The whole time all this was happening, Dad was on the other side of the court with Whit and the Wolf. The Wolf just kept shaking his head, and Whit had her hands pressed together like she was praying, but she wasn’t. She was begging. My father had one hand on Whit’s shoulder, and one hand on her brother’s shoulder, almost like he was stopping either of them—maybe both of them—from running.
And then the game ended. And the losers handed over wads of cash. And my father walked out onto the court.
“Listen up!” Dad yelled out. Everybody looked up, and honestly, even though I’ve always seen my dad as cool, I was surprised he got so much respect. “Whit has something she wants to say to Torrie. And she wants y’all to be witnesses.”
The guys sort of mumbled and grumbled, some shook their heads. Folded money and tucked it in their socks, making their ankles look swollen. Some sat on the ground. Unlaced their sneakers. Others sat on benches next to the girls.
Whit came to the middle of the court. She looked shaky and shy, which I wasn’t used to. My father stood next to her. She pulled out a piece of paper, unfolded it, and began to read it. Loudly.
“Torrie, when we were kids, you were the best big brother a little sister could ever ask for. You taught me how to walk. And eventually, you taught me how to run. You taught me how to be strong, and how to push it to the limit, and you were one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. That’s where that stupid howl came from. You chasing me around the house, telling me the tickle monster was coming, howling like a fool. And then something happened. Something changed. I know that who you are today is not you. It’s the drug. And I’m not judging you. I’ve never judged you. Because we all have something we’re dealing with. We all have some kind of addiction eating at us. For some, it’s jealousy. For some, it’s the fear of not being accepted. For some, it’s the feeling of being overwhelmed. For some, it’s the pain of being different. We all have a mountain to climb. But, Brother, it’s time for your mountain to be moved.” She paused. Sniffled, and wiped tears from her cheeks. Now everyone was looking, listening. “But . . . I can’t move it. I’ve tried. Goose has tried. We can’t move it, but you can. You can do this. You need to do this. I need you. Our parents need you. These beautiful kids I coach, because of you, need you. You need you. So . . . please . . .” She looked up at her brother, who was standing there, skinny and weak and wet. “Please.”
She folded the letter and put it back in her pocket. I glanced over at Kelvin, and he was wiping tears from his face too, but trying to do it in a slick way so I wouldn’t catch him. Turned away from me as if there was something interesting to look at out on the street.
My father glanced around at the court and nodded, and all of a sudden, these tough guys, Pop, and Sicko, and Big James, and everybody else just started up.
“Yeah, Wolf. It’s time.”
“It’s time, man.”
“Mess gon’ kill you, dude.”
“Yeah, get some help. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”
“All I know is, that’s your sister. Your sister, man.”
Sister. I don’t know if the word “sister” hit a switch in my brain or what, but all of a sudden I start thinking about my future-new-little-baby sister. The second bolt of lightning. But not lightning at all. Snowflake. The snowflake that hopefully would never have to know what it means to disappear. I wanted to be a real big brother. A big big brother. And not just when she was little, not just when I was teaching her how to do cool stuff like beat all the boys on the track, or how to roast when she needed to, but when we got old, too. Gotta finish strong. All the way through. Gotta be a big brother like . . . well, like how Patty a big sister to Maddy. Gotta really look out. Look after her the same way all these people were trying to look out for and look after Whit’s brother.
Everybody joined in, and soon, the Wolf—Mr. Torrie—walked to half-court, where my dad and Whit stood. And smiled.
And people started clapping. And clapping. And Kelvin faced forward again and clapped too. He let the tears come. Looked at me, face all wet, and was different. Like his skin had been peeled back, and whatever was underneath was what connected him, somehow, to what we were all watching.
I put my hand out. He gave me a five. And I left.
Me and Dad followed Whit and her brother to the rehab center. My father said he always liked to go with them just to make sure everything went smooth.
“You never know, man,” he said, scratching his forehead. “I’ve seen a lot of wild things happen.” But nothing wild happened this time. We pulled up to the center. Whit and Torrie got out.
“This is the boring part,” Dad said. “But we gotta do it. There’s nothing to see, and nothing to do.” He reached in the backseat and handed me some pamphlets. “Might as well read.”
“But it’s summertime,” I said, opening the passenger door.
“What that mean? Your brain don’t work no more?” Dad joked, closing his.
I sat in the waiting room for what seemed like forever, reading these papers about detox, and how sometimes before they can even start real treatment they have to let the drugs pass through people’s bodies, and how terrible it feels to, like, get all the stuff out of you. I also read about the twelve steps people sometimes use to get clean. It said 12 STEPS MADE SIMPLE, which made me wonder what the twelve steps made difficult were. Anyway, the simple ones in the pamphlet were:
1. Honesty
2. Hope
3. Faith
4. Courage
5. Integrity
6. Willingness
7. Humility
8. Discipline and Action
9. Forgiveness
10. Acceptance
11. Knowledge and Awareness
12. Service and Gratitude
I understood most of these, but the one that kept tripping me up was number five. Integrity. I just couldn’t figure it out. I mean, I know what most of the others are, and some of the other ones I wasn’t completely sure about, I could kinda guess. But “integrity.” That ain’t even made up of no other words accept for “in” and “grit,” but that don’t make no sense.
