Family Matters by Deborah Bedford Read Free Book Online Page A

today.”
    â€œAbout what?” She came around the arm and handed him her favorite healthy concoction, a drink blended from cantaloupes and bananas.
    â€œI told Harv this morning I’m going to retire.”
    She’d stopped in mid-sip of her own drink and eyed him as if she were eying a stranger. “Buddy. No. You can’t.”
    â€œI have to, Andy. It’s the only choice I could make.”
    â€œIt isn’t.” Then fiercely. “It isn’t at all.”
    She couldn’t believe it. As she watched him sitting not quite so complacently now beside her, all she could think of were his desperate words from not so very long before.
    It’s my calling.
    â€œYou can’t do this,” she said softly, hoping the low volume of her voice would cover the frustration she was feeling, only it didn’t. “Why would you stop like this if soccer is something you’re so passionate about?” She had seen so many children fight so much harder to get their lives back. “You haven’t even tried yet.”
    He stood and glared at her. “Why do you say that? What do you know about what I’m feeling? You don’t want me this way, is that it?” She knew what he was thinking, but it made no difference. “You don’t want me. I’m not a professional soccer player, is that it?” This must have happened to him all too often before; women agreed to go out with him because he was a celebrity. And now he was obviously thinking she was no different from the others.
    â€œYou’ve got it wrong, Buddy. I’m against this because of how much you wanted it, because of how hard you worked to come back. Because of how hard we worked…”
    â€œTell me something.” His eyes were cold. “Did we spend all those evenings in that gym for me or for you? ”
    â€œYou tell me something,” she shot right back at him. “You told me that soccer is your calling . Does your calling come from yourself, or does it come from God?”
    â€œNow, that’s between me and God, isn’t it?”
    â€œYou were happy, weren’t you, Buddy? You were happy as long as the goals and the fame came easy for you. But now that you won’t be the star player anymore, now that you won’t make so many goals, now that you’re going to have to work for it, you give up. I think you’ve decided to take the easy way…”
    She faded out. She didn’t know what else she could say to him. It was impossible for her to watch him surrendering and not be angry about it. So maybe he wouldn’t be the best-loved player on the team anymore. But at least he’d be doing what he wanted to do. After all the work she’d done with children who might not ever be able to walk again, she couldn’t believe he was standing before her now, a whole man, telling her he was backing away. “Anything I ever did for you—” she told him now in a quavering voice “—was because I loved you.”
    There. She’d said it, after so many months. But she’d said it much, much too late for both of them. “All the kids I’ve watched fighting for their dreams, Buddy. I never thought that you would be the coward.”
    â€œAndy,” he said, his voice pleading now as he draped his jacket over his arm. “Don’t judge me by this. Unless you’ve played the game, you don’t realize when you’re running out of options.”
    â€œI’ve played plenty of games,” she said, tears streaming down her face as he stepped past her toward the door. “And I’m tired of them. It just isn’t in me to let somebody give up.”
    That had been almost six months ago. Andy hadn’t seen or heard from Buddy since. Her life was empty again except for her brother, Mark, and the caseload of children that kept her busy at Children’s Medical Center.

    â€œAll right!” Andy urged