“The fuck did you just say?” The question comes from Tim Stag, standing to the side of the room, near Lucy. He looks like he wants to dive into the audience and strangle the reporter asking the questions.
The guy grins and raises a brow at Tim. I try to remember how to breathe. Did he just say my father’s name? The reporter says, “Ted Stag is the biological father of Hawk Moyer. We confirmed this from several sources at a rehabilitation clinic and a social services organization who worked with homeless populations. The readers of the Pittsburgh Post want to know if they’re still in touch and how the Stag family feels about the return of their long-lost brother.”
I don’t even have to say anything. Tim storms over to the wall and yanks on the cord to the power strip for all the mics. “This press conference is over,” he yells, his face turning red and his nostrils flaring.
I cross my arms over my chest, trying to figure out which emotions I’m feeling, or if it’s possible to just have all of them at once. The shock is so intense I feel like I’m going to fly out of my body. Ted Stag is my father’s name? Stag like Tim Stag? Kioko clears the room and I jump when I feel a hand on my arm. It’s Lucy’s. I stare down at her fingers on my bicep.
“Are you okay? What’s going on?”
I shake my head and glance over her shoulder to where Tim is screaming, but trying not to scream, at the PR and marketing staff. He evidently feels the reporter should have given the team a heads up if they were going to pursue that line of questioning. I swallow and turn my attention back to Lucy, wondering why her hand is still on my arm and if I could possibly convince her to keep it there. “So my birth father lives here in Pittsburgh,” I tell her. “He’s a piece of shit.”
She nods. “I know a little bit about that sort of thing,” she says. Her touch is grounding me and I’m able to think.
“I never even met him. My mother never told him about me. That’s how little my mother wanted him involved in my life.” Lucy starts rubbing my arm now and it makes me want to tell her everything, anything, just so she’ll continue touching me like this, soothing me. She just navigated her own stressful crap and she’s somehow finding the ability to offer me comfort right now. I need it.
She frowns. “Does the press ask the other players about their families?” She looks over her shoulder where Tim has his phone in hand and is yelling things about slander and libel.
Her questions keep me grounded, which is good because I feel like I’m going to sink through the floor. I shrug, trying to figure out why this reporter was so invasive at a standard presser. “I think any time a pro athlete is playing for their hometown team, they do. Not that I consider Pittsburgh my hometown.”
“Hawk!” Kioko shouts from the doorway. “Upstairs with me, if you please. Coach Lucy, you may go proceed with practice.” He pauses to smile at her. “When you are ready.”
Lucy pats my arm and waves. “See you out there, okay? I’ll make sure you get caught up on the extra sprints.”
I groan and rise to follow Kioko, who is now in the hallway waiting for the elevator with Tim Stag, who looks like he swallowed something electric. Ted Stag, the reporter said. Holy shit. It’s all starting to sink in now, but the edges of the picture are still fuzzy as my brain tries to work it all out. Do I seriously have a name for the absent figure in my life? Tim is tugging on his hair and muttering something about “should have known” and “should have fucking assumed.” He finally seems to realize I am in the room and whips his head around to me. “Did you know?” He points a finger at me and steps closer. I edge back.
“Did I know what? That my deadbeat father lives in Pittsburgh? Yeah. I also know I’ve never met him and he left my pregnant mother to die under a bridge. What of it?”
His eyes narrow and a vein in his neck looks like it’s going to burst as it pulses. “Ted Stag,” he hisses, “is my father, too.”
Kioko finally manages to get me and Tim into the elevator and into his office, where I collapse onto the couch and Tim commences pacing the room. Tim Stag. My brother.
I stare at him, trying to decide if we look alike, if I should have noticed. Should I have felt some sort of connection to him? Like, should I have known in my cells?
I have a brother. Not only do I have a father out here somewhere, but I have a sibling. “Are there more of you?”
I direct the question at Tim and realize it doesn’t make any sense because he’s not inside my head working through this chain of events. But he must catch my drift because he pauses and frowns. “I have two brothers, yes. Do you not read the news? Truly?”
“The news?” I snort. “All I usually read is my training plan. Why should I know about your brothers, exactly?”
Tim scoffs and resumes pacing, muttering to himself. Kioko approaches him and suggests he call his wife, which halts Tim in his tracks. “Yes. Alice. Of course. I should call Alice.” I watch as he sinks into the couch and calls his wife, how he seems to calm down immediately upon hearing her voice. It’s surreal, listening to him tell her, “My father must have had an affair after he left us…Yes, Ted. We have a fucking brother, Alice. A secret Stag.”
Kioko places a hand on Tim’s back and he swats him away, then lowers the phone and looks at me. “Will you agree to a DNA test?”
“What?”
“A DNA test. To verify the reporter’s allegations.”
I look up at Kioko. “Look, man, I’m having a little bit of a stroke right now. Nobody is sticking a swab in my nose until I understand what just happened.”
Kioko repeats that a reporter apparently interrogated anyone he could find in connection with my mother, that a few people told him the name of the guy she’d been sleeping with when she was a teenager.
“A teenager! Christ! Fuck!” Tim screams and roars as he paces around the room and then stops abruptly with the phone against his ear, and nods his head. “You’re right, baby. No, I don’t need you to come by. You’re right. Yes,” he says. “Yes, maybe it would be good to send someone else. Can you ask Donna to do that for me?”
He hangs up with his wife and kicks a trash can, reminding me of my own proclivity toward angry outbursts. At least I can go kick some balls around when I’m this pissed. Not that I am able to move from this couch right now.
Tim drags his palms down his cheeks and makes his way over to me, squatting down. “I owe you an apology. My father is a sore subject of conversation for me and, as you can imagine, this news upset me a great deal.”
I nod at him, just the tiniest movement of my head. “Half my existence is a black hole,” I growl at him. “Just darkness. Nothingness. No name, no nothing.” We stare at each other a few minutes. “And I could have had brothers.” My voice is a whisper. Tim nods and swallows.
He looks up at Kioko. “Kioko, my friend, please excuse me. I was unforgivably rude.” Kioko waves a hand, leaning against the window. Tim gathers up some of his things. “I’m bringing in another member of Stag law. I’m no longer able to be partial in assessing contracts related to the Forge or to Mr. Moy—to my brother.”
“That seems like a nice solution for paperwork,” Kioko says. “But Tim, I am concerned for you as my friend. This is a very big shock. And Hawk, I was not aware this could be a problem. Are you okay?”
“Well, no, I’m not okay, sir. I need a few minutes, to be frank.”
Kioko nods and mumbles something about more scandal, more bad press for the team. I start to wish I could sink into the sofa and disappear.