The Truth About Aaron Read online

  When it was extremely icy outside, we’d go to a local mall to have a catch. In an empty passageway, the football in my hands, I’d get into my quarterback stance and then take a five-step drop. I’d shuffle to the left, to the right, and then forward to replicate escaping an oncoming pass rush. Then I’d yell “Now!” and Aaron, standing twenty feet away and pumping his arms, would either turn back to me to mimic a curl route or turn away from me like he was running a comeback route. A security guard usually asked us to leave after thirty minutes, but that work in the mall was important to us.

  AARON AND I STOOD next to each other on the sideline, kickoff against Xavier High seconds away. We spotted a banner that cheerleaders had made and taped onto the green left field fence that read: “The Hernandez Boys #14 & #15.”

  Xavier received the opening kick and marched down the field for a touchdown, taking a 7–0 lead. Our team trotted onto the field to return the ensuing kickoff. The blockers on our return team all executed their assignments and cleared the path for my ninety-yard touchdown return.

  Aaron grabbed me after I said a prayer in the end zone, hugging me. “I can’t believe you scored!” he screamed. “You said you were going to do it and you did!”

  Later in the first quarter we had the ball at midfield. A receiver brought the play into the huddle from the sideline and I relayed the call to my teammates. I received a shotgun snap and looked at my first progression to the right. But the rush forced me to slide to my left. I looked downfield and spotted Aaron, who was running a drag route across the middle of the field. I hit him in stride and he ran down the right sideline as if his shoelaces were on fire. He dashed into the end zone, his first catch and his first score as a high school player—and my first touchdown pass to my brother. The crowd thundered.

  With my hands raised toward the sky, I sprinted after Aaron, who was celebrating with teammates in the end zone. Right before I reached him, I pointed upward and we both jumped as high as we could to chest-bump. My forward momentum knocked Aaron to the ground on his back. Laughing, I helped him up. I pressed my facemask against his and said, “Great play, Aaron! Great play!”

  We jogged to the sideline together and shifted our eyes to the bleachers, where our family members and friends were jumping up and down, causing the metal stands to rattle and shake. As we neared the bench, we spotted our father in his maroon fleece. Clapping slowly and nodding his head, he looked directly at us, his lips quivering and tears falling. My mother’s arms were around him. Together, Aaron and I pointed up to him. He clenched his right fist, pumped it in the air a few times, and then hugged our mother tight. On this Friday night, under the Muzzy Field lights, his dream—and our dream—came true.

  We won the game 44–14. After our head coach addressed the team on the field, I started walking toward the locker room when I noticed my dad in the distance leaning up against the chain-link fence, alone. I ran back to him.

  “What’s wrong, Dad?” I asked.

  “Nothing, D,” he said. “I am just so proud. We’ve come so far. I’m so thankful for you, for Aaron, and for mom. I love you boys so much.”

  He whipped the tears of happiness from his cheeks. We hugged and I sprinted to the locker room, where my teammates, and my brother, were dancing and cheering.

  We rode the team bus back to Central and then Aaron and I drove home. Our father and mother were waiting for us in the kitchen. Our dad opened his arms and pulled us in—a giant bear hug, holding the two of us so tight and not wanting to let go.

  “I am the luckiest father in the world,” he said in a whisper. “I love you boys. I could hold you both here forever.”

  The four of us sat down at the kitchen table and ate cheese-and-pepperoni pizza. My mom told us our father was “crying like a baby” in the stands. Aaron and I mimicked his weeping face, making him laugh along with us.

  It was perfect, the four of us together. None of us wanted the night to end.

  Chapter 5

  OCTOBER 7, 2005

  TWO YEARS HAD PASSED since Aaron and I played at Bristol Central together, and now I was standing on the sideline of Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Connecticut, the site of the University of Connecticut football team’s home games. Minutes before kickoff, I looked up into the first row of the bleachers and spotted my dad. Knowing he was there always calmed me.

