table manned by a navy recruiter. A small television set on that table played a looped video depicting the physical demands and mental fortitude required to become a Navy SEAL. Two minutes into the three-minute production, Tom was hooked.
The recruiter never gave Tom the hard sell. He’d caught the excitement exploding like fireworks in Tom’s eyes. Tom enlisted in the navy the day after he had his diploma in hand. College could wait, he explained to his somewhat surprised parents, but the youthful endurance and strength required to become a Navy SEAL could not.
Tom wasn’t the only Shilo youth to forgo college for military service. Roland Boyd, Tom’s childhood best friend and fellow soccer teammate, followed Tom’s lead and enlisted on the very same day. While Tom had surprised his parents by deciding to serve his country, Boyd had enlisted to spite his father’s wishes. But motivation didn’t matter for shit once you signed on the dotted line. Tom was dead set on the navy, and Roland, who was somewhat prone to seasickness, decided to enlist in the army, same as their other military-bound classmate, Kelly Kavanagh.
Kelly and Tom had dated for most of their senior year in high school. Tom’s decision to enlist might have influenced Kelly’s choice as well, but not because she wanted to keep their relationship going. Unlike Roland, Kelly didn’t come from money and claimed she needed the promised college financial assistance when she got out. Tom hadn’t spoken with Kelly since graduation and assumed she’d followed her “go to college” plans. He certainly hadn’t expected to see Kelly again when he arrived at a military base in Germany for training exercises with his SEAL platoon. He had no idea she’d re-upped for another six years with the army. It was a chance encounter for the two former sweethearts that altered both their lives profoundly and forever.
Their reunion in Germany might have been the first time Tom had laid eyes on Kelly since graduation, but his attraction to her had never waned. Less than a year after rekindling their romance, Kelly got her requested discharge, gave birth to a daughter, married the baby girl’s father, and changed her last name to Hawkins.
The marriage lasted only six years.
The divorce turned uglier than any battle Tom ever fought with a gun.
Unable to get what she had wanted from Tom, Kelly took every opportunity to poison the father-daughter relationship and drive a permanent wedge between them. Kelly believed Tom would eventually cave in to her demands—even if it took years to accomplish her goal. From the age of six on, much of what Jill learned about her father were the lies her mother told.
“Is it true, Daddy?” Jill had cried into the phone one evening from her home in Shilo. “Did you beg Mommy to have an abortion?”
Jill took in every falsehood Kelly drummed up about him and believed it to be true. Every lie and slanderous insult became Jill’s reality. On occasion, Jill would confront Tom about these stories.
“Did you do drugs?”
“No.”
“Did you ever hit me?”
“No.”
“Did you ever beat Mommy?”
“Never.”
Tom could fend off whatever Jill sent his way. How successfully? Well, he couldn’t know that for certain. But at least Jill cared enough to keep the questions coming. She had asked Tom, on many occasions, why her mother would say such terrible things about him if they weren’t true.
“Sometimes people just do and say hurtful things because they’re angry,” Tom would often say.
Unable to reveal to Jill the secret of her parents’ acrimony, Tom was forced to counterstrike Kelly’s bitter campaign to discredit him in other ways. After the divorce, he moved to Westbrook, much farther north, but also affordable given his hefty alimony and child support payments. He kept his guidance counselor job with Shilo High School, despite offers for better-paying gigs with substantially shorter commutes. He wanted to maintain close ties with Shilo, where he had bought a house, and where Kelly decided to remain after the divorce. He did this to stay as connected as possible to Jill. He also wrote to Jill, letters and cards, almost every week. Tom never missed an opportunity to acknowledge a birthday, graduation, recital, or other milestone event in Jill’s life. He had kept those letters coming, though they always went unanswered. In each he encouraged Jill to call him whenever she wanted, or needed. He reminded her that he’d be there for her—always.
His choice to invest the extra hours required to run a championship-caliber girls’ soccer program was made with the hope that he’d one day get the chance to coach his daughter, convinced the experience would strengthen their tenuous bond. When Jill shunned soccer for field hockey her freshman year, the standout middle school soccer star had sent him a very clear message:
Tom couldn’t explain his daughter’s sudden change of heart. Perhaps she had become curious enough about him to try out for the team against her mother’s well-verbalized wishes. Whatever Jill’s reasoning, coaching his daughter proved to be a healing step forward, but not the leap Tom hoped it would be. Jill was now heading into her junior year, but to Tom’s continued disappointment, their relationship still remained mostly stuck in the past.
With the Wildcats’ first game of the new season only two weeks away, time to prepare was in short supply. There were seventeen ponytails on the field, each chatting constantly with the ball in play. Tom listened to them talk. They sounded ready to win.
“Organize! Get to where the ball is going!”
“Crash the net!”
Tom blew his whistle and signaled the start of the day’s last drill. The summer sun stood high in the sky as the captains worked quickly to get the players into position.
A few girls had turned their attention elsewhere, stopping to watch a police car as it turned onto the road beside the practice field. Tom looked too. The cruiser’s lights were flashing, but the siren was silent. A pit formed in Tom’s stomach.
Even after all these years, police cars still gave Tom a sinking feeling.
Chapter 3
The black-and-white cruiser jumped the curb and pulled to an abrupt stop. To keep the narrow road clear, two of the cruiser’s wheels were parked up on the sidewalk. Strobe lights and the late-day sun let Tom see only shadow. He could not make out the face of the single police officer seated inside the vehicle. Tom knew the police weren’t here for what he feared most. They would have sent a lot more police cars. But his relief was fleeting.
Weighing at least 250 pounds and standing an imposing six feet six, Sergeant Brendan Murphy, dressed in a sports jacket and tie, made a graceless exit from his cruiser. Tom tried to keep his encounters with Murphy to a minimum. Back in the day, Tom’s numerous accomplishments had earned him many admirers and one very vocal detractor: the standout high school linebacker, Brendan Murphy. Murphy the Mountain, who thought all soccer players were pussies. The Beast of the East, who couldn’t stand that Tom’s sports accomplishments eclipsed his own. The only kid who knew in grammar school that he’d grow up to be a cop on the Shilo PD, just like his old man.
The girls stopped moving simultaneously and watched as Murphy approached the practice field. Murphy’s gait often mimicked that of a horseless cowboy, but today he didn’t have his usual swagger. Tom and Murphy crossed paths only occasionally—town meetings or student assemblies. Murphy had never looked so burdened.
“Captains, get the drill going!” Tom instructed. He glanced at assistant coach Vern Kalinowski, the middle-
