Daddy's Game Page 9

  Several people gasped and groans were heard over the broadcast.

  “That’s gotta hurt, Steve. You hate to see that happen,” the broadcaster said.

  “You’re right, Matt. First game back, the defending Conference Champions, he’s got one touchdown on the day and they may be about to lose Natron Dakers.”

  “And that’s going to hurt them.”

  The tape of the injury played over and over again until Carmen finally had to look away. Swallowing hard, she walked over to the window to see what was happening on the field and a sinking feeling overtook her as she watched Natron leave the field on a cart.

  Chapter Eleven

  Natron stretched his arms out in front of him, his fingers clasped the football, and he pulled it in. His cleats pressed into the turf, planting his left leg and he turned toward the end zone, all of it happening in a nanosecond. But before he could make the cut, the opposing team’s cornerback ploughed into him and buckled his knee sideways.

  Natron heard a snap and felt his knee go in a direction that was foreign to him. A stabbing pain gripped his left leg and he fell to the ground. Crumpled on the field, he tried to catch his breath. He rolled around, holding his knee at a ninety-degree ankle, but every time he changed position, a shooting pain exploded in his leg.

  Right away the Vipers’ training staff surrounded him, forming a circle with him at the center, shielding him from the voyeuristic cameras of the media. After answering a number of their questions and trying various movements, Natron realized he was unable to stand. Once that was ascertained, the training staff sent for the cart, a stretcher on wheels.

  Dazed, Natron replayed what had just happened over and over again in his mind. Had he torn his ACL? Was that what he’d heard breaking? Whatever it was, it was something bad. Healthy most of his career, Natron had never had an injury sideline him before. At most he’d dealt with cramps and the occasional pulled muscle. But everything about this situation told him this injury would prove to be more serious.

  While waiting for the cart to take him to the locker room, he started telling himself he’d only pulled a tendon. With a few ice packs and rehabbing, he could be back in time for their game against the Lions in two weeks.

  The trainers tried to get him to straighten his leg, but each time he did, it caused him excruciating pain. Normally he would have had more of an awareness of the cameras and tried to control his reactions, but he was in such misery that he didn’t care.

  He winced when they helped him onto the cart. One of the trainers rode in the back with him to stabilize his throbbing leg. Reminding himself to be tough, Natron bit back the profanity that threatened to spew from his lips. Instead, he waved and smiled at the fans through gritted teeth. Rising to their feet, the crowd responded with a rousing cheer and he inhaled their adulation and support.

  Upon entering the tunnel, Natron attempted to bend his leg, but the trainer stopped him, saying, “Keep it like this for now. We’ll have an x-ray in a minute and an MRI at the hospital if necessary.”

  Natron nodded and closed his eyes, reliving the play over and over again. His leg had been extended and, with his cleat planted in the turf like it had been, his knee had been in a vulnerable position right when he’d been hit.

  The stadium housed a special section dedicated to medical care, which was where the team doctor and trainers set up the x-ray machine and took pictures of the injured leg from several angles. While Natron waited for the results, the staff flipped on a monitor so he could watch the game being played on the field. As he watched he thought of how cocky he’d been on the field earlier. He’d taunted the defender covering him, his own words now coming back to haunt him. “You can’t cover me, son. Ain’t nobody can cover me!”

  Natron let out a deep breath, wishing he could take back those words. They made him feel foolish now. Only moments ago he’d felt invincible. But Zeus had fallen off Mount Olympus, and it was more than his knee that was injured. His pride had taken a hit as well.

  He made himself focus on the game. The Vipers were beating the Cougars 13-7 at the end of the second quarter. At least they were winning.

  After what seemed like an hour, the team doctor came back in the room.

  “So, Doc, when can I get back out there?” Natron asked, flashing his money grin.

  “Natron, I’m sorry to tell you this… It looks like your season’s over, son.”