  I was a redshirt freshman quarterback and that preseason, Matt Bonislawski had won the starting quarterback position. Early in the second quarter in our Big East conference match-up against Syracuse—the Friday-night game was broadcast on ESPN2—Matt went down with a broken collarbone.

  I started taking snaps and throwing the football on the sideline. My father yelled to me, “You got this, D!” I looked up and saw my dad in tears.

  I entered the game and helped us win, 26–7.

  One month later, I traveled to Newington, Connecticut, during our bye week to watch Aaron, now a junior, play an away game.

  During the season, I wrote Aaron short motivational letters that he would tuck into his right sock every Friday night in the locker room. “Every play is an opportunity for you to prove that you are the best player in the country. I love you. Dominate today.” When my mother pulled his maroon socks from the dryer later, they would be stained with ink. Aaron always wore those same socks on game day because he was superstitious and felt a part of me was with him.

  Aaron didn’t know I was coming. With a black splint on my left wrist—I had broken it the week after the Syracuse game against Cincinnati—I sat in the stands for several minutes in silence, not wanting to make him aware of my presence.

  In my short time away from home, his body had rapidly filled out. He was a grown man out there, six foot two and 220 pounds. He was the biggest and fastest player warming up on either team.

  My father and I sat with Randy Edsall, the head football coach at UConn.

  Coach Edsall had already offered Aaron a scholarship the summer before his junior year, and Aaron had verbally accepted. Now Edsall was there to evaluate Aaron in person for the first time.

  Minutes before kickoff I walked down out of the visiting bleachers and leaned against a chest-high metal fence that circled the field. “Aaron!” I yelled.

  Aaron looked over at me, confused by my presence. He pulled off his helmet and sprinted across the blue track to the fence. “Good luck, I love you,” I said. “By the way, Coach Edsall is here. Put on a show tonight.”

  “Thanks, D,” he said. “I love you. I’m so happy you’re here.”

  For the next two hours, Aaron flashed his potential, making play after play after play—one-handed catches, catches in traffic, and standout tackles from his defensive end position. Every time Aaron made a block, it was as if the defender were on roller skates being driven backward. Coach Edsall couldn’t sit still. He told my father during the fourth quarter, “I’ve never seen a high school player this talented in my life.”

  Aaron finished the game with nine catches for 376 yards and four touchdowns. On that night he set a state high school record for receiving yards in one game, which was also the seventh best in national history.

  Chapter 6

  DECEMBER 2005

  I DROVE HOME FROM UCONN to spend my holiday break with my family. I walked through the white front door and the smell of my mother’s delicious beef stew filled the entire house.

  From the kitchen, I heard a car door slam shut in the driveway. I stepped out of the side door and met my father at his white Chevy Trailblazer. I had a haircut appointment and didn’t want my car to be blocked in by his vehicle.

  He handed me his keys.

  I drove to my hometown barbershop to get a bald fade. Aaron had thin, spiky hair with a widow’s peak and I had thick, matted hair—keeping our hair short worked in our favor.

  Returning home, I popped the trunk of my car to retrieve my two suitcases and workout gear. It was empty. I found all my bags neatly placed by my bed.

  I saw my dad in the kitchen. “Y
ou didn’t have to bring in all my stuff.”

  He grinned. “You’re not the only one around here with muscles,” he said, flexing his little biceps for me. “Come with me to pick up Aaron from basketball practice.”

  Minutes later my father and I were standing on the Bristol Central basketball court. Watching the end of practice, Aaron did everything with such ease, draining long-range shots and soaring to the rim for dunks on offense and rebounds on defense. “Every time I come back, Aaron gets better and better at everything he does,” I said. “He could be an elite college basketball player if he wanted.”

  OUR DAD HAD A golden rule for us when we played basketball growing up: we were never allowed to surrender an easy layup—even outdoors in the winter. On snow days, we’d shovel the court, but we’d slip and slide over the icy spots. If one of us drove hard to the hoop, we knew we would end up landing in the snowbank behind the basket. We took our dad’s directive to heart.

