He took a breath and let it out slow. “You remember that the goal is not to punish the ball. The goal is to place it.”
Meadow’s fingers paused on a little girl’s hands. She looked over at him, eyes tracing his profile…placing it, not punishing it. The man stayed dropping lines without trying.
Ray would have loved this.
She shook the thought away before it pooled in her chest.
They ran little challenges. Who could get the closest to the cone. Who could keep their form right two times in a row. Meadow bet snacks from the clubhouse fridge. Zaire bet bragging rights.
The kids fed off both their energies.
At one point, Mya connected and sent her ball flying past the boys. She dropped her club and broke into a little victory dance.
“So y’all gon’ keep saying this not for us?” Meadow called.
DJ groaned. “She got lucky.”
“That was not luck,” Zaire told him. “That was focus. You hate when girls beat you, huh?”
DJ frowned. “I don’t hate it. I just don’t like it.”
The whole group fell out.
When they circled back in for water, the kids flopped onto the grass in a half-circle. Meadow handed out small bottles. Zaire stayed standing, club in his hand, looking over the range.
Karter wiped his forehead with his arm. “How you do this all day? My back hurt.”
“Your back hurt because your posture is trash,” Meadow informed him.
Zaire lifted his chin at the boy. “You get used to it. Plus, I been doing this since I was younger than y’all. It’s muscle memory now. Mind memory too.”
“What that mean?” Mya asked.
“It means even when my life a mess, this the one thing that feels familiar,” he said. “When everything’s out of my control, I can come out here and breathe.”
Meadow felt those words hit her right in the center.
She looked at the kids. Some picked at the grass…some stared at him…some were only halfway listening. But she knew at least one of them would remember that line later in life when it mattered the most. Maybe more than one.
“Alright,” she called. “We got twenty more minutes left. Last round, then y’all can go home and pretend y’all don’t love it out here.”
They groaned and got up.
By the time they finished, swings had improved. Not by a miracle, but enough to count… enough to show progress…enough to make them feel proud of themselves.
Parents started pulling up. Car doors slammed in the distance. A few Dads nodded toward Zaire with that look of recognition, especially the one that came with ESPN subscriptions and weekend tournaments on repeat.
“You him, ain’t you,” one man said as his son climbed into the backseat.
“Sometimes,” Zaire shrugged.
Meadow caught the way he said it. The way his gaze slid away like fame was something that cost more than it paid.
She wanted him to be proud of who he was and what he’d accomplished when so much had been stacked against him. Still, she just let him sulk.
When the last car pulled off, the field went quiet again. Range balls scattered everywhere. Cones tipped over. The sun sitting higher now, but the air still kind enough to stand in.
Meadow looked around. “They wore me out.”