  “What?” Natron’s throat began to close and his heart threatened to come out of his chest, it was beating so hard. He hung onto the sides of the examination table because the room seemed to be spinning. Surely it couldn’t be as bad as all that. “I don’t understand. It’s feeling better already,” Natron said, full of false bravado.

  “That’s because you aren’t moving it.” He held up the x-ray for Natron to see. “Here’s your tibia, the lower leg. And here’s the ball socket that holds your knee in place.”

  Natron tried to focus on what he was seeing on the cloudy black and white film as the walls around him were still moving.

  “The bone is broken off here,” the doctor pointed with a pen. “Right down the center of the ball socket.”

  The information shocked to his system. This couldn’t be happening to him.

  “So I have a broken knee?”

  “Essentially. You can’t bear weight on it, and you’ll need surgery to repair it.”

  “When?”

  “The sooner the better. Preferably before it gets any more inflamed. We’re calling the orthopedic surgeon now. Don’t worry, Dr. Whitaker’s the best there is and Buddy keeps him on payroll.”

  The doctor clapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry to see this happen. You okay? Got any questions?”

  Natron’s mind was whirring a hundred miles an hour and for once he was speechless. All he could do was shake his head.

  “Alright. The ambulance will be here shortly. We’ll get you on over to the hospital where you’ll meet Dr. Whitaker. He’ll be able to answer your questions better than I can as he’ll be the one doing the surgery. Anyone you’d like me to call?”

  Carmen. She was watching the game with James and their friends. His poor girl must be worried about him. He quickly gave the doctor her number and downed a few anti-inflammatory pills handed to him by one of the medical staff.

  Lying back on the bed, he watched in disgust as the Los Angeles Cougars come from behind and won the game 21-13.

  Chapter Twelve

  Carmen rushed through to the parking lot and was opening her car door when her phone rang. It was the team doctor telling her which hospital Natron was being taken to and that was about it. When she’d asked about his condition, he’d clammed up, mumbling something about confidentiality.

  She climbed into the new Jetta Natron had bought her and drove toward UT Southwestern Medical Center. As she drove, her phone made continual ‘bing’ noises as dozens of text messages were delivered. While she knew it was a bad idea to check them while driving, her eyes darted to her phone once and a message from James was displayed on the screen.

  Broken knee. Wow. Tough luck. Tell Natron we’re all behind him.

  Carmen’s eyes widened. A broken knee? How did James know Natron’s knee was broken and she didn’t have a clue? She’d tried to get the information out of the doctor and failed. She wondered if it was true, and if it was, why she seemed to be the last to know.

  She’d been left out of the loop, and all of a sudden she felt like a child with her nose pressed against the glass watching other children play at a party she wasn’t invited to. Natron was her man, and she wished she’d been there with him, that she’d found out when he did. She wanted to be there to comfort him, help him, to be a part of his life. An icy shiver ran over her skin, but she kept driving.

  Once Carmen arrived at the hospital, she had a difficult time finding Natron. Once the staff had learned she wasn’t technically ‘family,’ they became tight-lipped after that and all she could get out of them was the runaround. Apparent
ly being a patient’s girlfriend gave you zero clout, especially when your boyfriend was a major celebrity.

  She finally gave up and went to the vending machine, dropped in some coins, and comforted herself with a chocolate bar and a coke. Sitting down in the emergency room waiting room, she picked up a well-worn three-month-old issue of People magazine and flipped through it while she ate.

  When she’d consumed the whole magazine and her snack, she sighed and settled in to watching some show about prospectors looking for aquamarines on the Weather Channel. Just as she was about to give up and go home, a nurse appeared and called her name. Jumping up, Carmen crossed the room in record time and practically accosted the woman.

  “Carmen Harris?” the tiny blond nurse wearing peach-colored scrubs asked.

  Carmen nodded. “Yes, that’s me.”

  “I’ll need to see some ID,” the nurse said, and Carmen realized this woman was a petite little bulldog the hospital had assigned to keep Natron’s fans and the paparazzi at bay.

