“Yeah,” Lily adds. “Do that again.”
I laugh once, quiet and rough.
“I will try.”
Dad’s voice comes from somewhere behind them. “Girls, let your brother sleep.”
“He is old,” Lily calls back. “He sleeps all the time.”
“I heard that.”
“You were supposed to.”
The call ends with both girls waving too close to the camera and Emma yelling that I have to score next game because her science teacher likes Phoenix.
I lower the phone.
For a minute, the kitchen stays dark and ordinary around me. The win feels less like something I have to guard.
It feels like something I can share.
No Peyton.
I open her contact anyway.
Type: You looked happy.
That one stays longer. Long enough to hurt.
I delete it too.
My voicemail icon blinks.
Mom.
Her voice fills the kitchen, warm and tired. “Hey, sweetheart. Congratulations. Your father yelled so loudly he scared the girls. I saw Peyton on television for about one second in the stands, unless I imagined it, which I did not. She looked proud of you.”
I close my eyes.
“That girl has been carrying herself alone too long, Ryan. I am not telling you what to do. I am only saying some things need to be said while they still matter.”
The message ends.
I play it again, then call her.
She answers on the second ring. My father is loud in the background. The twins grab the phone twice. My mother asks if my shin is bruised and I lie badly enough that she laughs.
“We are coming for game one,” she says.
My body reacts before my mouth does. “Mom, you just had surgery.”
“And now I have had recovery. The doctor cleared me.”
“A playoff crowd is not normal activity.”
“Watching my son play is normal activity in this family.”
I pace to the window. “It’s a long drive. You will overdo it.”
