Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen Page B

want to pay for it, show him I can do it on my own. Until that magic letter arrives, though, there’s a little thing called math that keeps harshing my buzz.
    â€œHow’s algebra going?” he asks, losing interest in his first question. That’s what I have to work with here.
    â€œWe need more guys on the team,” I say, ignoring the algebra question. “New guys get scared off when they step in the gym and see how much work’s involved.”
    â€œSpeaking of work, are you keeping up on your home-work assignments?”
    â€œI mean, it isn’t like other sports where you can just pick up a ball and start running or be competitive after doing it for a week. It takes a while just to put together a semi-decent routine.”
    â€œHmmmm.” Dad nods like he’s being thoughtful but I know that means he’s too tired to argue with me and too tired to keep talking past me. What he’s really trying to do is catch what the lady accused of murdering her husband is telling the district attorney on TV. He has his ear tipped toward the screen while he chews, still pretending to listen to me. It’s okay, though, because I do the same thing back whenever he starts lecturing me about getting good grades. The two of us have an understanding. The key is to not upset the all-seeing eye of Mom’s ghost while we live completely separate lives under the same roof. In two more years it won’t matter, anyway. I’ll be out of here.
    After devouring our individual pizzas, we both slouch back into the couch. The TV screen fades and Mom comes into my head—a memory of her leaning over me, holding a teaspoon of medicine under my nose, waiting patiently for me to open my mouth and swallow it. A warmth comes over me that I cannot hold and then it’s gone. Mom once said you could put yourself in someone’s head if you thought hard enough about them. She said memories of the dead meant they were out there, thinking about you, trying to say hello. Was she out there right now, thinking of me like I was thinking of her? Dad laughed when Mom told us her theory. We’d been eating breakfast in the kitchen after burying our cat, Pebbles, in our backyard. Dad wanted to just bag it and throw it in the garbage but Mom insisted on a ceremony. Dad said Mom’s theory was superstition.
    After she died, he talked differently. Once, after I woke from a dream about her that was so vivid—about the three of us swimming together on the ocean, out at sea, and surrounded by shark fins . . . or dolphin fins, I was never sure which—he told me that she was still around and paying attention to us, and that was her way of talking to us. He said he dreamed of her all the time and looked forward to his sleep for that very reason.
    I wonder if she’s saying hello to Dad at the same time as me, if he’s thinking of her right now on the couch, seeing her like I am.
    â€œDad,” I ask, “are you . . .” I glance over and my question fades. Dad’s eyes are closed and his head lolls at an angle that’ll give him a crick in his neck when he wakes. His mouth hangs open. I turn back to the TV. After another minute he begins to snore softly.
    â€œ . . . dreaming about her?” I whisper. I take the pizza box off his lap and put it on the kitchen table. Then I grab the comforter off the couch arm and drape it over him and put a pillow under his head. He never even budges.

14
    KURT
    M onday practice starts with game film in the team room. I scratch myself while Coach plays, rewinds, freezes, and replays video of last Friday’s game. While he talks, my eyes wander around the half-lit room. Judging from the looks of things, the other guys find game film about as interesting as studying the industrial revolution. Scott, though, peers intently at the TV monitor while scribbling in his notebook, bobbing his head along with Coach’s game breakdown. I fan myself with a