  Digging through her purse, Carmen retrieved her driver’s license and handed it to the woman with a begrudging amount of respect.

  “Alrighty then, if you’ll just come back with me.”

  The nurse opened the door and led her into a room where Natron lay on a hospital bed, dressed in a white hospital gown flecked with blue stars. Whether it was the gown or the setting, she wasn’t sure, but something had made her usually larger-than-life daddy appear small.

  When he opened his mouth, she could tell he’d been taking some sort of pain medicine. His words looped and floated around in the air. “Carmen! Come here, babygirl. I’m glad you’re here.”

  She smiled wanly. “Where else would I be, Natron?” she asked and bent to kiss him.

  His eyes were glassy and he was calmer than she expected. “Broke my ball socket,” he said, the corners of his mouth pulling back toward his ears.

  “That’s awful. What are they going to do?”

  “Surgery. Tomorrow.”

  “So soon?”

  “Yeah. Gotta fix me up so I can get back on the field.” He paused. “You gotta see this x-ray. It’s wicked bad, this break.”

  “Okay,” she said, sitting down in a chair next to his bed. “Can I get you anything? Are you hungry or thirsty?”

  “Nah, thanks, babe.” He motioned to a large cup filled with ice water. “They’re takin’ real good care of me.”

  Carmen had been worried Natron would be upset about the injury, but it appeared the morphine drip had quashed his concerns for the moment, which was a relief. She waited until he fell asleep before even considering going home. The nurse in the peach scrubs came in and showed Carmen the x-rays, went over his treatment plan, and gave her instructions for coming back for the surgery the next day. Though Carmen considered spending the night, she decided to go home so she could pack a bag for Natron and herself. He’d be in the hospital for at least one night and she’d stay with him then to make sure he got everything he needed.

  Leaving the hospital, she walked down the deserted fluorescent-lit hallway. The click of her heels against the laminate floor echoed through the hallways and she was reminded why hospitals always seemed eerie late at night. When she opened the exit door, she took a deep breath of the midnight air, and despite a phone full of messages from friends, Carmen felt completely alone.

  * * *

  The next morning at 6, Carmen opened the door to Natron’s room to find a dark-haired woman standing beside him holding his hand. The woman was clucking over him and he seemed to know her.

  Natron lit up when he saw Carmen and waved to her. “Hey, babygirl.”

  The woman turned and pasted on a fake smile. “Hello. You must be Carmen.” Even at this ungodly hour of the morning, the woman was as put together as a model about to walk the runway. Her hair was curled so perfectly that Carmen wondered if it was a wig. Her creamy café au lait skin reminded Carmen of a frothy drink one could order at Starbucks, and she wore a well-cut beige pantsuit that set off her flashing amber eyes.

  “Yes,” Carmen stammered, confused.

  “I’m Veronique, Natron’s mamma.”

  “Oh!” Cutting her eyes at Natron, Carmen smiled sweetly. “He didn’t tell me you were coming.”

  “Sorry, babe. I was a bit out of it last night.” Natron gave her his most pitiful puppy-dog eyes.

  “That’s fine,” Carmen said, feeling out of place.

  “Well, of course I’m here. My baby’s having surgery, I had to come take care of him.” Veronique said, pinching Natron’s cheek.

  Great, Carmen thought. Then what am I supposed to do?

  Carmen took a deep breath and reminded herself that this was not about her. It was Natron who was injured and having surgery. She needed to focus on him, helping him as best she could.

  “So when are they coming to take you to surgery?” Carmen asked.

  “Any minute now,” his mother answered.

  “Do you need anything?” Carmen asked.

  “I’m really thirsty, but they told me I can’t have anything to drink,” Natron replied.

  “Carmen, why don’t you go to the nurse’s station and see if he could have just a few ice chips?” Veronique asked.

  Carmen agreed and walked down to the nurse’s station. She found a nurse who agreed he could have a couple of ice chips and gave her a small paper cup half-filled with tiny ice pellets from the kitchen.

