Dear William by David Magee

Author:David Magee
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781637740026
Publisher: BenBella Books
Published: 2021-07-21T00:00:00+00:00

✶ Chapter Six ✶

Family Matters

We make a run for the hills: Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, elevation 1,850 feet, population about the same. Lookout Mountain looks out on the Tennessee Valley, where Chattanooga sits, a mid-size southern metro beginning to percolate. Here, on this mountain, I am not among my people. Which is the point. My children will not grow up where I grew up, or failed to grow up.

The people here are old money. We pretend to be. We remodel a 1928 home near the mountain’s west brow, leaving just enough cash left to join the country club and golf club after we pay the enormous private school tuitions. There’s one school for boys only and a sister girls’ school for Mary Halley. Both schools look like small colleges, with large endowments, diversity, and low student-teacher ratios.

It’s late summer, but a steady breeze lifts across the plateau and collides with the mountain, lowering our temperature six to eight degrees from the valley below. It’s just the cooling breath I need. I’ve signed another book contract, this one a biography on Ford Motor Company Chairman and CEO Bill Ford Jr., the great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford. And I’m committed to a plan: I’ll drink less, considerably; I’ll be faithful, absolutely; and I’ll meet or exceed the commitments of my fatherhood vow.

Nobody back home understands why we left. “Leave your beautiful home?” they asked, incredulous. “Take your kids out of school? And what about your businesses? What about historic preservation? And who will coach the soccer teams now?” I’d just smile awkwardly, then shake my head awkwardly, then smile awkwardly again. Of course, our departure would be perplexing. Wounded, troubled hearts beat out of view.

Dad cried when I visited to explain my need to move from the few square miles where I’ve lived my entire life. He’s retired, with less leverage to entice young men to sit for photo sessions, and he’s lonely now. I should feel empathy—I was lonely every day I spent in this house—but I don’t. I watch him cry. “You and your family are about the only good I have left,” he says between sobs. “I’m afraid you’ll never come back.”

“Probably not,” I say.

✶✶✶

It’s William’s first day of eighth-grade, full-contact football practice at McCallie, the boy’s school. He wants to earn a starting position and establish himself at this new school. But McCallie, with stately brick buildings and a century of tradition built upon its motto of “Honor, Truth, Duty,” is a proud football school. William is faster than ever, but last year, when William was sidelined, he didn’t master the game’s physical aspects.

I’m waiting for William in the school parking lot after the practice. I look in the rearview mirror and see him slowly walking toward the car, head down, a Gatorade bottle in hand.

He opens the car door and plunks down on the seat.

“Hey, sweet William,” I say.

Silence. William shuts the door and takes a long slug of Gatorade.

“How’d it go?”

He sniffles and chokes on the drink.

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