“Dad.” I nudged him. He was sitting right next to me, making sure Whit and Mr. Torrie knew what they were doing, even though there was a counselor person talking to them too. He didn’t answer, so I nudged him again. “Dad.”
“Yeah?” He turned toward me.
“What’s integrity?”
“Huh?”
“What’s integrity?” I repeated.
“It’s like, um, how do I explain it?” Now he turned his whole body to face me. “It’s like the good parts of you, that . . .” He stopped, tried to gather his thoughts. “You know that gold medal I just gave back to Otis?”
“Yeah.”
“See how the gold didn’t change? Didn’t turn any other color?”
“Yeah.”
“See how it was still heavy after all those years, and how it didn’t bend or start to disintegrate?”
“Yep.”
“Well, think of integrity as the gold medal . . . inside you.”
When we finally made it home, it was evening and the sun had just started to come down. The block was buzzing as usual, and inside our house was as well. My mother was up and listening to her old music, the sound of it, and the smell of something delicious, smacking us in the face at the door.
“Hello!” my father called out.
“Hey!” Mom called back. She was in the kitchen, two-stepping and holding a carrot like it was a microphone. “Y’all had a good day?” she asked, before leaning over and giving me a kiss. Then doing the same to Dad.
“Yeah, pretty good,” he said.
“Good. What about you, Lu? Learn anything?” she asked, because she’s a mom and that’s all they really be caring about. They just want you to learn stuff all the time.
“Actually, I did.” I flashed a fish face like, so . . . boom.
“Oh yeah? Wanna talk about it?” she asked, a
nd before I could answer, my father jumped in and hugged her, and started slow dancing with her, stepping and spinning her slowly between the table and the counter. I can’t front. He was smooth with it. Not just the dancing, but with the interruption. He knew this one was for us.
“Ahhh. Now I get it. This is why you let him get away with calling you a Pepperoni on your first date,” I joked.
“Pepperoni?!” he yelped, pulling away.
After I washed up, it was time for dinner.
“On the menu tonight,” my mother started, “steamed carrots, mashed potatoes—both of which I got from the farmers’ market today—”
“You went to the market?” I asked, only because we usually only go once a week.
“Listen, I got to spend the day how I wanted to spend it. So I went and saw my girl Frankie.” Mom was about to continue but instead just shut me down with, “Mind your business.” She smiled. “Anyway, we having fresh organic carrots, fresh organic potatoes, and”—she opened the oven—“Salisbury steak!”
“Let me guess, you went all the way to Salisbury to get it?” my father joked.
“What’s Salisbury?” I asked. I had Salisbury steak before but never asked that.
“A city,” my mother replied.
“Where?”
“Maryland,” from my dad, who, as usual, was tucking his chains in his shirt.
And at the same time my mom answered, “Europe.”
So it sounded like Murope.
“Don’t matter. I ain’t go nowhere but to the back of the freezer for these.”
Honestly, it didn’t matter where she got them from. They were delicious, even though I felt like they were supposed to be on hamburger buns. Kinda reminded me of a sloppy joe, before it was turned into sloppiness. An unsloppy joe. With steak sauce.
Halfway through the meal, after I told my dad the whole story about the people from Sword and Stone, and imitated the dude with the spike, my mother took her knife and started knocking it against her cup. Which, after that crazy story, seemed pretty normal.
Clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk.
“Doesn’t really work the same with plastic,” she said, setting her knife down. “Anyway, I would like to make a toast.” Mom put on her best fancy voice. It was probably the voice she thought Mr. Charles Ringwald was supposed to have, but definitely didn’t. I thought about Sunny and his grass-and-dirt toast, and figured maybe me and Mom and Dad could do that too at some point. Maybe after the baby was born. “To Lu, for finishing another amazing season on the track. It doesn’t matter what happens tomorrow. I’m so proud of you.”
“I’ll toast to that,” my dad added.
“And little sis is proud too,” Mom tacked onto the end. We lifted our glasses. Juice for Mom. Beer for Dad. Milk for me.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers!”
“Boomticky tacky cheers!” I blurted.
“What?” My dad twisted his mouth, but my mother, she liked it.
“Nothing, just . . . Sunny.”
Sip.
“About your little sister. You come up with a name yet? Any ideas?” Dad asked, as we all set our cups down.
I pushed my plate to the side, propped my elbows up on the table, and put my hands together, but with only the fingertips touching. I glanced at my mother, thinking she was going to give me knife eyes. But she didn’t.
“Well, it’s been weird to try to figure out what to name her. My newest good name ideas are Valencia, or Mandarin, or Clementine, but when I really started thinking about it, thinking about what she is to us, to me, I realized that there’s only one thing she could be called.”
“And what’s that?” My mother tapped her fork to her lips, sideways’d her head.
“Lightning.”
Mom’s eyes got big, and she looked at my father. He lowered his chin.
“Lightning,” she repeated, then repeated again. “Lightning. Gordon, you . . . uh . . . wanna say anything?”
