December 15, 2013
George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston was exactly the kind of place Wyatt found simultaneously familiar and exhausting, with its long corridors, endless security lines, and the constant blare of announcements over the loudspeaker blending with the rolling wheels of suitcases gliding across the polished marble floor in every possible direction.
He had left Clemson early that morning on the 7:15 flight out of Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, and by the time the plane touched down in Houston, the clock was nearing noon. The Texas sun greeted the passengers through the terminal's large windows, a reminder that a different world was waiting on the other side of the months of games, practices, and classes that made up college life.
Wyatt grabbed his backpack from the overhead compartment and waited with the patience of someone who had learned not to grow frustrated with the slow rhythms of the deplaning process. Finally, he made his way down the jet bridge toward the exit, backpack slung over one shoulder and earbuds in his ears, though no music was playing—he simply didn't have a particular song in mind this morning.
The airport arrivals area possessed that specific atmosphere Wyatt had always found curiously charged with energy, with families waiting with handwritten signs, couples hugging after weeks apart, and rideshare drivers scanning the crowd over their phones as people streamed through the automatic doors.
Wyatt stepped through those same doors, rolling his large suitcase behind him, and scanned the waiting area with the same speed he used to read a defense before spotting what he was looking for.
His father, Ed, was leaning against one of the pillars in the waiting area, arms crossed over his chest in that exact posture Wyatt had inherited without ever consciously planning to. He was looking in his direction with an expression that wasn't exactly a smile, but in Ed's facial vocabulary, amounted to the exact same thing.
For a second, the two exchanged a look from across the distance, engaging in that silent communication shared by fathers and sons who don't need many words to understand each other, before Wyatt began walking toward him.
"Dad," Wyatt said as he reached him. Ed straightened up from the pillar to give him a brief, firm hug—the kind that doesn't last longer than necessary but says exactly what needs to be said, complete with the pat on the back.
"Good flight?" Ed asked, taking the handle of the large suitcase before Wyatt could do anything about it and heading toward the parking garage with his usual long, calm stride.
"Five hours total, counting the layover," Wyatt replied, following him with his backpack over his shoulder. "Could've been worse."
"Your mother's been up since six getting the house ready," Ed said without turning around, though his tone carried a mix of affection and resignation that Wyatt knew perfectly well.
"I didn't tell her I was arriving at noon so she wouldn't get up early."
"I told her," Ed responded simply, with the same tone he might use to mention it was sunny outside.
Wyatt processed that for a moment before letting out a soft laugh as they reached the car parked on the second level of the covered garage. There, the December Texas heat—which wasn't cold at all, but rather a perfectly pleasant temperature Wyatt had forgotten existed after months in South Carolina—hit him with that specific sensation of something familiar you don't realize you miss until you have it back.
The drive from the airport to Katy took just under forty minutes. Ed drove with the same calm composure with which he did everything, while Wyatt looked out the window at the landscape of highways, businesses, and restaurant franchises that looked exactly as he remembered, yet felt slightly different this time—though the difference likely wasn't the landscape, but himself.
They talked about the Georgia Tech game and the final games of the season, with Ed asking the precise questions he always asked about specific plays, and Wyatt responding with the level of detail his father expected. Neither had to clarify the code of the conversation; they had been speaking exactly this way for years.
"Dabo's happy with how the season wrapped up," Wyatt said at one point.
"He should be," Ed replied.
"Tajh is too," Wyatt added. "He ended up breaking the ACC career passing touchdowns record."
"I saw," Ed said simply, and Wyatt knew from that exact tone that his father had watched every single game of the season, even if he would never express it with that many words.
As the car turned into their neighborhood and then pulled into the driveway, Wyatt felt something he couldn't quite name while recognizing the lawn, the mailbox, and the flowerpot by the door that his mother always kept—one that inexplicably survived the brutal Texas summer heat.
The front door opened before Wyatt could even pull his suitcase out of the trunk.
"MAX, WAIT!" Elena's voice echoed from inside, but it was already too late. The young Border Collie had cleared the threshold like a black-and-white blur of fur, launching himself directly at Wyatt with the specific energy of a dog who doesn't comprehend that months have passed, only that the person he loves most in the world just appeared where he lives.
"Hey buddy, hey," Wyatt said, crouching down to take the jumps and licks from Max, who had absolutely no intention of calming down anytime soon, his tail wagging at a speed that made you wonder if it was properly attached to his body.
Elena appeared at the door, hands on her hips, wearing a smile that had clearly been ready since six in the morning. "Max, I told you to wait," she told the dog before her gaze shifted to her son. "Sweetheart."
"Hey, Mom," Wyatt said, standing up just in time to catch Elena's hug, which was completely different from Ed's in duration, intensity, and the sheer volume of information it transmitted.
"You're thinner," Elena said, not letting go of him just yet.
"I'm the same, Mom."
"You're thinner," Elena repeated in the tone of someone who had made up her mind and had no intention of reviewing the decision, finally releasing him to look at him closely. "Are you eating well?"
