Checked

by Cynthia Kadohata

  Dad knocks and opens the door. “Time for bed, Con.”

  “Dad,” I say, “I don’t understand the playbook.”

  “Really?” he says, interested. “Why don’t you give it to me? I’ll look it over before I go to bed. What part don’t you understand?”

  “The plays in the last half. They don’t make any sense to me.”

  Dad takes the playbook, and I get ready for bed. I did so much reading tonight that I forgot I was planning on taking Sinbad for a short walk. He’s sleeping anyway.

  Before I get ready to go to sleep, I search for, Do athletes have to read a playbook? And I come up with an article about NFL players saying that learning a playbook is a three-year process. It also says you should spend an hour a day on your playbook. That makes me feel super relieved. I’m happy to put in an hour a day, and three years seems like a century away—I’ll be through with bantam by then! But I remember that Coach Dusan said in his e-mail how he expects everyone to know the playbook by the end of September. So I spend another hour online trying to figure out diagrams of hockey plays, and totally failing.

  That is, I thought it was an hour, but somehow two hours have gone by, and it’s eleven thirty. I do my before-bed routine in the bathroom but skip flossing, and when I come out, I can see Dad’s light is on, and I know he’s reading the playbook. I stop at his door, which is closed, and say, “Good night, Dad! Thanks for reading the playbook.”

  “No problem. Get some sleep.”

  I get in bed. The idiot motion detector has been activated again for some reason, and the light shines into my room. Someday I’m getting a ladder and disconnecting that thing if I can figure out how.

  Sinbad lies with his eyes open. “Hey, Sinbad,” I say. “What if there’s a robber who comes in here in the middle of the night? Are you gonna get up and protect me?”

  His eyes flick from my right to the left—a lot of dogs’ eyes do that when they look at humans, ’cause the right side of your face shows more emotion, and they want to understand what you’re feeling. Anyway, that’s why scientists think they do that. I put my arms around him and say, “I love you, Sinbad.” He stands up on the mattress and leans his long nose on me, licking my cheek. That’s unusual—he hardly ever licks. Probably he read something in my face that made him feel he should lick me. He nestles back into the bed and closes his eyes.

  It’s warm, so I turn on the ceiling fan and push the blanket down to the foot of the bed. I’m so worried about the playbook I can hardly stop from screaming. I can be a great AAA player, I just know it. But no question, the playbook is a big, big hurdle for me. One year I flunked social studies ’cause I couldn’t remember enough, even though I studied hard. The teacher thought I wasn’t trying. On the other hand, I usually remember most of the stuff I read on WikiLeaks. So what does that say about my memory? I turn on the light and get on the floor and stretch my back. Sinbad jumps off the bed to bug me like he always does when I stretch.

  The door opens up, and Dad stands in the doorway.

  “Everything okay in here?” he asks. “How come you left the bathroom light on?”

  I look at him. “I forgot,” I say. “Sorry.”

  Dad nods. “It’s midnight. Are you worried about the playbook? Because we’re going to conquer that. I’ve seen a lot of playbooks, and they all seem impossible at first. This is your first one, so you’re just not used to them yet. We’ve got time.” He taps his fingers on the doorjamb. “An athlete’s relationship to the playbook is complicated. They’re abstract, so you need on-ice practice. What you’re really looking to do is not memorize them, but own them. That just means they become second nature for you. I don’t have the slightest doubt that you can do that. In fact, it’s one of the things that you’re good at. Okay?”

  Frustration kind of explodes inside, surprising me—it’s like my gut just broke open. I almost need to spit on the floor. “It doesn’t make any sense! Do I really need to learn it if I play good?”

  “Actually, you do. You have to understand your coach’s system. And you’re going to. I was looking it over, and it’s not that bad. I’ve seen worse.”

  He’s got work tomorrow, so I say, “Thanks, Dad. I’m fine. I really am. I was just having a moment with Sinbad.” Having a moment with Sinbad? What was that supposed to mean?

  Dad nods again. “He’s going to be fine. We caught it early.” He taps his fingers again on the doorjamb.

  He closes the door, which he started doing earlier this year. I guess it’s ’cause I’m older now. Previously he always left it open a crack. And you know what? Dad seemed so sure that I’m going to learn the playbook that I realize I do feel better now. So I get up and go knock on his door.

