Oh no. I started to apologize, you know, rapid-fire sorrys like sorry sorry sorry sorry
sorrysorrysorry
sorry sorrrrry I’m so so so
so so sorry
but before I could even get to “sorry” number five, Darryl had already hit his hundredth HA! He’d busted out laughing. Like, laughing laughing. I don’t remember the last time I heard him laugh, and I definitely don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh that loud, and for that long. It actually sounded kind of painful. Like a bad cough. Like hacking and hacking and hacking up something he’d been choking on for a long time.
Dear Diary,
I told Darryl about me choking on that sausage biscuit yesterday. There was even more laughter in his face, but he tried to hide it. But I laughed, and then he did.
I also told him about Mr. Rufus. That he was in a coma. Darryl didn’t think that was funny. Which is a good thing, because it wasn’t. Not at all.
I told him about me almost hitting my whole team with the discus. His laughter came back, but then he noticed that mine didn’t, so he disappeared his immediately.
I told him that because of that, I had to go to practice today. He said he’d take me.
Then he told me a little bit about his date with Ms. Linda. Dinner. Told me she was nice, and smelled much better than Mr. Nico, who smells like he himself is a cigar. And that was all he said, and, Diary, I’m glad that’s all he said, because the thing is, I’m glad he went out with her, but I don’t want to know nothing else. He did say one other thing about the date, though. He said it made him feel younger. Like he had his boomtick booming and ticking again. (That part’s me, not him. Darryl didn’t say that.)
And that got us talking about my mother. And about when they were kids. He dug out a photo book and we flipped though old pictures of him with different haircuts, and my mother with different hair styles, and my grandfather with less gray hair, and Aurelia, who looked exactly the same. Darryl talked about how Gramps wanted him to be a doctor too. How he always said, saving a life is always more important than saving a dollar. Darryl also talked about how my mother’s parents died when she was in high school in a freak accident, and that Aurelia’s family looked after her, which is why she looked after Aurelia when she got all messed up on drugs. Darryl went on and on about how him and my mom met on the school bus, and she used to cheat off his homework.
And on it went, the stories, each one better than the last, all of them making me feel like I was being warmed. I got to tell him more about the team. I didn’t have much else to really talk about, because the team is the only part of my life that is not this house. Or Aurelia. The team is the bada-bada-bangbang. Is the zip and zap and what-what, so they are who I have to talk about.
I reminded him that Ghost was the one who jumped the gun.
And Lu is the albino one who looks like he’s been to the Olympics already.
And Patty is the only girl in the crew.
Darryl thought the fact that I said crew was funny. Then he asked me if I liked Patty.
I asked why he was asking.
He said because whenever I say her name, my face does a weird thing.
I asked what kind of weird thing.
Darryl smirked, then flipped through the photo album, back toward the beginning. One of the first pictures—a Polaroid of him and my mother at a Chinese restaurant. They were young. Close to my age. And scribbled on the border was, D & R’s first “date.” Darryl pointed to the image of him, pressed his finger on his own goofy photographed face.
And I could feel mine going all melty melty, skwilurp bleep blurp squish.
Dear Diary,
When we got to the track, Darryl got out of the car and walked over to the stands and took a seat in the exact spot he normally sits in during the meet. Coach was already there. When I think about it, Coach is always there. It’s almost like he lives on the track. He’s never late.
He shook Darryl’s hand. Shook it long. Then told me to head to the track. Told me this was just like any other practice, so I needed to stretch and do warm-up laps. The usual.
I watched Coach and my father talk. I couldn’t hear what they were saying because they stepped way back from the track. There was a lot of hand movement, and some arm folding, but ultimately it looked okay. After my two laps, Coach met me at the throwing circle. He had his crate of discuses just like the day before.
He said that all I was going to be doing was throwing. That’s it. Just throwing to get me as comfortable as possible before the meet tomorrow.
Coach told me to keep my form tight, and to just whoosh whoosh aah
And I went. Spinning and throwing, spinning and throwing, Coach standing beside me, feeding me the metal disks, making slight adjustments to my technique.
Coach would tell me to keep my knees bent.
He’d say not to muscle it, but to just let it leave my hand. To just let it go. And I was doing okay until one got away from me and shanked off to the right and landed on the track.
And then somebody yelled out something about how that could’ve hit them, and I turned around and it was Patty. She was strutting over to the track, and behind her was Lu and Ghost.
Coach yelled that this was a closed practice and that there was no riffraff allowed.
Then Lu called me riffraff and said if I’m here, they should all be allowed. That made me feel good.
Then Ghost spat sunflower seed shells and said we were like roaches and that where there’s one, there’s four. And I didn’t know if that was true or not, but it’s interesting to think about, and a little frightening.
Ghost had walked over after school, and Patty’s friend Skunk—yep, Skunk—brought her and Lu. Skunk, who unfortunately looks nothing like a Skunk, was over by the stands, shaking my father’s hand.
