The Hardest Cut by Jamie Bennett (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

weren’t heading home.  Instead, we piled into the truck together to go to the Woodsmen team practice facility, a huge orange building pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  I had hung around outside of the main gate before, to get autographs and to see the players coming and going, and it was a real thrill to drive right in as Ben waved to the guard.  I waved too, just out of excitement.  It even made me briefly forget that my brother’s car was a brown, crispy marshmallow now.

“Tessa, look!” I said, and pointed to the list of names painted on the wall as we walked inside.  “Those are the Woodsmen players who are in the hall of fame.  Look how many there are.  Isn’t that amazing?  I wish I’d been able to see all of them on the field.”  Ben left us shortly after, prying Tessa off his leg, and she and I walked around admiring the place—well, I admired, and she walked sadly because her dad was gone.

The two of us found a quiet spot and played with a football, tossing it and kicking it.  I asked her about her day and she answered with nods or headshakes.  She liked the teachers at day care, but she didn’t play with anyone.  She didn’t know the other kids, she indicated, and from the little information I got, I thought that she was probably on her own for most, if not all, of her time there.

When she got bored with the football and my interrogation, I found some yoga mats and we stretched together, which I really needed.  She didn’t as much, since the human body at age four seemed to be made of elastic.

“Oof!  This one hurts,” I complained, trying to get into a side split.  Tessa giggled from where she already sat on the floor with her legs completely splayed.  Slowly, I slid down to join her.  “I made it!  Give me five.”  She did.  “Hey, Tessa?  You said ‘bye’ to me once, at the bookstore.  Do you think you could talk to me again?  Maybe?” I asked.

She considered me seriously for a moment before nodding.

“Oh, good!  I’m so glad.  I don’t mind when you don’t feel like using words, but sometimes I get tired of only hearing myself.”

She giggled, and I laughed, too.  It felt good after being so worried about my car.  I was still worried, but at least I could laugh a little again.  We kept stretching, and I tickled her, and she did the same to me, which cracked both of us up.  After a while, she started to yawn and get very sleepy eyes.  I amused myself by braiding her hair and telling stories about the Woodsmen players whose names were painted at the entrance, and she leaned against me and relaxed.

But then my phone told me that I had a text, and when I read it, my lighter, happier feeling disappeared.  “That was a message from my mom,” I announced when Tessa looked up at me.  “I have to go to dinner at her house on Friday.”  There was no way that I could get Anthony’s car repaired that quickly, even if I had the ready cash to do it, so it would be the time to fess up, too.  It was going to be pretty bad.

“Your mommy?”

I looked up and tried not to let my face show my excitement too much.  Tessa had spoken to me again!  “My mom invites me and my brother over for dinner every week,” I explained.  “She lives pretty close to my condo.  Far from you, though.”

“My mommy is far,” she replied.  I wondered where she was.  “I have a grandma and a mimi,” Tessa continued, so quietly that I had to duck closer to hear her.

“Do you?  I don’t have either, not anymore.”

“They’re far, too.  Grandma Kathy is in Arizona and we can visit her, but I won’t see Mimi again because she’s too far.”  Her little face crumpled up, like she was suddenly close to tears.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly.  She looked at me and then put my hands back on her head.  “You want me to play with your hair?  Ok.  I’ll do a Dutch braid.  I only have one extra elastic.”  It looked like Ben had tried to do something with her hair that morning, but mostly it was a tangled knot.  After I finished my styling work, she curled up on the mat and I lay next to her, thinking as she napped.  I thought about dinner at my mom’s house, and I thought about making amends.  I thought about Tessa’s mommy and where she was, far away from her little girl.  How could she stand it?

“Gaby?”

I opened my eyes, confused.  Ben was looking down at me, and I realized that I had fallen asleep next to Tessa on the ground.

“Ready to go?” he asked, and scooped up his daughter.

“I’m ready,” I agreed, and got up very slowly, feeling a little off-kilter.  I had been having a strange, unsettling dream about Ben standing in the end zone at Woodsmen Stadium.  I had been there too, wearing the official Woodsmen cheerleader uniform.  I had really rocked that halter top.

But the unsettling thing was that in the dream, Ben had been kissing me.  Kissing me like he meant it, and I had been holding onto him and kissing him right back.  I followed slowly behind them as they walked back to his truck, and I rubbed my hip and shook the image from my mind.

Chapter 6

“Hallie, I’m so sorry.”

My friend sniffed into the phone.  “That’s ok.  I mean, it’s not ok, but we didn’t expect his dad to hold on for so long.  It feels like maybe he’s at peace?  I hope so.”

My eyes welled up in sympathy.  “I’m sure of it.”

“Gunnar’s pretty much a mess,” she said of her husband, and I bet that he was.  He and his dad had been really close.  “We got