  “Yeah?”

  I peek in. “Thanks, Dad. I feel better now.”

  “No problem. You’re going to do great.”

  I get in bed, turn on my phone to check for texts and e-mails like I usually do before bed. There’s an e-mail from Jae-won and one from my aunt. Jae-won and I have a tradition of e-mailing each other. Most of the guys don’t use e-mail, but we got started ’cause sometimes we just had stuff to say that was too complicated to text about.

  Hey, Conor. Did you get the playbook? Do you feel as crappy at me? I started it but wanted to give up as soon as I got to the plays. Made me want to quit hockey, seriously. Then tonight my mom and dad had a big fight about how much money hockey costs. Anyway, are you still on Xbox Live? I haven’t seen you. Let’s play COD.

  Actually, my Xbox Live subscription ran out. To tell the truth, I was sick of Call of Duty—it takes up too much space in your head. I decided I like games where I can be more of a vegetable. For a few months there I was more interested in COD than in hockey. Then I lost interest. Plus, my dad makes me pay for Xbox Live with my own money, and even before Sinbad got sick, I realized it doesn’t mean enough to me that I’ll pay the sixty bucks. That makes me think of a birthday party I went to at a paintball field, and how I was obsessed with paintballing for a few months. But that got old. I don’t know why other obsessions get old but hockey never does. There’s something about hockey that I just can’t get out of my system. It’s like hockey is just me, and COD and paintballing are outside of me, even though they’re both really fun.

  I type in an e-mail to Jae-won.

  Hey, J-W. Yeah, I know what you mean. The playbook is tough. How are we gonna get through this?? My dad says he’s gonna help me. You can come study with us if you want. My stepmom and dad fought sometimes about me playing hockey. Sucks. Don’t ever give up hockey, man, you got the softest hands in SoCal. I’m not on Xbox Live anymore. See ya. —C

  I really relate to the whole parents-fighting thing. Even when I was playing on a B team, our lives revolved around my hockey schedule. Hockey is really involving that way, I don’t know why. At team parties when I hear the parents talking, it’s hockey, hockey, hockey. The first year there were some disagreements between my parents about me playing hockey, but they weren’t yelling at each other. The second year, when I was still on a B team but skating more and more, there was some yelling. The third year, when I made an A team, there was a lot of yelling. Then last year, when I was on the AAs, I skated or worked out twenty hours a week, plus travel time to and from the rink or park, plus dressing and undressing, plus shopping at hockey stores for gear, plus team parties. So I can see how my stepmom was upset, especially since she didn’t consider me her “real” kid. At the same time, I wanted to skate so bad—SO BAD—that I was glad my dad stood his ground. I would lie in bed listening to them yell, and think about how it was all my fault, and I just didn’t see a way out. Quit hockey? Not an option. But the truth is, hockey is a curse if both your parents aren’t on board. After the fights, sometimes Dad would stick his head in my door and say, “Compartmentalize, Conor, compartmentalize.” Thinking about it now, I can see how there was no way they could have stayed together if I kept playing hockey. So even though she’s the one who wanted the divorce, I guess he
kind of did too, ’cause he refused to give up on my hockey like she wanted.

  I check Aunt Mo’s e-mail.

  Hi, hon. I got a surprising call today. Your mom’s parents want to visit with you in Los Angeles this Thanksgiving. I said I would check with you and your dad first, but mostly with you. What do you think? Love, Me

  Well. That’s a shocker! Anger suddenly rises up in me. Immediately. I kind of feel about them the way I feel about Jenny, like they’re just two people who rejected me. Maybe they’re even worse than her, ’cause they blew me off and I’m their actual grandson. That’s just not right. But I push it hard out of my mind ’cause it’ll just make me angry.

  Then I lay my hand on Sinbad’s side, feel him breathing easily. The touch wakes him up, and he paws at me before starting to breathe evenly again. He was doing great during the day—we even went for a couple of walks. I put my other hand on his side as well and try to merge like we did once before, breathing in sync. But for whatever reason, it doesn’t work, and I feel disappointed.