They had come to support me. Lu said they knew I was used to leading the pack. Now the pack had come to help lead me. So now, with them watching, I started again with the spinning and releasing, the discuses sometimes chucking through the air wobbly, and other times cutting through the sky like a blade.
And with each throw, whether good or bad, Lu, Patty, and Ghost would cheer me on.
Good one!
Or, Not bad!
Or, Don’t worry about that one!
Or, Hey, as far as I’m concerned, that should be part of the field!
And before I knew it, there was another voice. A deeper one. My father. He had come onto the track, onto the field, and was standing off to the side, shouting.
That’s better!
And, Try again!
And, That’s how you do it!
And when all the discuses were thrown, they all clapped for me like a bunch of weirdos. And helped me retrieve them all so that I could throw each discus again.
Diary, after a few rounds of that, I’m happy to say I was consistently getting the discus up in the air, flat and straight. It wasn’t going into outer space or nothing, and it was definitely not going a mile, but it was flying. Coach spent the last thirty minutes of practice just nodding, which for him is always a good thing.
At the end of practice Coach told me he thought I was ready, and that I could at least place third because there’s only three of us competing.
Patty didn’t like that. She said I’m taking first, like always.
I didn’t say nothing to that. Just smiled because it was cool that she believed in me like that. That they all did. But the truth is, I’m not sure I even really care about winning at all.
Dear Diary,
After all that throwing, I was starving, and for once was looking forward to getting home and snatching a TV dinner from the freezer, opening the box, poking holes in the plastic cover with a fork, then microwaving that thing into a steamy, weird-smelling meal. Yum. But Darryl had other plans.
He ended up taking me to the Chinese restaurant him and my mother went to on their first date, which happened to also be the same Chinese restaurant me and Lu and Ghost and Patty and C
oach went to on our first date. Back when the season was just getting started and Coach was trying to get us newbies to bond. Back when we shared secrets, when I found out about Patty’s mom, and Ghost’s dad. And how Lu always wanted a brother. Back when I shared my own secret about my mother dying and being forced to run by the man who was now sitting in front of me, flipping through a Chinese food menu the same way he flips through the newspaper on Sundays.
When the waiter came over to take our orders, I let mine rip. Peking duck and a cherry Coke. And before the waiter could say they don’t have cherry Coke, I told him that I knew they didn’t have it so a Coke with a little cherry juice in it was fine.
Darryl just shook his head. He ordered sweet-and-sour chicken, and asked me where I learned about Peking duck.
I told him Aurelia orders it sometimes for lunch.
He nodded and said my mother used to order that too. Said it was one of her favorite dishes. That, and sausage biscuits.
My cherry Coke came out. I took a sip. It was delicious. Diary, remind me to thank Patty tomorrow. Anyway, that first sip brought up an idea. Especially since I didn’t really know what to talk to Darryl about. Besides random comments about chopsticks and my mother, things were pretty awkward, not in a bad way, but in a way that made me keep moving around on my side of the booth, trying to get comfortable on the sweaty vinyl.
So I did the only thing I could think of. I asked Darryl to tell me a secret.
Then I had to repeat the request.
And finally after saying, a secret, a secret, like . . . a secret, he told me why he made me call him Darryl, and not Dad. He said he didn’t feel like he could truly be a dad without my mother. And that it just didn’t feel right. Like, I’m his son and he’s my father, but she would never be able to hear me call her Mom, so he just felt like it was unfair for him to be called Dad. He also admitted that maybe that’s not a good reason, but . . . it’s the truth. I was supposed to be the biggest return. Hearing Mommy and Daddy was supposed to be the ultimate ROI. The greatest moment in their plan.
I asked him if he wanted me to call him Dad.
He asked me if I wanted to.
I told him I didn’t think so. Then asked him if that made him sad.
He asked me if I hated him.
I said, of course not.
Then Darryl is fine.
Cool.
Now, your turn. Tell me a secret.
At first I thought about telling him about you, Diary. About how I still talk to you through writing. And how really that’s kinda weird, but I like it. I like you. But then I was like, no, that’s not a big deal, not nearly as big of a secret as me talking to myself. Like having full-on conversations. And none of that’s as big of a deal as me sometimes climbing into my baby crib, since it’s still in my room. But I wasn’t ready to talk about that yet. What I really wanted to say, what I really wanted to tell him was something new, something fresh that I was holding in.
I’m scared about tomorrow. About the track meet. That’s what I told him.
He asked why.
I told I’m used to running the mile, and knowing that I will win, and when I do, I know I’ve made my team proud, and made my mom proud. I knew I’d be putting that ribbon in his hand. But if for some reason tomorrow, I don’t do well, then I’ve let everybody down. Him, the team . . . my mother. Everyone.
Darryl set his fork down. His face stoning up in that serious way. He told me that he knows he hasn’t been the kind of father that gives advice but that he was going to give me some now. And then he said that when I step into that circle, and I do that weird spin, and I let that discus go, don’t think about him, or the team, or even my mother. He told me to let it go for me.
