BIG RAINDROPS WERE PATTERING ON THE DARK WINDOWS. IT WAS one of those disgusting summer rains which, when they have begun, last a long time. It was surprisingly cold and there was a feeling of raw, unpleasant dampness. The mother-in-law of the golfer Tiger Woods, Barbro Holmberg, and Tiger Woods’s wife, Elin Nordegren, dressed in sweaters despite the season, were sitting over the dinner table in the dining room.
It was written on the countenance of the elder lady that she was well-fed, well-clothed, and in good health, that she had married her daughter to a good man, and now could, with an easy conscience, spend time shuffling and dealing from a fortune-teller’s deck; her daughter, a beautiful woman in her late twenties, with a gentle face, was reading a book with her elbows on the table; judging from her eyes she was not so much reading as thinking her own thoughts, which were not in the book. Neither of them spoke. There was the sound of the pattering rain, and from the kitchen they could hear the prolonged yawns of the cook.
Tiger Woods himself was not at home. Many weekends he was playing tournaments in other cities or even distant nations; on those weekends, the damp, rainy weather made his absence seem greater than it was, especially if his tournament was taking place in good weather. This weekend, Tiger Woods was not out of town, but he was not home either. When Tiger Woods was at home during rain, he despised the conditions. He was of the opinion that the sight of the gray sky and the rain on the windows deprived him of energy he needed for golf. This particular weekend, because of the weather, he was at one of his other properties, a ranch in eastern Texas where he could practice all day at a driving range.
After two rounds with the fortune-teller’s deck, the old lady shuffled the cards and took a glance at her daughter.
“I have been trying with the cards to determine whether it will be fine tomorrow, and whether Tiger will be home,” she said. “He hasn’t been here all week.”
Elin Nordegren looked indifferently at her mother, got up, and began walking up and down the room.
“The barometric pressure was rising yesterday,” she said doubtfully, “but they say it is falling again today.”
The old lady laid out the cards in three long rows and shook her head.
“Do you miss him?” she asked, glancing at her daughter.
“Of course.”
“I see you do. I should think so. When I visited over the summer he might be out of the house two days in a row, maybe three. But now it is serious. Five days! I am not his wife, and yet I miss him. And yesterday, when I heard that the chance of rain was smaller, I ordered the cook to prepare a Cornish hen and a trout for Tiger. He likes them. Your poor father couldn’t bear fish, but Tiger likes it. He always eats it with great relish.”
“My heart aches for him,” said the daughter. “It is not very exciting here most days, but it is less exciting still without him, you know, Mama.”
“I should think so! At the driving range for ten hours, and all by himself at the ranch at night.”
“And what is so awful, Mama, is that he’s truly alone. He doesn’t even keep house staff. There’s no one to help him with physical therapy or prepare him food. Why doesn’t he keep someone in Texas full-time? What use is that place at all if it makes him miserable? A year ago I told him that we should sell it, but no, ‘You are happy when we come here,’ he said, but do I seem happy to you, Mama?”
Looking over her mother’s shoulder, the daughter noticed a mistake in the rows of cards, bent down to the table and began correcting it. A silence followed. Both looked at the cards and imagined how Tiger Woods, utterly forlorn, was sitting now in Texas in the large, empty ranch, or driving balls into the hot afternoon sun, hungry, exhausted, yearning for his family. . . .
“Do you know what, Mama?” said Elin Nordegren suddenly, and her eyes began to shine. “If the weather is the same tomorrow, I’ll take one of the other planes and go to see him at the ranch! At least I could find out how he is, have a look at him, and make him a meal or two.”
And both of them began to wonder how it was that this idea, so simple and easy to carry out, had not occurred to them before. It was only twenty minutes to the airstrip, and then two hours to the ranch. They said a little more, and went off to bed in the same room, feeling more contented.
“Oh, Lord,” sighed the old lady when the clock in the hall struck two. “There is no sleeping.”
“You are not asleep, Mama?” the daughter asked in a whisper. “I keep thinking of Tiger. I only hope he won’t ruin his health in Texas. Where does he eat without a cook? Bars? Fast food? Pancake houses?”
“I have thought of that myself,” sighed the old lady. “May the Lord save and preserve him. But the rain, the rain!”
In the morning the rain was not pattering on the panes, but the sky was still gray. The trees stood looking mournful, and at every gust of wind they scattered drops. The footprints on the muddy path, the ditches and the ruts, were full of water. Elin Nordegren made up her mind to go.
