Trophy Son(68)

I hugged my mother who smiled and, despite her crying, looked happier and healthier than I’d ever seen her. She touched the side of my shoulder, turned me like a dance partner and led me a few steps from the others.

She said, “Anton, I hope now you will have time to be bored. And I look forward to seeing what you do about that.”

This was meant to convey great meaning, be a triumphant moment, a truth shared between us and generations so powerful that we would shed tears of happiness. But what I felt was a dump truck grinding its gears with the sharp shriek of metal on metal as it raised its box bed to unload a great heap of guilt. She could unload it but I didn’t have to pick it up. I could walk right past. “Thanks, Mom.”

Kristie gave me a deep hug, lasting a moment longer than normal and that felt like family. Panos hugged me next and said, “Welcome to the real world.” I was happy to be there. A Greek whose ship had sailed to port on Ellis Island for a new start.

Gabe, Bobby and Adam were subdued and sullen, talking more with my family than with me. They all had new jobs lined up except Adam. Gabe had taken up with a twenty-three-year-old American based out of Florida who was ranked fifty-five in the world. Bobby had taken on a few baseball clients. Adam was headed to Nicaragua for an indefinite surf trip.

My father was most comfortable engaging with Gabe, asking a few questions and offering a million opinions. He and I rarely spoke since his Wimbledon disruption and even more rarely made eye contact.

Ana gave my family space to be with me, not staying right at my side but moving among us, selflessly lending vitality where it was needed. She was the only one who was uncompromisingly with me and who knew me the way I knew me. What I wanted most was to be alone with her but that would come later and this time was important too. She understood that and gave me patience.

For an hour we stayed there drinking water and sipping champagne. There were toasts but no one was under the illusion this was a celebration. It was a farewell. I needed to get back home to lie down. Gabe, Bobby, Adam and I parted like battalion mates shipping back stateside who would return to their small towns and try to exchange Christmas cards each year.

I told my parents, Panos and Kristie that I’d see them very soon, then Ana and I left to be with each other.

We spent a day in Manhattan resting and packing, then drove to a house in East Hampton that Ana had rented for the month of September as my retirement present.

The first few mornings I woke early and walked the beach by myself, counting steps. I walked four thousand three hundred paces one day, twenty-one hundred the next. The counting required concentration that gave me a headache and drove off relaxation to a faraway place but I couldn’t walk or be alone another way.

Then I’d stop to look over the water and think terrible thoughts. What did a specialized tool do when the job was done? Did they melt it down to use the material for something else, or did they just hang it on a picture hook for people to admire?

I thought about Paul Newman, a committed actor who evolved to be more than any one definition. He put his brand on things, not the other way around. Literally. Harder to do for an athlete, maybe, though Roger Staubach did it after quarterbacking the Cowboys. Staubach was the Paul Newman of sport, but how the hell did he do it?

By the second week I stopped counting steps and started walking more with Ana. She had hired a chef to come each day to cook lunch and dinner so we lived like honeymooners, lounging, talking, reading, exploring. I found more time with her was better. Even more would be even better.

In our third week we took a morning walk on the empty beach. We walked five minutes in silence as a happy complement to conversation. In the sky three planes left a skywriting contrail, weaving the lines among each other into a pattern. There is a spiritual nature to the number three. Father, Son and Holy Ghost. A trinity. Two can make a third.

I took Ana’s hand and found myself on one knee looking up at her. She lifted her sunglasses above her forehead and looked back, amused, like I might recite Shakespeare.

I didn’t have a plan, didn’t have specific thoughts, I just had a feeling. Given a season to deconstruct the feeling into specific thoughts it would have been these: What matters most in our time on Earth is our relationships with others. My relationship with you is the only one that has ever been healthy, good, grounded in who I really am, the only one to make me happy, and I think I make you happy too. This relationship gives meaning to my life and I want to spend the rest of the time that I have nurturing us, above all else.

From my knee I said, “Ana, will you marry me?”

Right away it was clear she did not expect this. She looked no longer at me but through me while her mind saw images of me and us and she worked through life questions in flashes of possibilities, evaluating. There would be no specific thoughts for her either, just the feeling conjured within seconds.

But the seconds ticked by, like a player bouncing the ball before the service toss. Each second landed with a thud in my ears while I looked at her and she looked through me, her head at a slight angle as though I might have been only an apparition and not real.

I had moved prematurely in the craze of my love and retirement, and in our time together now she would be unnatural, like a cornered animal retreating from a curious and hungry aggressor. So I feared.

It was a diabolic ten seconds before she recovered from the stun. Then through her rush of feeling she arrived at the answer that made her eyes smile moments before the smile spread to her mouth. “Yes.”