  By the time she walked back to Natron’s room, it was empty. Natron was gone and apparently his mother had gone with him.

  “Ugh!” Carmen muttered under her breath and went to find him. Of course she ran into the same trouble she had the night before, not being ‘family.’ She finally gave up and asked directions to the surgery waiting room.

  When she got there, she found Natron’s mother sitting there smugly reading a magazine.

  “Hey,” Carmen said.

  Peering over the top of her Vogue, Veronique said, “There you are. I had no idea where you’d run off to.”

  Carmen thought her head might explode. “I-I-I went to get him some ice chips, as you requested.”

  There it was, the fake smile again. “Well, I don’t know where you went to get them. We looked everywhere for you… He’s in surgery now.”

  Carmen just stood there staring.

  “It should take a few hours. If you like, I’ll give you a call once it’s over.”

  Planting herself in the seat across from Natron’s mother, Carmen said, “Oh, no, I’m fine, Veronique. I’ll wait.” Then she opened her phone and began checking emails.

  “Suit yourself,” Veronique said dismissively.

  Carmen had heard Natron talk about his mother. Veronique had raised him as a single mother, the two of them against the world. Clearly his mother didn’t relish an outsider disrupting their little dyad. Carmen wished she could talk to Natron about his mother, but this wasn’t the time for him to worry about his mother being jealous of his girlfriend.

  When the doctor came out to discuss the surgery, Veronique practically shoved Carmen out of the way, then did most of the talking. Fortunately, Dr. Whitaker made a point of including Carmen in the conversation as he explained that he installed a stainless steel plate along the outside of Natron’s tibia, stretching up along the curve of the ball joint. The plate along with the screws used to secure it would become a permanent part of him and would serve as a sort of internal cast so an external plaster cast would not be necessary.

  He showed the women an x-ray of the plate now implanted in Natron’s leg, complete with the eight screws that went through the plate into the bone to hold it in place. Dr. Whitaker told them, “The stability of the knee is of utmost importance for an athlete like Natron, and the plate in his knee will give him the extra support he will need when putting the kind of pressure on it he does on a regular basis. Keeping that in mind, I did everything I could to save as much of the cartilage around the knee as possible. I had to cut the lateral meniscus in order to
install the plate, so he will have to recuperate from that as well.”

  “What’s the meniscus?” Veronique asked.

  “The cartilage around the knee.”

  “Oh.” Veronique’s brows knitted together.

  “It’s too early to tell how much overall cartilage and ligament damage has been done. The first thing we have to do is heal the bone. That’s the biggest injury, and while he’s healing from that, the cartilage and ligaments should heal up as well, especially since he’s young and in such good condition.”

  “Will he be able to play football again?” Carmen asked.

  “With the ball socket being broken the way it was, there are bound to be cartilage issues, so I can’t make any guarantees his knee will ever get to where it was before, but I hope it will. We won’t be able to really assess the situation until he’s able to bear weight on it again and that will take a few months.”

  Veronique and Carmen thanked him and he gave them his card and told them to call him if they had any questions or if Natron had any problems. Natron would stay in the hospital for two days to be sure there were no complications, and Carmen had to hold back a chuckle when Dr. Whitaker said Natron would be going home in a wheelchair. He was not going to like that.

  For the first two and a half months, Natron wasn’t allowed to put any pressure on his injured knee. After that, he’d be allowed to put fifty pounds of weight on the knee and slowly work his way back to standing on it. It sounded like they had a long road ahead of them, but Carmen vowed to be by Natron’s side. They could do this together, and it would probably bring them closer.

  Carmen and Veronique waited another hour before being told which room Natron had been moved to. Carmen went to her car to retrieve the bags she’d packed for Natron and herself. She knew Natron well enough to bring his laptop, his headphones, and his favorite sneakers for his trip home. All of that made his bag super heavy and she was out of breath by the time she found his room and walked through the door.