Ella was Ethan’s eldest daughter-it was hard to believe she was already ten. Sticking with the family naming tradition, she was named after Ella Grasso, the first woman governor of Connecticut.
There were a lot of whispering and finger points in my direction. I could tell the presence of her television-star uncle made Ella the star of her group of friends. She led the troops toward me, and I was soon surrounded by a group of fourth graders.
Ella played proud spokesman, introducing each wide-eyed friend. I smiled and shook their nervous hands. They spent a few minutes questioning me about my capture. The Q amp;A session boiled down to fifteen different ways to ask me, “Were you scared?” Which was pretty similar to how the grown-up media works. I answered with heroic cool, but the truth was, hell yeah I was.
I sensed it would impress Ella’s friends for her famous uncle to call for some one-on-one time. This also fit nicely into my agenda, which was to figure out why her father was avoiding me. The kids scrambled away, but not before making plans to meet Ella at the bumper cars in twenty minutes.
“So how come you guys haven’t come over to see me?” I asked calmly.
Ella just shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I had extracted answers out of those who had refused to talk under torture, but Ella Warner was more difficult to crack. “Are your parents mad at me?”
Shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Have you guys been busy?”
Shrug. “I don’t know.”
“What did you think of the game last night?”
“It was awesome,” came an excited response. I thought I might be making progress.
“Did your dad say anything about me after the game?”
Shrug. “I don’t know.”
Back to the drawing board. I knew I needed a more direct source. “So where is your dad?”
Ella turned all the way around twice, viewing the fairgrounds. I couldn’t tell if she was looking for her father or trying to make herself dizzy. Then she pointed. “Over there!”
I followed her gaze, which led me to my brother. He was chatting with two burly flat-topped football players. Also present was my sister-in-law, Pam.
“Let’s go see your dad,” I said to Ella, already limping in his direction.
Chapter 25
Ella, on a probable sugar high, left me in the dust.
“Look who I found! Look who I found!”
Ethan’s eyes left his daughter and locked on me. I wasn’t getting a “happy to see me” vibe.
I led with the headline, “I felt compelled to come over and thank you for all your get-well wishes. Your kindness has been excessive.” I was going to clear the air or add another broken bone to my medical resume. Maybe both.
Ethan told Ella to run along and get some ice cream. Not a good sign. He reached into his faded jeans and pulled out crinkled money and instructed her to take the younger children, Sandy and Eli, with her. He then hastily sent his players on their way.
Pam, sensing the imminent showdown, gave her husband a quick kiss on the cheek, perhaps intended to diffuse the situation, and departed with the children. She glanced back twice with a concerned look on her face. Only Ethan and I remained-the battlefield was clear.
He turned to me. “I’ve been busy, I apologize. I know you’re used to the world revolving around you, JP, so it must be a shock to your system to learn that you’re not the center of the universe.”
“Cut the crap, Ethan. You’ve been avoiding me like the Bubonic Plague.”
“I’m a history teacher, JP. The Bubonic Plague was caused by rats, not egomaniacs who think they can drop in and out of everybody’s lives whenever they feel like it.”
“I’m sorry you chose a life where the only time you leave the safe confines of Rockfield is on a school bus. I didn’t choose it for you.”
“Nobody said anything about your job.”
“Spare me.”
“Spare you?” Ethan asked with disbelief. “The key word is you. It’s always about you, JP, isn’t it? You couldn’t care less it kills another little piece of Mom every time you run off trying to get yourself killed. How about sparing her?”
“I don’t have to defend my career to you.”
“That’s because you aren’t the one who has to go over there in the middle of the night. You should have seen her expression when she turned on the news and saw a photo of her son plastered on the screen with a face beaten purple by a bunch of terrorists. And you weren’t the one who sat with Dad after he came out of cancer surgery.”
“I got him the best care and doctors possible.”
“Writing a check isn’t the same as being there.”
I tried to speak, but Ethan evoked his big-brother rights and talked over me, “And you weren’t the one who had to talk Noah down off Samerauk Bridge last year. He was going to kill himself. But did you care? You took us to France, so I guess everything is fine.”
I knew Noah was in a bad place, but the depths shocked me. Kill himself? I filled with guilt. “I didn’t know.”
“Because you weren’t here!”
“I’m not the first child to move away from the nest.”
He shook his head like I just wasn’t getting it.
“Proximity has nothing to do with it. Just because you take off to God-knows-where doesn’t stop Mom and Dad from thinking about you … worrying about you … contacting you. Their love for you is unconditional. Sometimes I wonder if it works both ways.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You want to talk about fair? Dad gave his heart and soul to this town, and when it came time to dedicate a field, who does the school board vote to name it after?”
I knew where this was headed, but I let him continue venting, “That’s right, they named it after JP Warner, a man whose main contribution was getting the hell out as fast as he could and never looking back. You didn’t even show up for the ceremony.”
“Stop playing this off on Dad,” I shot back, angrily. “This is about you and your fragile ego. You chose a life, just like I chose a life, but the only difference is I don’t need an award for it.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
We were now face-to-face, a crowd had gathered around us like when a fight was about to break out in junior high. We had become the most popular exhibit.
“Maybe you can get a Mr. Perfect award. The perfect life with the perfect wife. The perfect family man who always does the perfect thing with his perfect kids. When you receive that honor, I promise I’ll show up!”
I was getting close to adding missing teeth to my medical resume.
“Why don’t you go do your usual leaving act, JP? It’s going to happen sooner or later, anyway. There will never be enough attention and spotlight here for you.”
“You better get used to me, big brother, because I’m going to be here for a long, long time.”
As if she sensed a calamity about to happen, Pam returned with the children. She was a lot like a UN peacekeeping force-good intentions, but not enough firepower to stop anything significant from happening. She hugged me-I was unable to determine if it was a warm greeting, or she was trying to protect me-and then after we traded a couple pleasantries, she invited me to a barbecue at their house on Labor Day.
Ethan turned and began walking away in a huff.
I stood awkwardly with Pam and the children. We made small talk about the weather, and I discussed the impending return to school with my nieces and nephew. Acting as if what just happened didn’t happen, seemed like the best way to proceed.
Finally, Pam broke the delusion, “JP, you just have to understand that Ethan puts in all the blood and guts around here. He’s done all the dirty work with your mom and dad, and Noah is no picnic, either. Then you walk in like the prodigal son and he gets shoved to the side like yesterday’s news. Can you blame him for being a little hurt? He’s only human.”