“Ah, yeah. He loved that place. Sometimes, I miss it.” My father has slowed down his extracurriculars. He used to coach several youth teams along with the high schoolers, but when Mom died, he let a lot of that go. I think he only kept the facility open so Jayden had a place to go.
“You hear about Adriel?” The disappointment in my father’s tone is what I was bracing myself for. I’ve never been close to Jayden’s older brother, but everything he does trickles down to Jayden, so I dread the lecture my father will want me to pass along.
“He’s never been good at focus,” I say.
Adriel’s wild ways started in elementary school. He was always ditching school to do dumb shit with his friends, likeswim in the canal channels, or, when he got older, swipe forties from the convenience store and drink them in the dry riverbed.
“Yeah. Don’t I know it,” my father grumbles.
Adriel is the biggest star my father ever coached. He also gave my dad an ulcer from the constant stress he put him through. It’s a miracle he wasn’t kicked out of school for half the shit he pulled—fighting, smoking weed on campus, more fighting. My father went to bat for him every time, even after getting burned over and over again.
“You tell Jay to walk his own path,” my father barks. This is the lecture I was waiting for.
“You should tell him yourself,” I say with a sigh, knowing my father won’t make the call.
“Eh, he’s an adult,” he mutters. I figured he’d back off when I pushed the duties back on him. My father hasn’t talked to Jayden since he was drafted. The two of them were once so close. Jayden thought of my father as his own. My father was around and sober, so it’s not like he had a lot of competition for the role from Jayden’s real dad. Even when all of our lives were upended, Jayden and my father’s special connection remained. They needed each other in a way nobody else could fill. I guess they simply no longer do.
“So, Mother’s Day . . .” Might as well get to the reason I called.
“Are you sure the team is all right with you heading back on a later flight?”
“I’m sure,” I reply. When I got the Mavericks’ schedule, the first thing I checked was how away trips lined up with Mother’s Day weekend. I lucked out for my first year—the team is in Sugar Land. It’s not a far drive to head home for a visit, especially one as important as this.
“They won’t miss me; I promise. Besides, I’ll be back for the Monday meetings, and that’s what really matters.”
My dad knows I need to battle to make my voice heard, even in the rooms I’ve been invited into. I’m determined for my work with the Mavericks to be more than a publicity stunt, not that I believe it is in any way. But the perception is easy to fall into. And the way the PR team has been bragging about my hire in the media certainly hasn’t normalized my working here.
“All right, as long as you promise. I’ll drive you back to the house after your game, then I can take you to the airport in the evening, save you a rental car. I was planning on coming to the Sunday game regardless. You know, to see my baby girl do her thing.” His raspy laugh echoes with pride.
“I hate to disappoint you, but you’ll barely see my face. I’m behind the iPad most of the time, charting,” I say with a chuckle.
“Best damn charter that ever was,” he says.
I laugh. “All right. Whatever, Coach.” I’ve called him that more than I’ve ever called him Dad. It’s our thing, and Mom loved it.
“I love you, Dad,” I say, not quite ready to hang up. I can hear his truck motor idling in the background. He’s probably been hanging out in the parking lot by the baseball field since I called. He’s in charge of locking up the gates, and I feel better when he gets home before dark. As it is, he and I are going to have to negotiate him driving me to the airport on Sunday night.
“I love you, too, baby girl. Now, go on. Get home safe, you hear?”
“You, too, Dad. You, too.”
It takes my dad a few extra seconds to break first and end our call. And I spend a good minute and a half sitting in the parking lot as I watch him trek home through the wonders of cellphone tracking technology.
SIX
JAYDEN
Sugar Land feels like home field advantage in so many ways. I wonder if Colby feels the same. Probably not quite as much, as I played my high school regional championship games on this very field. She wasn’t on the grass with us, but she was in the stands. And for a few years, growing up, we both were. That was back when Adriel was in high school, and Colby and I were the supportive siblings.
All of that was in thebefore.
I’m not sure whether it’s the fact life has thrust us together again, or that my brother is repeating family behavior that’s driving my thoughts to the past, but I’ve been stuck in nostalgia lately. And not the best kind.
“Jayden, you’re up,” Coach barks, pulling me from my thoughts and back to the present.
We’ve been hitting BP on the field for the last thirty minutes, and Colby hasn’t come out to watch a single swing. I feel like a kid trying to make their dad proud, only I’m twenty-six, and my dad is rotting in hell. I’m trying to make an angel proud. And Colby’s timing at showing back up in my life has been tearing away at the scars on my heart since I read the email announcement about her hire a month ago.
“Lock in, Jay. Come on.”