Dad still didn’t look up. Just shook his head.
“Gordon!”
Now he looked up. “Um. Okay, what do you think about Lightning for a middle name?”
“Middle name?” I asked, not knowing where this was going.
“Yeah,” Mom agreed, quick-fast. “And for her first name we go with something simple. I’ve always liked Christina, after me, or Melanie. Or even Erin. I love Erin for a girl.”
“But you said I could name her. You told me that was my job, so . . .”
“I know, but—”
“So, I choose Lightning.” I shrugged, took another swig of my milk, swallowed. “And for short, I’m going to call her Light.”
My mother’s eyes got big again. But my father didn’t drop his head this time. He smiled.
“Light.” He nodded. Smiled a little bigger.
“I think I like that. Lu and Light.” Dad started slow-nodding. I looked at Mom, and those lightbulbs in her cheeks came on.
“But it’s really Lightning,” I reminded them. Just to be clear.
“Okay. But can we come to a compromise? Light is good. Come on, man, I’m puking every day to get her here. Work with me.”
She had a point. “Okay, Light it is.”
Light it was.
After dinner, I took a shower to wash the day off. The car and the court. Kelvin and the sneakers. Whit and the Wolf. Rehab and detox. Twelve Steps and gold medal. So much. So many things on me. In me. And now, I had Light. Light to look for. To look after. To keep on. I went into my room, took out my contacts, blurred out, laid in my bed, and thought about her. Light. My sister.
10
A NEW NAME FOR DEFENDER: Family
Race day. Not just any race day. Championship day. I went to bed early, so I woke up early. Earlier than everybody else. I took a shower, put my sunscreen on, laid out my Defenders uniform. The electric blue and gold. The muscle arm, with the hand squeezing the wing. The bold lettering: DEFENDERS across the front.
“One more time,” I said to myself.
I got dressed, went out to the kitchen to put the coffee on for my mom and dad. I’d seen my mother make it every day for basically my whole life, so it was no big deal. And I knew they’d want it. They always wanted it in the morning. Plus the smell of it, I knew, would wake them up. The smell of that stuff would get anybody up. I poured myself some orange juice. Poured myself a bowl of cereal. Drank. Ate. Then opened the fridge again to grab a few oranges. I chopped them into slices, then put them in one of my mother’s many Tupperware containers like I always did every week, for every meet, mainly for me, but also to share with my teammates.
Then I sat at the table, folded my arms, and waited.
Five minutes went by. Nothing.
Ten. Nothing.
Fifteen. I couldn’t take it no more, so I went and knocked on their door.
“Guys?” I said soft. I knocked again.
“Lu, we’re up. We’re up,” my father groaned through the door. Then I heard him mumble something, and my mother tell him to chill out because it’s championship day. And that meant I was excited.
Not really excited. More like nervous. Or both. Excited and nervous. Excited to smoke everybody in the hundred, but still nervous about those hurdles. I knew I could do it. I knew what it took to do it. I had it down to a science. To a count. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve. Up. Then, one-two-three up, one-two-three up. I went to sleep counting and woke up counting and counted the orange slices, the number of gulps in the glass of juice, the spoonfuls in a bowl of cereal. I knew it. I knew I knew it. But I was still . . . nervous.
“Guys, I want to get there kinda early,” I spoke back through the door. “You know, just to warm up, and make sure I’m ready.”
My dad grumbled again. But my mother answered, “Okay, baby. Okay, okay. We’re getting up.”
When they finally made it to the kitchen, coffee was ready. Half cup for Mom, and I left the cereal out for them.
“How you feelin
g, runner?” my mother asked.
“I’m okay. Just jumpy.”
“I bet,” my father said, spooning soggy flakes into his mouth. “I would be too.”
“But you’re gonna do great. Because you are great. You were born great,” my mom tossed out what seemed like some of her own mantra.
“Okay, okay.” My dad stopped her. “You’re putting it on a little thick.”
“But he is,” she said, not even caring what Dad was talking about.
“I know, but he’s a little stressed out,” Dad said, trying to get her to understand.
“He’s my son, and he’s great.” Point-blank, period. No reason to argue. But Dad tried anyway.
“He’s my son too, and I know he’s great, but maybe . . . maybe he just wants a little time to get himself together without the pep talk before the pep talk.” Dad shrugged. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“I’m good,” I said, stopping them from going down this long road. They were nervous too. They always were when it came to me running, but instead of just admitting it, they did this every week. And my father had only been to one meet this year. The first one. Yes, that’s a little bit because of work, but also because he can’t take the stress of seeing me run. Because he ran. And he knows what it’s like. “Seriously, I’m good,” I repeated. “But I just need to get to the park.”
Before we left, I went back to my room and looked at all the jewelry on my dresser, the necklaces laid out like a gold river. My armor. The one diamond earring. None of it really meaning what it meant to me before finding out all the stuff about my dad and the medal. It all meant something else now. I glanced from the gold on the dresser to the me in the mirror. Mantra.
I am
The man.
The guy.
The kid.
The one.
The only.
Lu Page 12