  When we got cold, we would run inside, change our clothes, and gulp down a cup of hot chocolate that our mother made for us. Then we’d head back into the freezing afternoon for more basketball. The only thing that interrupted our games was the snowball fights that broke out between us and other kids in the neighborhood. Even though Aaron was the youngest in our group, he could sure fire a snowball.

  But we could also argue and fight with each other like brothers. There would be times Aaron and I would be in our basement playing Madden NFL ’95 on our Sega Genesis. I would call him “Beaver” and he would call me “Rat tail”—our childhood nicknames for each other. We’d be having fun, talking and horsing around, and then as quickly as a light switch being flipped, Aaron would snap and start hitting me on the wrist with his controller or claw at my face with his nails. I’d run up the cellar stairs and he’d chase me as I yelled for my parents.

  Once he calmed down, I’d ask Aaron what happened.

  “D, it’s like I black out,” he’d say with no further explanation.

  AFTER PRACTICE WAS OVER, the three of us played a game of P-I-G. Our dad was knocked out first, and then Aaron and I battled away, making shots until our dad told us we had to finish up. Before leaving the gym, Aaron and I made sure to make our last layup—our ritual.

  At home, we sat in our normal spots at the dinner table. Mom served the stew and Aaron and I dug in. This was our dad’s favorite meal—he loved to take the chunks of beef and put them on the soft buttered Italian bread from Harvest Bakery and make a mini-sandwich—but after a few minutes we noticed he wasn’t eating.

  “What’s wrong, Dennis?” my mother asked.

  “I’m not feeling well,” he said. “I’m going to lie down.”

  Aaron and I looked at each other, confused. This wasn’t like our dad. He rarely complained about anything and he no longer missed meals—or time—with his family. Something wasn’t right.

  My mom excused herself from the table to check on him as Aaron and I kept eating. She found him on their bed, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling.

  “What is it, Dennis?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve got this shooting pain in my stomach. I’ve never felt pain like this before.”

  “That’s it. I’m taking you to the emergency room.”

  “There’s no need to worry,” our father told Aaron and me as he made his way to the front door after our mom went out to start the car.

  Still in our seats at the table, Aaron and I didn’t understand what was happening to our father.

  “He’s tough,” I said to Aaron. “He’ll be alright.”

  After running a few tests at the hospital, the doctor told my dad he had a strangulated hernia and needed surgery as soon as possible. The procedure was scheduled for the next day, New Year’s Eve.

  Early the next morning, our father was rolled into the operating room. The surgery was scheduled for two hours, but lasted eight.

  Aaron and I went to the hospital that night, but our dad was sleeping.

  The next day, January 1, our dad was fully awake and appeared to be his normal self. He looked like he belonged at home. He laughed and cracked jokes with Aaron and me. He complained more about his pinky then his stomach. Back in his football playing days, his right pinky got caught in another player’s face mask, bending it to a 45-degree angle. Instead of having surgery, he pulled it straight, but it didn’t stay. Eventually it stayed permanently bent. Now in the hospital he asked us to pull it straight. As Aaron yanked, we heard the loud, low rumble of our dad farting, which made everyone in the room laugh and pull their shirts over their noses.

  “It was getting too tense in here,” he said. “I’ll be out in no time. Loosen up.”

  We spent hours with him, our father nestled between us in the hospital bed, the three of us cuddling. We played checkers, Connect Four, and UNO. That evening a nurse asked him if he was strong enough to go on a short walk down a hallway. He said yes.

  Wearing a green gown and hospital socks, with his IV drip bag attached to his left arm, he inched forward alongside the nurse. Aaron and I followed and watched from behind. When the back of his gown swung open to reveal his flat, tan butt, the two of us laughed like it was the most hilarious thing we’d ever witnessed. Our dad turned back to us and winked with a sly smile, which made us laugh even harder.

  Later that night, as Aaron and I left the hospital, we thought he looked ready to come home.

