In one tiny part of one of the new bubbles emerging from the bubble that is our particular universe, there is a place and time where you might exist and I might exist where I have a daughter named Janine.
Perhaps, in that tiny bubble, I may have been lucky with sports and found some success. As quarterback in high school, I’ll have converted to a tight end in college at the University of Minnesota, where I’ll bang heads and block like a demon, catching most of the passes they throw my way. I’ll be All Big Twelve, then a second-round draft choice, then I’ll make the team in St. Louis for the Brewers and get my chance to start when Rasheed Campbell blows out his left knee. Then I’ll never look back. Seven years later I’ll wind down my career as a backup on the Falcons, but that will be their Super Bowl year, so I’ll get my ring by, mostly, sitting on my butt.
It will be a nice way to spend my twenties. I’ll stay single and have a blast, though my body will take a beating. When I lose a couple of steps and the good times come to an end I’ll try to move to broadcasting, but that’s a lot harder than you’d think. I won’t be able to think that fast on my feet, so it won’t work out.
Still, I’ll feel like I have plenty of money for life as a grown-up, and you’d think I’d be happy; but it’s hard to be a has-been, no matter how much money you’ve saved. I’ll never marry, never have any kids, never grow up, really, and I’ll know it. Later in life I’ll be lonely and bored and broke. And thanks to all that head-banging work on the offensive line in my football career, I’ll literally be losing my mind. Eventually I’ll run out of money and run into trouble and only then will I have any regrets.
In another tiny part of another emerging bubble where you might exist, I’ll break my collarbone in the second game of my senior year of high school and by the time I’m back the season will be over—my football career along with it. But my left-handed pitching skills will be unfazed by my fractured right clavicle and I’ll pitch us to the state championship where we’ll lose by one unearned run. My fastball in the high eighties and my nice, straight change-up will earn me a free ride to Loyola University, where I’ll have four good years as a Billiken and five more in the minors before I’ll hang them up and get on with real life in the business world.
I’ll meet a woman who loves me and I, her. We’ll marry and have two sweet kids. I’ll have a good life and some nice minor-league memories from Tampa and Atlanta and Durham and Spokane. You’d think I’d be happy.
In another tiny part of another of my emerging bubbles where you might exist, the Golden Gophers will keep me at quarterback and I’ll do fine as the starter, though I’ll never be a star and I won’t make the NFL. I’ll knock around a bit in arena football and then swim up to the surface as the quarterback of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Once, in my nine years there, I’ll lead the Ticats to victory in the Grey Cup. In the Canadian Football League there’s room to pass and room to run, and I’ll do both, often.
I’ll meet a woman named Alene in my second season when we’ll beat the Alouettes with a lucky rouge. We’ll be celebrating at Yancy’s on Hanover Street and there she’ll be, dark hair and blue eyes, stunning and smart and ambitious. I’ll have had a good day on the ground, gaining ninety yards before taking a stinger and coming out of the game. She’ll have been there, rooting for the Alouettes, and she’ll have seen that hit I took. She’ll wonder how I am feeling. Just fine, I’ll say, though I’ll have a worrisome headache.
She’ll be an actor; a successful French Canadian who speaks four languages. I’ll feel lucky. By my third season we’ll be married. By my fifth season we’ll have a child, Janine. We’ll call her Jannie.
Janine Marie Larsen will be born two weeks early on July 21st, a Saturday, at four in the morning. Alene will have a rough time of it with a fifteen-hour delivery and then it will only get worse: Jannie’s feet, hands, and the epicanthal folds at the eyes all have a certain flaccidity, even for a newborn.
Trisomy 21, the doctor will say.
Down syndrome.
Alene will have been through ultrasound and blood tests and everything will have looked fine. But here will be Jannie, and that will be that. There’s a lot these kids can do, the doctor will say as Alene and I both cry. Really, they can accomplish a lot.
Really, the doctor will emphasize.
We’ll have a game that night at home, in old Ivor Wynne Stadium against the Alouettes, and Alene will insist I play. So I’ll go and do that, earning my paycheck with a couple of touchdown passes and a good enough night of football. I won’t remember much of the game. All I’ll be able to think about is: Down syndrome.
I’ll go right back to the hospital after the game and Alene will be weak but smiling and more beautiful than ever. There will be a picture the next day in the Hamilton Spectator of her with the baby—the whole city will be behind us. I’ll hold that baby and kiss her cheek as the cameras whir and click.
Two years will go by when I won’t play much: some knee surgery, a discectomy for a herniated disc, a couple more concussions. The docs will say it’s time to hang them up and so I will. That’s about the time that Alene will get the movie role she’s always wanted, filming in Vancouver. Our parting will be amicable. I’ll get Jannie and Alene will get visitation rights and there she’ll go, heading west.
I’ll have no reason whatsoever to be happy, but, holding Jannie, I will be.
There is another tiny part of a different bubble where Alene and I will stay together and things will go differently for Jannie. She’ll be normal and fussy and hungry at birth and she won’t stop being any of those things right through high school and college. She’ll get her brains from her mother, her athleticism from me, and win a full ride to play soccer at Rice, where she’ll major in physics. Then she’ll choose brawn over brains and turn pro for the Washington Whippets before joining the national team in the Global Cup. She’ll be a star and a household name after they beat the French on her hat-trick to win it all.
By that time, I’ll be coaching football at Buffalo State and happy enough with how I’ve reconciled myself to the paycheck and the fall from fame. But Hamilton will treat me well with a big ovation when I go there to see Jannie play a friendly against the Italians and she’ll have a great day, scoring a brace. We’ll have dinner afterward and she’ll be polite, but distant, and we’ll smile for the cameras and then I’ll go my way and she’ll go hers.
In a more important tiny bubble, Alene and I will do our best to raise Jannie to be everything she can be, Down syndrome be damned. After I hang them up, Alene’s career will prosper and we’ll do fine. We’ll move to Vancouver, where most of her work is, and I’ll spend a lot of time with Jannie. She’ll be a sweet kid, but there are heart problems and a leg that needs straightening, creating an uncertain future for her and me both. My football past and all those helmet hits will come back to haunt me: foggy mornings will turn into long, dark days, and I’ll worry about just how long I’ll still be me.
I’ll be in the dumps a lot, but I’ll need something to do, someone to be, so I’ll take care of Jannie, one day at a time. Today is today. There’ll be speech therapy sessions and school and all the rest. There’ll be some joy in this, some deep satisfaction. She’ll be my girl, my always girl.
In this bubble, even as I lose some recent memories, I’ll still remember certain moments from my past that were so perfect, where I was so tuned in—so fully one with the moment—that I captured them completely in my mind in slow-motion detail. I’ll remember them vividly, even when I can’t find my car keys. I will still feel the perfection of the pass to Elijah Depps deep in the corner of the end zone against the Argos. And I’ll still watch in awe that time I swear I guided the ball in flight to bend it around Ryan Crisps’ outstretched hands as he tried to intercept for the Blue Bombers, and instead the ball found Jason Wissen with no time left and we won.