  My mind automatically goes back to my grandparents, and anger toward them wells up again. I don’t want to see them. They cut me loose to travel around the world. I don’t know them. I don’t need them. I’m fine right here, in my little house with my little family—my dog and my dad and my hockey gear. What else do I need?

  CHAPTER 24

  * * *

  WHEN SINBAD IS sick or getting IV treatments, it makes me question whether this whole chemo thing is fair to him. I mean, he doesn’t know why he has to go through all this. Is it just for me? But he’s so happy sometimes. Isn’t it worth it to be sick when the result is you end up being really happy? Supposedly, most dogs don’t get sick when they get chemo, so maybe their owners don’t have so many doubts. I wish that was me.

  About a week after his previous chemo, I take him for a long walk, up and down our usual hill, and then up another hill. He hears a noise and whines, so I unleash him and he runs off. When he disappears from view, I sit down and wait, and it dawns on me—there are already plants regrowing everywhere! Some of the weeds are several inches high. Green’s my favorite color, so it’s cool to sit in the middle of all that new growth. It’s only eighty out, which is pretty good for summer in Canyon Country. I check my phone but know there’s no signal up here, so I just reread the e-mail I finally sent Aunt Mo this morning. I told her that I don’t want to see my mom’s parents. It wasn’t a hard decision. There were times early on after Dad married Jenny when I really wanted to see them. I’d just be there in my room with nothing to do ’cause Jenny wanted to have some “parent time” alone with Dad. Even when we all went somewhere together, I felt like Dad was more with her than with me. I’d even asked Dad about Grandma Toshi and Grandpa Takao. He said they were going through issues and couldn’t see anyone at the moment ’cause they were still upset about my mother’s death.

  I roll my head and neck in a slow circle, then close my eyes and let the breeze hit my face. Sinbad doesn’t show up for twenty minutes. He’s done that before, but with him being on chemo, I start to feel pretty worried. “Sinbad!” I call out, but he doesn’t come.

  Then I hear a commotion, and it’s him, bounding through the brush with a rabbit in his mouth and a wild look in his eyes. He shakes his head back and forth, the rabbit’s body whipping around. He looks like a complete madman. I know some people might think this is mean of me, but I feel so proud of him! In fact, I think it’s my proudest moment as a dog owner. Even when he caught that squirrel, he didn’t look this wild.

  “What a good boy!” I exclaim. “You’re the best good boy in the world!” I rub his head. He might be the best dog the world has ever seen! Then I wonder what to do with the rabbit, since wild rabbits can have worms. “Drop it!” I command. He shakes it vigorously. I wonder if it’s too late, whether he’s already got the worms. Then I grab his upper and lower mouth, pull apart, and shout, “NO! NO!” He wants to fight me for it, and his jaws don’t budge.

  “Sit!” I say, and surprisingly he does. But he doesn’t open his mouth. I try to pry his jaws open again while saying “NO!” This actually goes on for several minutes. Finally I can see there’s no way he’s letting go. “Oh, all right, let’s head home.” I’ll have to offer him some dog food or something to get him to drop the rabbit.

  And he literally carries that bloody carcass for forty minutes. Back on the street, we pass Mr. Reynolds’s house, and he’s out there with his blue plastic, pulling it over his car. He looks happy and involved, like he always does with his plastic. He spots me, though, and calls out, “Conor MacRae! What’s that your dog’s got?”

  “A rabbit,” I reply. “He won’t let go.”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” he says.

  At home Sinbad doesn’t give up the rabbit for dry dog food. He doesn’t give it up for wet dog food or lettuce, either. There’s a drumstick from yesterday’s soup, and when I wave it in front of Sinbad, he drops the rabbit immediately. I throw the rabbit in the sink temporarily, wash my hands, and tear the meat off the chicken bone.

  Dad comes home just then and for some reason heads right to the sink. All he says is, “Oh, that’s pretty,” then goes to the fridge, takes out a carton of milk, and heads to his room.

  “Sorry, rabbit,” I say. I bag it three times and bring it to the outside garbage can, Sinbad following me eagerly. He does his best sit in the driveway. “Not giving it to you. No!”