"I eat perfectly fine."
"I'm making enchiladas tonight," Elena said simply, closing the subject and heading back inside with the same energy she had come out with, while Ed passed by Wyatt, carrying the large suitcase into the house without a word.
Max followed Wyatt inside, staying no more than half a meter from his feet, as the house wrapped Wyatt in that specific smell shared by places where you grew up—impossible to describe with words, but something the body recognizes before the brain does.
They sat in the living room, with Max settling himself directly on top of Wyatt's feet with the satisfied weight of a dog who had reclaimed his official position. Elena asked him about his classes, his teammates, and whether he had time to eat properly between games, and Wyatt responded with the patience of someone who had been having the exact same conversation for as long as he could remember, yet didn't find it tedious.
At some point, Wyatt remembered something and went over to the large suitcase Ed had left by the stairs, returning to the living room with a rectangular dark wood plaque with gold lettering that read ACC PLAYER OF THE WEEK. He showed it to his parents.
"Georgia Tech," he said simply.
Elena took it with both hands, looking at it for a moment before passing it to Ed, who examined it briefly with his signature expression before nodding once.
"Good," Ed said, handing it back.
Wyatt carried the plaque up to his room and placed it on the shelf where he had been accumulating awards for years, ranging from his very first youth league trophies with faded gold plastic figures on wooden bases to the Katy Tigers state championship trophy occupying the center of the shelf, flanked by his championship MVP plaque, high school all-district honors, and his All-American Bowl diploma in its glass frame.
Now, the ACC plaque joined that line. Wyatt placed it on the far right of the shelf—the only free space left—looking at the entire collection for a moment with the quiet satisfaction of someone looking at a body of work that isn't finished yet, knowing exactly where it's headed even if he doesn't know all the steps left along the way.
When he went back downstairs, Elena already had something on the stove, and the conversation continued from the kitchen, with Wyatt sitting on a counter stool and Max sleeping on the rug by his feet as if the months of absence had never happened.
"How's Laquon doing?" Elena asked from the stove.
"Good, he left for Atlanta this morning," Wyatt replied.
"And Tajh?"
"In Alabama with his family."
Elena nodded, continuing to stir something in the pan, while Ed read the newspaper in the living room with the television tuned to the sports channel on low volume, just as he always did on Saturday afternoons.
It was then that the phone Wyatt had resting on the counter vibrated with a notification. Wyatt unlocked it with the same automatic movement he had been using for weeks every time that specific tone sounded—a sound he had learned to distinguish from the rest without anyone ever asking him to learn it.
He read it, and unable to completely help himself, a smile appeared on his face before he could do anything about it, his eyes still fixed on the screen.
"Who's that from?" Elena asked without turning around from the stove, possessing that maternal radar Wyatt had never been able to fully explain, which worked with the exact same precision now at nineteen as it did when he was eight.
"Nobody, just a teammate," Wyatt replied, slipping the phone into his pocket with a movement that was probably too fast to be convincing.
Elena turned around then, spatula in hand, and looked at her son with that expression she had spent years perfecting—the exact look of someone who knows perfectly well she just heard something that isn't entirely true but is weighing whether it's worth digging into right now or waiting until dinner when the ground is more favorable.
"Is it a girl?" she asked directly, a smile already fully formed before Wyatt even opened his mouth.
"Mom."
"It's a girl," Elena said, turning back to the stove with the quiet satisfaction of someone who doesn't need confirmation because the answer was written all over her son's face two seconds before he said a single word.
"It's nothing," Wyatt said.
"Mmhmm," Elena replied with that sound which, in Elena's language, meant the exact opposite, and which Wyatt had heard enough times in his life to know the conversation wasn't over, merely postponed until a more convenient time for her.
From the living room came the sound of Ed changing the TV channel to something with more voices, and Wyatt seized the moment.
"I'm going to head up. I'm tired from the flight," he said, picking up his backpack from the floor by the stool.
"Enchiladas in an hour," Elena replied without turning around. "And Wyatt."
"Yeah?"
Elena turned one last time with the same smile as before. "I'm glad you're home."
Wyatt nodded with a small smile of his own before heading up the stairs, with Max attempting to follow him to the second step before giving up and returning to the living room rug with the resigned sigh of a dog who had evaluated the situation and made the most comfortable choice.
In his room, Wyatt closed the door, dropped his backpack to the floor, and threw himself flat on his back onto the bed, staring at the familiar ceiling of his room, with his trophy shelf visible from where he lay and the ACC plaque gleaming slightly under the afternoon light filtering through the window.
He pulled out his phone and replied to Blaire's message before opening the group chat with the Katy Tigers guys. There were already several messages from this morning, with his teammates confirming they had also returned to Texas for the holidays, with plans to get together before the week was out.
Wyatt typed a brief response confirming he was back home and left the phone on his chest, staring at the ceiling while the smell of his mom's enchiladas began to drift up the stairs, Max barked a single time in the living room at something only he had heard, and the Sterling home in Katy became exactly what Wyatt remembered it to be.
Author thought
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