Dear Diary,
After dinner we came home, and before going to bed, we stood over the big table in the family room, picking through the pieces left to the puzzle we were working on. The face was complete, and the tricky part was now getting the rest of her body done, but most of it seemed to be blurred, like wind. It was the picture. The one Gramps gave me. The baby shower. And as Darryl and I tried blurry piece after blurry piece until finally completing most of her torso, we didn’t talk too much. Just worked together. And when we finally said good night, we did this weird hug thing like we had just grown arms, and before going upstairs, I glanced at the puzzle, at the blur, and knew I was in there.
9
Saturday
Dear Diary,
I don’t have time to say much this morning because it’s meet day, and I’m too nervous to write anything except for maybe, I’m so nervous. Wish me luck.
Also, I hope Darryl is okay. Today is the day my mother died.
Dear Diary,
By the time I got downstairs, dressed in my Defenders uniform, ready to go to the meet, Darryl had already made breakfast. Pancakes and eggs. But I told him I can’t eat. Too nervous. Actually, first I thanked him. Then I told him I can’t eat because my stomach had been tied in knots all morning. Milky glue guts. So for the first time in forever I turned down pancakes.
Darryl said it was okay.
Then he said Happy birthday.
Happy birthday. Usually my birthday is spent with Aurelia taking me to a dance show or a concert, always always always something experimental that involves face painting and neon lights, which is cool, but I’m not sure how much of that screams Happy birthday, Sunny. But I always appreciate it. It’s more than anyone else usually does, and by anyone else, I mean Darryl. Darryl normally just takes this day off. Like, off of everything. He usually just sits in his chair and be stone.
Dear Diary,
Diary, I don’t want to bore you with all the stuff about the ride to the track. Or even the track itself. It’s always the same—a pretty quiet ride (quiet and cool, not quiet and weird) through the city, past the big inflatable purple long-armed monster dancing outside Everything Sports, eventually leading us to a track packed with people. So many people. Family members and friends stacked up in the stands, ready to cheer on their favorite runners. But I wasn’t a runner no more. And as we turned into the parking lot, that fact slapped me in the face.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t going to run.
Darryl asked if I was ready for this.
I told him I was.
But . . . the thing is, Diary . . . I wasn’t ready. And when I got out of the car and started walking toward the track, I started thinking of a way out of it all. A new plan.
I. OPTION 1: APPROACH THE TRACK (don’t turn back)
A. Warm up and stretch with everyone as if nothing is wrong. You have the whole meet to figure out how to get out of this, because the discus is going to be the last event. If all else fails, just say it’s your birthday and you’d rather throw a party than throw a discus, and that next week you’ll be ready.
B. Run the mile as if you totally forgot you weren’t running it no more.
C. Throw the discus and embarrass yourself.
II. OPTION 2: DON’T APPROACH THE TRACK
A. Cry.
B. Poop on yourself. (If crying doesn’t work. But know, there’s no coming back from this.)
C. Sunny . . .
Sunny!
Darryl was calling my name. I didn’t even know I’d stopped walking. Sheesh.
I continued on, looking out at the field as I got closer to it and the track, the white lines like rings around a green planet. A planet I’m used to orbiting. But now I was supposed to be locked down. I was supposed to fling the tiny metal spaceship back into outer space. I wished it could take me with it.
I took my place on the track just outside of everyone else. I mean, I was close to Patty, Lu, and Ghost, but not in the mix like I normally would be. Just a little bit away from everyone. I don’t know why. Just felt different, I guess. Then Coach revved up and dropped his pep talk on us. He said that we were there to defend four things. 1. Our reputation. 2. Our work ethic. 3. Our ability. And more importantly, especially this week since I was doing some
thing new, we’re defending 4. each other. Whit was standing next to him, nodding. Coach crossed his arms and Whit put hers behind her back. Then Coach said this is what it means to be a team. To be family. It means things change, but they keep moving. Coach probably didn’t even know he was describing my new favorite movie.
Then Coach sideswiped everyone and told Lu to lead the stretches.
Not Aaron. Not Aaron. Not A A R O N.
LUUUUUUUUUUUU!
Dear Diary,
Coach sees almost everything. And if he doesn’t, Whit sees it. But for some reason no one saw Aaron push Lu after the stretches. Not even Patty. But I did. And I started walking over to Aaron to let him know that even though I always try to play it cool, I have some noise for him. But before I could get to him, Coach called me over and told me he had some news, and having news is what people like Coach and Gramps say before they say someone or something has taken a turn.
And things definitely took a turn.
They rearranged the events because of this new field event. It’s only three of you, so they’ve decided to put you all first. That’s what Coach said.
I felt like I was going to pass out. All my tickboom had turned into a sputter, and the glue feeling in my stomach had turned into something else. Something heavier. Like a discus. But only until the balloons showed up.
It was Aurelia. And Gramps. They were climbing up into the stands with like a hundred balloons.
I just told Coach before he asked.
Today’s my birthday.
Coach said, today?
I said yeah.
He asked, why didn’t I tell the team?
I shrugged.
Coach told me to hurry up and speak to my family. We had work to do.
Sunny Page 7