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, JANUARY 2, I visited Dad by myself.

  His room was dark and silent; no one was visible. I thought I had opened the wrong door, but then I noticed a night lamp shining down on my father, who was shivering underneath his blankets. As I neared him, he lifted his eyelids ever so slightly. He whispered, “Hey, D.” I could barely hear his raspy voice.

  I leaned over and gently kissed him on his forehead. I had never seen my dad this weak. I knelt so my face was right in front of his.

  “What’s wrong, Dad?” I asked.

  “Not a good day, D, not a good day.”

  I lowered the bed rail and crawled in next to him, hoping my touch would comfort him. I rubbed his dark eyebrows and hair, trying to soothe him.

  “Not a good day, D,” he said again.

  I didn’t want my father to see my worry, so I closed my eyes and remained silent.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I couldn’t answer. Silently, I told myself, Be strong. Be strong. He needs my strength.

  A few minutes later, he said, “D, I need to get some rest.”

  I gave him one last squeeze in bed, then asked the nurse for another blanket. I tucked it tightly around him. “Hang in there, Dad,” I said. “Everything will be better soon.”

  I bent over and kissed him again on his forehead.

  “I love you, Dad,” I said.

  With his eyes shut, in a barely audible voice, he said, “I love you, DJ.”

  I have to be strong for my mother.

  I have to be strong for my brother.

  I have to be a man.

  At the lowest elevation of our hill, I parked my car. Flipping on my flashers, my forehead resting on the steering wheel, I was shredded by the thought of life without my father.

  As I walked in the house, my mother was getting ready to leave for the hospital. Aaron already had left for his basketball game that night. Neither of them knew.

  About ten minutes later, my uncle Vito picked me up and drove me to Aaron’s basketball game. Sitting in his car, I stared at the dashboard. He spoke to me, but the words didn’t register.

  I thought Aaron’s game would distract me from my father—I loved witnessing Aaron’s growth as an athlete. Yet as soon as the game started, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. My mind remained on my father. On the court, Aaron, for the first time, appeared winded in an athletic contest. When the other team took foul shots, Aaron—hands on knees, bent over—looked directly at me. Aaron scored 29 points, quietly.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, THE doctors informed my mother
that our father was in toxic shock. His organs were shutting down.

  Early in the morning of January 5, our mother woke us up. She had large purple rings around her eyes. Her hair was frizzy—sticking out in every direction. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

  “Dad had to go to the ICU last night,” she said.

  “What’s the ICU mean?” I asked.

  “It’s the intensive care unit,” she said. “It’s where patients go when they are very sick. The patients who need to be monitored very closely. He isn’t doing well. I think that you guys should get some rest today and go see him tomorrow.”

  Early the next morning, our mom called Bristol Hospital and asked if they could transfer our dad to Hartford Hospital, where she thought he could receive advanced treatment.

  “He’s not doing well,” the nurse said. “You should come to the hospital as soon as you can.”

  In the hallway outside our dad’s room, we put on latex gloves, a yellow gown, and a white mask to cover our faces. We entered and I used my right hand to slide the curtain to the side. There was an IV bag dripping fluid into his left arm and a ventilator tube coming out of his mouth, which kept him breathing.

  I leaned in close to his ear and told him to hang in there, to keep fighting. I told him I was so proud of the changes he had made in his life to become the best father I ever could have wished for.

  My mother was on the other side of the bed, rubbing his arm. Aaron stood behind her, paralyzed.

  After about an hour of staring at his closed eyelids, the doctor recommended that we return home to get some rest. He said there was nothing we could do at this time and he would contact us later with an update.

  We returned to the house. But just as Aaron and I placed our heads down on our pillows, our mother opened the door to our room.

  “DJ, Aaron, get up now!” she screamed. “We have to get back to the hospital now!”

  Gripping the steering wheel so hard that the veins in her hands bulged, my mother drove like lightning for five minutes back to Bristol Hospital. Aaron, in the backseat, started to sob. Then we all did.