by her face. There is a deep crease between her eyes.
“The bread is great,” I say to make her think about something else. Something other than my dad driving through the night without sleeping.
“I could tell,” she laughs and points to the empty plate.
I give her a hug, tell her goodnight, and walk down the hallway to my room. I wish my dad was home like he used to be. He was the one that first taught Anton and me how to play football, and he’s basically like a second father to Anton. He would know what to do.