Home Field

by Hannah Gersen

  Worries about Stephanie faded. He let them fade. He stopped calling her. But he was reminded of her every morning during his second-period gym class, when he saw Missy. For a week, she refused to come to practice because she was so offended by the way he’d scolded her at the meet. But he didn’t apologize. Instead he made her run during her gym period. The fact that she obeyed let him know he had a chance.

  He was optimistic because of Laura. He was passionate because of Laura. It started to rub off on the girls during practice. They ran harder. On race day, Missy showed up. Dean wouldn’t let her run because she had missed practice. She stood with him on the sidelines and watched as See-See and Aileen got personal records. Dean could feel her impatience.

  The next week Missy came to every practice. Dean worked on pacing. He was trying to teach the girls what a 6:30 pace felt like, versus 7:00 versus 8:00 versus a slow-jogging 9:00. The only way to learn was to run the different paces. They went to the track and did quarters, one fast, one slow, one very fast, one very slow, one kind of fast, one kind of slow. He tried to get them to think in numbers, something abstract to distract them from the pain. It was hard to get them to go really fast because they were scared. He told them they had to feel the pain so they would know how fast they were running. How fast they could go. And so they would know how quickly pain could fade. He told them running was managing pain. He wasn’t sure this was true. He felt it was true of grieving. He thought you had to get close to the bone sometimes. And then you had to back off. He worried that Laura was a kind of drug for him. That he was using her to dull his sadness. He would remind himself that he knew her before, that there was real feeling involved. That it wasn’t just sex and sensation. Other times he felt defiant—so what if it was just sex, just sensation. He wasn’t married. He was alone. Nicole was dead; he could do what he wanted.

  MEGAN STOOD IN the doorway of Dean’s office. Her shoes were bright, toothpaste white, as if she’d scrubbed them that morning. Her hair was up in a tight, high ponytail, the hairstyle pulling at her temples, making her entreating gaze even more intense.

  “What are you doing here?” Dean asked. It was barely eight on a Saturday morning.

  “I want to race,” she said. “I’m dying to try.”

  “Megan, I can’t let you run, you’re not on the team.”

  “It’s okay; I’ve been doing the practices,” she said. “Aileen has been telling me them. I do them the day after you give them. But I didn’t run yesterday because I wanted to be fresh today. And Aileen’s mom made us pasta last night so I’m all carbo-loaded.”

  “Does your mother know you’re here?”

  Megan shook her head. “I stayed overnight at Aileen’s.”

  “I have to call her.” Dean picked up his office phone. Outside, in the parking lot, the bus was waiting for him. Today’s meet was a big invitational in Langford, a large school in the next county over.

  “Please don’t,” Megan said. “She’s going to say no. But it’s not fair for her to decide.”

  “She’s your mother; it doesn’t matter what’s fair.”

  “I just think if Aunt Nic was alive, Mom wouldn’t be like this. It’s not your fault you can’t convince her.”

  It startled him to hear his niece invoke the alternative world where Nic was alive, a world he thought only he inhabited. He looked into Megan’s blue eyes, and it hit him that she looked like Nicole, she had the same intensity of expression. He had wanted, so many times, to see this kind of ambition in his wife’s eyes, this desire to compete, to be a part of the world. He couldn’t say no to it. Joelle would have to understand.

  THE GIRLS RECEIVED Megan easily—so easily that Dean wondered if they’d known about her secret training all along. They had good energy on the starting line. Dean warned them not to sprint too much at the beginning, to remember their pacing workouts. He told them that if they started to feel nervous to remember that this race was practice for the largest races, later on. In truth, the Langford Invitational was one of the biggest races of the year, with runners of a caliber they would not encounter in many other meets, including States.

  The gun went off with a cloud of smoke, and Bryan, who was standing next to Dean, clapped his hands and yelled “GO EAGLES!” at the top of his lungs. Robbie was waiting at the finish with Philips. Dean looked for his runners, but it was too difficult with blue being one of the most popular school colors. The gold-and-white uniforms of the Middletown runners stood out, and Dean remembered that Adrienne Fellows would be in this race. He wondered how she would do with some real competition.

  The course began in an open field and then looped around eight serene tennis courts, bordered by gardens and chain-link fences that managed to look majestic rather than punitive. Public schools like Langford bugged Dean, even though he’d gone to a high school that was just as nice. But he’d felt like he had to earn his place there by being a good athlete, while other kids—kids who stabled horses in his father’s barn—felt entitled to a beautiful education.