  I know this probably won’t help with worms in his mouth, if he even has worms in his mouth, but I take him in and brush his teeth early—I usually brush them at night—and give him a bath for good measure. Meanwhile, I’ll have to watch for worms in his poop. But it feels great to have these “problems.” Life is good! It’s a weird thing, like one day everything in the world seems to suck, and another day everything seems to be working out. Aunt Mo says that’s just ’cause I’m a kid, and kids are “dramatic.” I don’t know about that. I mean, sometimes we’re just responding to the grown-ups, right?

  I go stand in Dad’s doorway. “Aunt Mo says Grandpa Takao and Grandma Toshi want to come visit me on Thanksgiving.”

  He sets down his milk carton. “Yeah, I heard. So what do you think?”

  “I told her no. . . . How come they asked her instead of you?”

  “Actually, they keep in touch with her more than they do me. . . . Okay. All right. Are you sure? Sometimes I think . . . I mean, your mom didn’t have any siblings, and I have one, but she doesn’t have kids yet. It might be a good thing to have more relatives in your life.”

  “Nah.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Nah.” I pause. “Sinbad caught a rabbit.”

  “I noticed.”

  “It was pretty cool. He was super excited. I never saw him so excited.”

  “I’m glad he’s doing well.”

  I get a feeling then that Dad’s had a bad day, so I wander off.

  In my room, Sinbad’s ripping apart a blanket . . . my blanket. “Aw, Sinbad!” I say. “Seriously?”

  He’s so busy ripping that he doesn’t notice me. I know I should scold him so he never does this again, but since he’s been sick, I can’t make myself do it. But I do take the blanket from him and throw it back on my bed. I’ve only been using it ’cause I let the air conditioner run all night a couple of times. I’m pretty sure it’s just a cheap blanket; still, we can’t afford to be destroying stuff right now. It’s torn, and there are a couple of holes, but it’s still usable. I look at Sinbad suspiciously. The rabbit, the blanket—it’s like he knows he can get away with anything right now. I pat the bed, and he jumps up. I sit next to him while I work on the playbook. Jae-won and his family are on their annual trip to Redding, where Mrs. Kang’s parents live, so we haven’t studied the playbook together yet. Dad, of course, has basically memorized the whole thing. Then we’ve been going over old video of my games while he tries to point out plays that are similar to the ones Coach Dusan has diagrammed. On my own, I just keep re
ading it over and over.

  Next thing I know, I’m waking up, and it’s three in the morning. I can’t sleep, so I go to my desk, thinking I may read the playbook more. There’s an envelope on my desk—Dad must have put it there after I fell asleep. It’s from Mr. Reynolds.

  Dear Conor,

  Here’s something I thought you might like. It’s a real fingernail clipping from Mack!! He hated getting his fingernails clipped, but we used to do it once a month. I would keep him calm, and my wife would do the cutting. Then afterward we would give him a special treat like carrots and apples. He was a funny chimp. He wouldn’t eat a whole apple and then a whole carrot, no, he liked to eat some apple, then some carrot, and so on until he was finished. It was something special we thought you might like.

  Yours very truly,

  Edwin Reynolds

  I notice he accidentally said “we” thought you might like—referring to his wife? I examine the nail. It’s so different from Sinbad’s narrow black ones. It’s shaped like mine, but it’s dark with a pink spot on it. It’s unbendable, like Sinbad’s, though maybe not quite as steel-like. It’s dead . . . but alive. I stare at it in my open palm. Maybe I’m still half-asleep, ’cause I get this weird feeling, like I can kind of sense Mack. I wouldn’t say it’s a scary feeling exactly, but it feels weird, for sure. Then the feeling’s gone, and I think I might be insane. Life’ll do that to you sometimes.

  CHAPTER 25

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING Jae-won sends me a link to a story his parents had just read. It’s about a cop who shoots an unarmed man, and it turns out the cop is in the middle of a brutal divorce. That really gets to me, and I wonder if I should call someone at the police department so I can tell them my dad is maybe not 100 percent just now. Then I realize that the thing to do is talk to my dad about it, and see if I can talk him into taking some time off. I think he needs it—after I got back in bed last night, I heard his alarm go off, and then I heard him crying in the hallway. It sounded like he was just standing there, doing nothing but crying. Then after a couple of minutes, he got in the shower. So yeah, I’m going to talk to him.