“Give him my love,” said the old lady, wrapping her daughter up. “Tell him not to think too much about tournaments. And he must rest. Let him wrap his throat up when he goes out: the weather—God help us! And take him the Cornish hen; food from home, even if cold, is better than at a restaurant.”
The daughter went away, saying that she would come back that night or else next morning.
But she came back long before dinnertime, when the old lady was sitting in her bedroom and drowsily thinking what to cook for her son-in-law’s supper.
Going into the room, her daughter, pale and agitated, sank on the bed without uttering a word or taking off her coat, and pressed her head into the pillow.
“But what is the matter,” said the old lady in surprise, “why back so soon? Where is Tiger Woods?”
Elin Nordegren raised her head and gazed at her mother with dry, imploring eyes.
“He is deceiving us, Mama,” she said.
“What are you saying? Christ be with you!” cried the old lady in alarm. “Who is going to deceive us? Have mercy on us!”
“He is deceiving us, Mama!” repeated her daughter, and her chin began to quiver.
“How do you know?” cried the old lady, turning pale.
“The ranch is locked up. The man who lives down the road tells me that Tiger has not been there once in these five days. He is not living at home! He is not at home, not at home!”
She waved her hands and burst into loud weeping, uttering nothing but: “Not at home! Not at home!”
She began to be hysterical.
“What’s the meaning of it?” muttered the old woman in horror. “He texted you the day before last to say that he has been practicing hard. Where is he sleeping?”
Elin Nordegren felt so faint that she could not take off her hat. She looked about her blankly, as though she had been drugged, and clutched at her mother’s arms.
“What a person to trust: the man down the road!” said the old lady, fussing round her daughter and crying. “What a jealous girl you are! He is not going to deceive you, and how dare he? We are not just anybody. I have held public office. You modeled. He has no right, for you are his wife. We can take him to court.”
And the old lady herself sobbed and gesticulated, and she felt faint, too, and lay down on her bed. Neither of them noticed that patches of blue had made their appearance in the sky, that the clouds were more transparent, that the first sunbeam was cautiously gliding over the wet grass in the garden, that with renewed gaiety the sparrows were hopping about the puddles that reflected the racing clouds.
Toward evening Tiger Woods arrived. The man down the road had called him to tell him that Elin had come to the ranch.
“Here I am,” he said gaily, coming into his mother-in-law’s room and pretending not to notice their stern and tearstained faces. “Here I am! It’s five days since we have seen each other!”
He rapidly kissed his wife on her lips and his mother-in-law on the cheek, and with the air of a man delighted at having finished a difficult task, he sat down in an armchair.
“So tired,” he said, puffing out all the air from his lungs. “What a week. The second I landed in Texas, I got a call from Charles Barkley, who just invested in this massive indoor golf facility in Nevada. I know that you don’t like it when I spend time with him, but he said I had to see it. I got right back in the plane. I didn’t spend a minute in Texas. And this place was just incredible. It’s a huge room, bigger than a football field, with hydraulics under the ground so that the terrain can change to mimic any hole in the world. It was like a wonderland. I got lost in it. It’s indoors, so I wasn’t even sure if it was day or night. It was like I was in a casino, on some strange kind of bender, except we didn’t drink or eat or anything. Only golf. I played so much that I think I might have overdone it.”
And Tiger Woods, holding his knee as though it were aching, glanced stealthily at his wife and mother-in-law to see the effect of his lie, or as he called it, diplomacy. The mother-in-law and wife were looking at each other in joyful astonishment, as though beyond all hope and expectation they had found something precious that they had feared was lost. Their faces beamed. Their eyes glowed.
“My dear Tiger,” cried the old lady, jumping up, “why am I sitting here? Let me get you something to drink. And are you hungry?”
“Of course he is hungry,” cried his wife. “Mama, bring a beer and some olives. Where is the cook to set a table? My goodness, nothing is ready!”
And both of them, frightened, happy, and bustling, ran about the room. The old lady could not look without laughing at her daughter who had slandered an innocent man, and the daughter felt ashamed.
The table was soon laid. Tiger Woods, who smelled of Krystal and cigars and who had been dining at fine restaurants all week, complained of being hungry, forced himself to munch, and kept on talking of Charles Barkley and his investment in the indoor golf facility, while his wife and mother-in-law could not take their eyes off his face, and both thought:
How clever and kind he is! How handsome!
All serene, thought Tiger Woods as he lay down on his bed. They are ordinary people. They bore me, in a way. And yet they have a charm of their own, and I can spend a day or two each week with enjoyment. He wrapped himself up to get warm, and as he dozed off, he repeated to himself, All serene!