Terence Fitzbancroft
Little Karla's Promise: All My Sins Remembered
I.
Since my wife's suicide a year ago, my well-meaning friends made regular efforts to hook me up with various single women. I was apprehensive who the next one night be when I hurried to answer the door. But the person ringing my bell was not my blind date. Karla stood on my porch, looking away shyly, as if she might run at any second. In all the years I had known her, Karla had never come to my door alone, and I found myself looking towards the driveway for her mother. But she appeared to be truly alone. Her simple presence at my door was shock enough, but her attire only compounded my surprise. Karla was an athlete of some renown in our area, and it was widely accepted that she would attend the college of her choice on a soccer scholarship. She was that good, and it was a point of personal pride for me, since I had the privilege of coaching her for two formative years. From the day I first met Karla, standing shyly behind her mother on a soccer field at age nine, I had seen her in a dress one time. Her standard attire was athletic: tennis shoes, shorts, t-shirts, hoodies. Tonight, however, she wore a summer dress of dark blue, with a small flower print. It was lightweight cotton, buttoned from top to bottom in the front, and showed definitively that Karla had transformed from a young girl to a young woman. Her legs were encased in nylons, and she wore sandals with tall heels, which exaggerated the muscles in her calves unnecessarily. Her hair was pulled up and back and she had curled the ends. Though Karla typically did little to enhance her appearance, I always knew she was a pretty girl. Seeing her now, she took my breath away, and all I could say was: Karla.
As greetings go, it was pretty inadequate, my surprise apparent. She turned away slightly, looking completely unsure of herself. Karla was never talkative, and in fact went through a troubled period when she hardly spoke at all, so her silence wasn't completely unexpected, but tonight there was more to it. I was about to make a mistake and I knew it. In a short period I had moved from irritation for having agreed to attend the concert, to frustration at being interrupted when I was already late, to the combination of joy and surprise at seeing Karla at my door, and the emotional roller coaster was disorienting at best. So with some effort I attempted to regain my composure since it was clear there was something was on Karla's mind, and knowing her history better than most, offering her assistance needed to be my first priority. Nevertheless, my next question seemed to be as poorly thought out as my first utterance: How did you get here?
She replied: I'm staying at Tammy's tonight.
Tammy lived on the other side of the neighborhood, and again I found myself looking about, expecting to see her, but Karla was alone.
Is everything all right? I asked.
I could see now that Karla was shaking, and it wasn't until later that I would realize she was simply nervous. Her eyes glistened with moisture, and I thought she might be about to cry.
She said: I just…wanted to say hi.
She bounced slightly on the balls of her feet as my concern for her deepened. Since the loss of my wife I had become detached from the happenings around town, but I understood from others that Karla's mom had settled down in the past year and cleaned up her act. I had helped Karla through many difficult times in the past, all resulting from her mom's behavior, and perhaps the troubles had returned. Stepping out on to the porch to comfort Karla, I reached for her and then I stopped, remembering our history. The realization must have shown on my face and in that instant Karla relaxed somewhat, giving me a weak smile, and I knew for certain. Though Karla was 25 years my junior, I had always teased her about being a day older than I was. Tomorrow was my birthday, meaning today was hers.
She was fourteen years old.
Some say that in certain circumstances time can literally stand still. Standing on the porch, looking into Karla's frightened eyes, my arms extended, two and a half years of memories flashed through my mind in a blur. Two and one half years of regretting, and nurturing, one of the most incredible memories of my life…
II.
Little Karla was starting her second year on the soccer team I coached. I loved the game and got involved coaching at the local association, even though I had no kids of my own. The team had shaped up the previous year into a pretty good side and was very successful, and Karla was well-established as a star striker. This was a particularly significant accomplishment given that she was the only girl on an all-boys team, playing in a boy's league. I broke the rules of convention, and of the club I served in, when I recruited Karla onto my boy's team, but I did it for two reasons; she had the capability, and she was an eleven year old child in need. Her parents were embroiled in a particularly bitter divorce, seemingly unaware or unconcerned about the harm their public displays of hatred and rage were causing their daughter. Then her father essentially disappeared, and her mother expressed her spite for her missing mate by becoming the town drunk, and the town slut. By the time I took Karla under my wing, she was completely withdrawn. Soccer was her salvation, and she poured her spirit into the game. She loved the sport, and it loved her back, giving her the outlet she needed to survive the turmoil that was her life. I could see the lack of focus and commitment that marked the girl's team in her age group simply added another frustration to Karla's list of many, and fought my club leadership for the right to get her the challenge that her abilities, and her needs, required.
Once the club relented, Karla was always the first to practice, and the last to leave, setting the standard for work ethic in a group of boys that included few slackers. Her mother could care less which team Karla played on as long as it didn't disrupt her own pathetic life, and when she became unreliable as transportation, I took the time to pick Karla up and take her home, quite often finding a highly intoxicated and ungrateful mother waiting upon our return.
It was not unusual for a week to go by with hardly a word between Karla and I. She was content in her silence, and I quickly learned not to press. In the course of the first year, Karla made it clear in her own ways that she understood and appreciated my efforts, and ever so slowly, she opened up. The first tiny smiles I got from her were like gold, and I cherished them as I worked for the next one. Then we started to talk, or more accurately Karla did, at times just telling me things at the most unexpected moment, as if the thoughts had to be released before she lost her nerve. Sometimes it was just a sentence or two, sometimes it was more, and I listened patiently, letting her set her own pace. Over time I deduced that her mother was drunk nearly every night and entertaining many different men, sometimes more than one visiting at a time. Her mother apparently made no effort to hide her behavior. While I didn't pry further, I could only imagine what Karla and her baby sister were exposed to in the small three room apartment they lived in. My loathing for her mother gradually turned to hatred, yet I could say nothing, knowing from an early effort that she would respond by taking Karla away. Unable to correct Karla's entire world, I did the best I could with the small part I controlled, offering her simple friendship and the outlet of soccer. As my reward, she started smiling again, at when she was on the pitch. I came to love Karla as if she was my own, and the protective net I cast around her became a personal obsession for me. I wanted to do everything possible to offer her a chance at the joy life should bring to a beautiful girl, now eleven years old.
Karla also rewarded my efforts in another way, one that meant a lot to me on a different level, considering the pride I took in the team I coached. Karla personally ripped apart every opponent we played, as if they somehow were the cause of all her worries. As our leading scorer, she was formidable in front of the goal. Our team traveled quite often, looking for the best competition, and Karla's mom was quick to let her go alone, no doubt eager to have one less child to care for over the weekend. It was never a problem to get one of the other mothers to accept Karla into their hotel room, and whenever we were on the road I looked after her as a father would. The time in question that caused my flashback was different, however. Quite different indeed. It was late in the fall, with State Cup looming big in the spring. When the season resumed after the winter break, we were going to make a run, I could feel it. My team had silently risen from the masses and, in my opinion, had the potential to win it all. To be ready, we needed to play the best competition available. So when I heard that the current state champion, plus the team thought to be a top contender, had both signed up for a tournament on the far side of the state, and that one more team was needed to make a bracket, I changed our plans and entered. Many of the parents howled at the sudden schedule change since it required overnight stays on short notice. To alleviate their concerns, I agreed to organize a way to take most of the players without their parents, since they had already made other commitments. Two other parents volunteered to help, and we split the team, each of them bunking four kids in their room, and me taking seven. My plan was simple: with seven players plus myself, we would rent two adjoining rooms and literally camp out.