He laughs and I sit on the couch. “Are you back at home?”
“Got in last night. Packing up my things and heading out tomorrow.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Good. Better. Haven’t had another panic attack.”
I don’t know if everyone thinks about marriage and babies when they’re young, but it was never on my list of things I wanted to do when I got older. As cousins and friends welcomed spouses and children into the world, it never once occurred to me I could have that. I was raised by two incredible men—my father and grandfather—but it didn’t make me think about how I’d like to do that one day too. I don’t know the first thing about being a good parent, even with the best role models, but there’s no guarantee I will fail or succeed at this one job.
What I do know is I’m going to try.
I want to be there for Tamara, I want to give this a shot for our unborn kid. There’s a part of me that’s still terrified this is going to blow up in my face, but I can turn to my father for advice. I can read all the books, hope Tamara knows what she’s doing and learn from her.
Most importantly, I want to be good enough for her and our kid.
“That’s good. Have the two of you talked about what the next few months will look like?”
Even though he can’t see me, I shake my head and consider how complicated it’s going to be. Once I get to Chennai, we need to talk and figure out the future. I want to be there for as many things as she’ll let me and that means possibly forcing myself into her life more than she wants. But I’m going to take it all one day at a time.
“I didn’t want to do it over the phone. She knows I’m going to be there, just not why.”
“You didn’t tell her about the coaching gig?”
I didn’t tell Tamara a lot of things and that was definitely at the bottom of my list. “Another thing I thought we should do face-to-face, right? She doesn’t need me during this pregnancy, but I want to be there with her. For her. For the baby. I don’t want to ambush her.”
Tilting my head back against the sofa, I think about how all these conversations are going to go. She’ll yell and get angry, I’ll attempt to be cute and pacify. Which will make her angrier and then maybe we can indulge in some hate sex. Wishful thinking, buddy. I grunt and scrub a hand over my face. As much as I want to fuck her again, want to remind myself how good she feels, that’s a line we can’t cross.
“All right. How do you feel about the LHT?”
“Unclear,” I admit with a heavy sigh. “I signed the papers in Delhi, got an earful of information I’ve already forgotten. Meeting the team and management next week.”
“Are you excited?”
“I guess.”
“That’s not a glowing endorsement, Pat.”
“Look, I’m excited they’re trying to do more with hockey and getting people interested. But it’s still hockey. We’re competing with the likes of football and cricket and in this country, even winning a bronze medal means squat,” I snap and close my eyes when I realise I fell into the damn trap. Talking about hockey and how little attention we get always riles me up.
I hear the smile in Dom’s voice as he says, “I was waiting for you to break.”
“You’re an asshole.”
He laughs at my frustration. One of my biggest issues with hockey is the sports obscurity in India. We can win medals at every global sporting event and people will still overlook hockey for cricket. I don’t resent my brother for the sport he chose; I wish more people gave a shit about us. Thanks to him and Vera posting about the matches on social media and their viewing parties on Instagram, people were aware. But there’s no way for us to calculate how many people actually watched. Or even care about the sport.
I’m getting paid and invitations to play on bigger platforms irrespective of how many fans we have. But I want folks to be interested. I want them to buy our jerseys, make us famous and spread the word. I doubt it’ll happen in my lifetime.
“Okay, here’s what I want you to do,” Dom says in his serious therapist voice. “Once you’ve talked to Tamara and met with the team and management, I want you to write down your plan for the next twelve months. Make sure it includes everything, personal and professional. And we’ll talk about it in your next session.”
“I hate homework, Dom.”
“Tough shit, kid. You’re going through so many changes at once and we have to make sure we identify your triggers before they happen. These changes are good, but you need to get ahead of them.”
“Fine.”
We say our goodbyes, but I don’t move from the couch. I think over all the things we’ve talked about. Dom doesn’t mollycoddle, so at the mention of probably not being a good father, he asked me why. He never once tried to comfort me, but kept pushing me to identify the reasons behind it. Even now, I’m unclear whether it’s my depression and anxiety or the worry Tamara will never look at me the same way again or if I just don’t trust my ability to be anything more than I am.
I hope that before this baby comes into the world, I can figure it out.
