her personal stuff. She decided not to kill him, at least not now.
Her family was finally together.
“Gracie, take it to the goal!”
Coach Wally was having a cow. So Gracie turned on the speed, faked out two defenders, drove to the goal, and blasted the ball just inside high left post. It was Gracie’s third goal, and they were still in the first quarter. The other girls mobbed her.
The team had made it into the playoffs. Luck would have it, their first-round opponents were the Raiders. The snot’s team. Her butthead father, Mr. Creep himself, was again standing on the sidelines, wearing a slick suit, and drinking from a big plastic mug. Mrs. Creep was standing next to him like a prison warden. You’d think the big jerk would know when to leave well enough alone. Well, you’d be wrong.
“Pa-a-a-a-a-nty che-e-e-ck!”
The players and spectators instantly fell silent. Brenda groaned. “Not again.”
This time, though, was different for Gracie. She didn’t feel as if someone had punched her in the stomach. She didn’t bite her lower lip and fight back the tears. She didn’t wish to die or that she were bigger and older so she could beat the guy up or that Dad would do something or that Elizabeth Brice, Attorney-at-Large, would “Oh shit, Gracie!” Brenda said. “Your mother!”
Gracie turned away from the big jerk and saw her mother marching straight across the soccer field and past the players and directly toward Mr. Creep; her fists were clenched. Gracie heard Sam’s high-pitched voice from the sideline: “All right, a fight!” Gracie looked over and saw Dad running after Mom, but she would be punching out Mr. Creep before he could stop her. Gracie heard Sally’s gleeful voice behind her: “Your mother’s gonna kick his big butt into next week!”
Fifteen days ago, Gracie would have paid to watch this fight. But she was different now. She ran over and cut off her mother.
Elizabeth Brice was no longer a forty-year-old rage-filled lunatic. She was no longer a tough-broad white- collar criminal defense lawyer willing to wear short skirts to win trials. She was no longer hard and mean and ruthless.
But she was still a mother.
And the most dangerous creature on earth is a mother whose child has been threatened, insulted, harassed, or bullied.
Elizabeth Brice was going to punch that big son of a bitch in the mouth.
“Mom, stop!”
Grace suddenly appeared; she grabbed Elizabeth’s arm and pulled her to a stop just as John ran up.
“Mom,” Grace pleaded, “I can handle this.”
“No, Grace, I’m your mother. I’ll handle it!”
“No,” John said, “I’m your father, I’ll handle it!”
“No! Both of you-listen! I’m a big girl now. I can handle it myself!”
Elizabeth stared into her daughter’s blue eyes. Her anger dissipated as if blown away by the soft breeze. Grace was different, too.
“You are a big girl, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Mother, I am.”
“You’re sure you don’t want me to beat this guy up?”
“I’m sure.”
John said, “Can I beat him up?”
“No! I’ve got it covered.”
Elizabeth smiled. And then Grace smiled. And Elizabeth Brice saw in her daughter’s eyes that Grace did indeed have it covered. She leaned close to her daughter and whispered, “Make it good.”
Mom and Dad walked off the field, and the cute referee blew his whistle to restart the game. Gracie quickly stole the ball from a Raider and then kicked the ball on a high arch over the defenders to Brenda, who was open along the Raiders’ sideline. Brenda controlled the ball and drove it up the sideline. Gracie’s mind quickly plotted out her angle of attack. Precise timing was required to pull this off. Gracie cut across the field and ran toward the Raiders’ sideline, to a point that would intersect the ball and…
Brenda kicked the ball up the sideline just as Gracie arrived at the exact point, her concentration focused like a laser beam on the ball, now driving the laces of her white Lotto soccer shoe into the ball, with all her might, sending the ball forcefully — right at Mr. Creep’s head.
He bailed. The plastic mug went flying, ice and liquid splattered all over his expensive suit, and he hit the ground hard on his big butt. The other parents laughed out loud. Mrs. Creep was grinning down at him.
Gracie walked over to the big jerk.
“I’m a girl.” She put her thumbs inside the waistband, like she was going to pull her shorts down. “You wanna check?”
Mr. Creep shook his head.
“I didn’t think so.”
Gracie rejoined the game.
Sam was standing on the Tornadoes’ sideline; he was terribly disappointed. Dangit, he wanted to see a real fight.
He had cried when Gracie came home because she wasn’t dead or nothing. It was good to have a big sister again. Just the same, he hoped she didn’t find out that he had gone through all her personal stuff in her room while she was gone.
Kate Brice was standing next to Sam. Thirty-eight years late, but she finally had her fairy tale marriage. She looked down at her husband. She had been wrong: Ben Brice had come back.
The war was finally over for Ben Brice.
He sat in the wheelchair, Kate’s hand resting on his shoulder and Buddy resting on the ground beside him. The doctors had said he could come to the game but only if he stayed in the chair. He had started to argue but decided against it; he would’ve come even if they had to roll the hospital bed out here. Gracie was safe. And he had found his peace.
He looked up to John and Elizabeth. They had survived this and were stronger for it. They were one now.
“Thanks, Dad,” John said. “Sorry about shooting you.”
“You weren’t the first.”
Elizabeth leaned down, kissed Ben on the cheek, and whispered in his ear: “Thank you, Colonel Ben Brice, for saving Grace.”
Ben looked out at Gracie racing down the field. His past had in fact come back-West Point; Special Forces school; Commander Ron Porter; Captain Jack O. Smith; Sheriff J.D. Johnson; Lieutenant Roger Dalton; Major Charles Woodrow Walker; Quang Tri and the china doll-but not to haunt Gracie, as he had feared. His past had come back to save her. The pieces of his life that had never seemed to fit together had fallen into place like a complex puzzle to form a whole life that he only now understood. He thought of that life and he thought of his mother. She had been right all along.
God did have a plan for Ben Brice.
