stacking them up in pyramids just to watch them fall.
“I know, I know. Please, will you, will you…listen to me, baby. Listen close.”
In the dark dining room, Coach is on the phone, fingers hooked around the bottom of the low-hanging chandelier, turning it, twisting it in circles until I hear a sickly creak.
For hours she’s been hand-wringing, jabbing her thumb into the center of her palm, molding it there, her teeth nearly grinding, her eyes straying constantly to her cell phone. Ten times in ten minutes, a phantom vibration. Picking it up, nearly shaking it. Begging it to come to life. We can’t finish a conversation, sure can’t practice dive rolls in the yard. Any of the things she promised me.
Finally, her surrender, slipping into the other room and her voice high and rushed. Will? Will? But you…but Will…
Now, Caitlin’s play-doh feet stomp over mine, her gummy hands on my knees as she pushes by me, and I want out. It’s all so sticky and unfun and I feel the air clog in my throat. For the first time since Coach let me into her home, I wish I’d gone instead with RiRi to her new boyfriend’s place, where they were drinking ginger-and-Jack in the backyard and smashing croquet balls up and down the long slope of the lawn.
But then Coach, phone raised high in hand like a trophy, tears into the living room, her face suddenly shooting nervy energy.
She is transformed.
“Addy, can you do me a favor?” she says, fingering the hamsa bracelet, its amulet flaring at me. “Just this once?”
She kneels down before me, her arms resting on my knees. It’s like a proposal.
Her face so soft and eager, I feel like she must feel when she looks at me.
“Yes,” I say, smiling. “Sure, yes. Yes.” Always.
“It won’t be long,” Coach says. “Just a little while.”
She tells me Will’s having a hard time. Today, she says, is the third anniversary of his wife’s death.
My legs tingling, it’s like Lanvers Peak again, and I have a sense of my grand importance. Jump, jump, jump—how high, Coach? Just tell me, how high?
When he arrives, Will doesn’t quite look like himself, his face sheet-creased and he smells like beer and sweat, a dampness on him that seems to go to the bone. A six-pack is wedged under his arm. He sort of burrows against Coach for a minute and I pretend to look out the window.
While Coach hustles Caitlin off to the backyard, we sit on the sofa together, the cold beer bottles pressing against my legs.
There is a long, silent minute, my eyes following the milky rise and fall of his Adam’s apple, me so hypnotized, and thinking somehow of Coach’s fingers there.
“Addy,” he finally says, and I’m relieved someone is saying something. “I’m sorry I interrupted you two. You were probably doing things. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
When I was seven, my dad’s best friend died from a heart attack on the golf course and my dad locked himself in the garage for an hour and my stepmom wouldn’t let me knock on the door. Later, I think I crawled on his lap and I remember how he let me sit there for an hour and never once asked me to move so he could change the TV channel.
I don’t guess I should sit on Will’s lap but wish I could do something.
“Can I tell you something, Addy?” he says, and he’s not looking at me but at the furred white lamb on the coffee table, its head bent. “This awful thing happened to me on the way here.”
“What?” I say, rising up in my seat.
“I was coming out of the Beer Depot on Royston Road and there’s this bus stop out front. This old woman was coming off the bus, carrying her shopping bags. She had this hat with a big red flower, like a poppy, the ones you wear on Veterans’ Day. That’s what you’re supposed to wear on Veterans’ Day.
“When she saw me, she stopped in her tracks, right on the bottom step. She just stopped. It was like she knew me.
“And this thing happened. I just couldn’t
“I know, I know. Please, will you, will you…listen to me, baby. Listen close.”
In the dark dining room, Coach is on the phone, fingers hooked around the bottom of the low-hanging chandelier, turning it, twisting it in circles until I hear a sickly creak.
For hours she’s been hand-wringing, jabbing her thumb into the center of her palm, molding it there, her teeth nearly grinding, her eyes straying constantly to her cell phone. Ten times in ten minutes, a phantom vibration. Picking it up, nearly shaking it. Begging it to come to life. We can’t finish a conversation, sure can’t practice dive rolls in the yard. Any of the things she promised me.
Finally, her surrender, slipping into the other room and her voice high and rushed. Will? Will? But you…but Will…
Now, Caitlin’s play-doh feet stomp over mine, her gummy hands on my knees as she pushes by me, and I want out. It’s all so sticky and unfun and I feel the air clog in my throat. For the first time since Coach let me into her home, I wish I’d gone instead with RiRi to her new boyfriend’s place, where they were drinking ginger-and-Jack in the backyard and smashing croquet balls up and down the long slope of the lawn.
But then Coach, phone raised high in hand like a trophy, tears into the living room, her face suddenly shooting nervy energy.
She is transformed.
“Addy, can you do me a favor?” she says, fingering the hamsa bracelet, its amulet flaring at me. “Just this once?”
She kneels down before me, her arms resting on my knees. It’s like a proposal.
Her face so soft and eager, I feel like she must feel when she looks at me.
“Yes,” I say, smiling. “Sure, yes. Yes.” Always.
“It won’t be long,” Coach says. “Just a little while.”
She tells me Will’s having a hard time. Today, she says, is the third anniversary of his wife’s death.
My legs tingling, it’s like Lanvers Peak again, and I have a sense of my grand importance. Jump, jump, jump—how high, Coach? Just tell me, how high?
When he arrives, Will doesn’t quite look like himself, his face sheet-creased and he smells like beer and sweat, a dampness on him that seems to go to the bone. A six-pack is wedged under his arm. He sort of burrows against Coach for a minute and I pretend to look out the window.
While Coach hustles Caitlin off to the backyard, we sit on the sofa together, the cold beer bottles pressing against my legs.
There is a long, silent minute, my eyes following the milky rise and fall of his Adam’s apple, me so hypnotized, and thinking somehow of Coach’s fingers there.
“Addy,” he finally says, and I’m relieved someone is saying something. “I’m sorry I interrupted you two. You were probably doing things. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
When I was seven, my dad’s best friend died from a heart attack on the golf course and my dad locked himself in the garage for an hour and my stepmom wouldn’t let me knock on the door. Later, I think I crawled on his lap and I remember how he let me sit there for an hour and never once asked me to move so he could change the TV channel.
I don’t guess I should sit on Will’s lap but wish I could do something.
“Can I tell you something, Addy?” he says, and he’s not looking at me but at the furred white lamb on the coffee table, its head bent. “This awful thing happened to me on the way here.”
“What?” I say, rising up in my seat.
“I was coming out of the Beer Depot on Royston Road and there’s this bus stop out front. This old woman was coming off the bus, carrying her shopping bags. She had this hat with a big red flower, like a poppy, the ones you wear on Veterans’ Day. That’s what you’re supposed to wear on Veterans’ Day.
“When she saw me, she stopped in her tracks, right on the bottom step. She just stopped. It was like she knew me.
“And this thing happened. I just couldn’t
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