“No, I already drew it in the corner. It’s not your turn.”
My dad lets out a well-actedhumphas my mom draws a small X on his cast.
“Well hell, you . . . stole my strategy,” my dad says, drawing even more giggles from the woman he’s loved, in his own strange way, for my entire life.
“All part of my insidious plan,” she says.
I get to my feet and take the final few steps with a little extra thump to my steps to give my parents a warning. I’m not sure I can handle seeing them kiss right now, though I’ve caught them a few times. It’s strange. I don’t remember seeing it before.
“Hey, Ren. You off to work?” My mom puts the cap on the Sharpie and drops it in a cup on the fireplace mantle.
“I start in an hour. I was just killing some time. Is that—?” I gesture to my father’s leg, about a dozen tiny games of tic-tac-toe drawn around the knee area on the cast
“Oh, yeah. It was your dad’s idea,” my mom says.
“I kinda thought I’d have . . . more wins to show off.” My dad cranes his neck to look me in the eyes.
“How many of them are yours?” I ask.
He holds up a tight fist to signal zero, and I snort-laugh in reaction.
My father’s breathing has gotten stronger, and even though his cast limits what he can do with his legs, he’s aggressive with everything else. My mom doesn’t take it light on him, I’ve noticed. Not that I did when I was running the show, but I was probably a little quicker to let him call it a day when he could maybe do more. His arms have gotten stronger in the last ten days. And I caught him messing around with a baseball the other night, practicing his grips. He misses it.
“Do you want something to eat before you go?”
My mom moves around the chair with a hopeful posture, her hands clasped in front of her and her lips sucked in tight. She’s trying.
“Uh, maybe a sandwich?” I know there’s some of that in the fridge.
“Coming right up. Have a seat.” She gestures to the ottoman, so I snag the marker, sit down, and eye my father in challenge.
“Don’t take it . . . easy on me,” he says.
I smirk. He knows me better than that.
I draw the grid, then lift my gaze and my brow, offering him the chance to go first.
“Upper right corner,” he says, and I shake my head with soft laughter. He is stubborn and relentless. They are not the same thing.
I give my father the X in the corner, then draw an O in the middle for my turn. He studies my work, as if there are a lot of options when it comes to this game, then tilts his head to the side.
“Opposite corner?” I ask.
“Uh huh.” His eyes dim, like he’s up to something. I draw my X between his marks, and his smirk immediately falters.
We carry on for another minute or two, until every square is filled and the game ends in a tie. He has a few of those on the cast, but a lot more losses. He falls for the traps. So appropriate. At least, that’s what I always thought. Lately, though, I’m not as sure. Maybe he knows exactly what he’s doing all the time.
“Hey, dad?” I cap the marker and scan the kitchen area for my mom, keeping my voice low.
“What do you need . . . to know?” He’s so intuitive. People have always underestimated him because he was a PE teacher and a baseball coach, but I know how much calculation must live in the mind of a baseball manager. It’s a constant state of odds, and a fucked-up game of geometry and physics. Throw in the wild card of coaching teenagers, and my dad’s ten-year winning record for a high school team looks mighty impressive. That same instinct has always been a part of his parental toolkit, too. He’s using it now.
“Mom made a lot of money over the years. But when you had to quit coaching, things got tight here. I’m just wondering . . .” I twist my head to check on my mom, but I still see her floating around the kitchen, zipping from the counter to the fridge and back again.
“You want to know . . . why I didn’t force her to pay . . . for me?” He quirks a brow, a bit of a superior tilt to his smirk.
“It sounds bad when you put it that way, but also . . . she told me the real reason she left the first time. And why you guys lived the way you did.”
I shrug, still a bit baffled, but less so than before. Especially after Hunter hit me with his words earlier.