  “Daddy, look, it’s Megan!” Bryan pointed toward the courts, where the perimeter trail had forced the runners into a narrow line. But there was a blue-shirted figure running outside the line of racers, like a car driving in the breakdown lane, and she was steadily passing other girls, picking them off one by one. The girl—Dean couldn’t quite believe it was Megan—was heading toward an open space near the front of the long, stretched-out pack.

  “She’s going to be first!” Bryan said.

  “No, Adrienne’s got the lead.” Dean looked beyond the courts to the next part of the trail, a footpath bordered by pine trees, where Adrienne’s gold-shirted figure was pulling ahead.

  “Come on,” he said to Bryan. They had stopped jogging toward the mile marker to gawk at the race. “We have to get Megan’s split.”

  There was a crowd of parents and coaches at the first mile marker, which was at the top of a slight hill near the high school’s gym. They began to cheer when Adrienne’s head appeared, cresting the hill. Everyone seemed to have affection for her, regardless of school affiliation. Behind Adrienne was a small pack of three runners, each from a different school. They all clocked in with sub-six miles. A good fifteen seconds passed, and then Megan appeared, her gaze on the ground a few feet ahead of her.

  “Holy crap, she’s beating See-See!” Bryan said.

  “She’s going out too fast,” Dean said. He hadn’t even thought to warn her about the adrenaline rush at the beginning of a race. He ran ahead to an open space just beyond the mile marker, where he could talk to her. She saw him then and gave a little smile.

  “You’re looking good,” he said, calling to her as she ran toward him. “It’s okay to slow down here if you need to, okay? You need to finish strong, that’s the main thing.”

  He started to run alongside her, but she was concentrating so deeply that he wasn’t even sure she’d heard a thing he’d said. “Finish strong!” he said again, before falling back. He turned and saw that See-See and Missy were coming his way. He checked his watch: 6:02. He had three runners in the top fifteen, which was as good as any of the big schools. There was no way it would last and he didn’t have the depth to back them up, scoring-wise, but it was so far beyond what he had imagined that he felt a little manic. He wanted to sprint ahead to the second mile marker to see if Megan would hold on to fifth place, but Robbie and Philips were already there. And anyway, he wasn’t in good enough shape. There was no way to do that and also make the finish line.

  The mile clock hit seven minutes, and then Lori and Aileen appeared, running together, with Lori pulling ahead slightly, buoyed by the crowd’s cheering. With just a few weeks of practice, soft blond Lori had become more muscular and, it seemed to Dean, more confident.

  “Good steady start!” he called to them. “Good steady start! Now it’s time to kick it into a higher gear, you’ve only got two miles left. That’s eight laps on the track. You do that every day in practice, eight laps, two miles, fifteen mi
nutes, that’s it, fifteen minutes and it’s all over.”

  “You sound like an auctioneer,” Bryan said.

  “It’s called patter,” Dean said. “C’mon, let’s get to the finish line.”

  “No! We have to wait for Jessica.”

  Jessica passed the first mile marker at eight minutes, twenty seconds, her French braid still stiffly in place. She managed a nod when she saw Bryan, but her face was flushed with exertion, as if she’d just run a sub-six. As soon as she was out of sight, Dean ran toward the finish, which was on the track, inside the football stadium. Willowboro’s football team played Langford every year, and at night, when the white lights shone down on the stadium, with the surrounding unpopulated darkness, it seemed majestic and important, a minor city. Today, in the midday sun, the tall lights and tall silver bleachers were still impressive, but now Dean was paying attention to the red rubberized track and the long finishing chute that was lined with fluorescent pink and yellow flags. The runners would enter the track at the far end, opposite the scoreboard, and then they would run almost a full lap before they crossed the finish line. A crowd had gathered in the bleachers, and a couple of reporters and photographers were waiting near the finish.

  The crowd began clapping and whistling when Adrienne entered the small stadium, her white-and-gold uniform shiny in the sun, her stride quick but not lengthening, her shoulders relaxed, her chin lifted, her body a model of efficiency and form. When she passed Dean, he was surprised by how fast she was going, how labored her breath was.

  Adrienne had a clear, unshakable lead, with the next group of three runners coming into the stadium about thirty yards behind her. They had their own miniature competition for second place, each runner trying to get the inside lane, a negotiation so interesting that Dean did not notice Megan’s arrival. She had held fifth and was gaining on the minipack.

  “Dean, you didn’t tell me she was this fast!”

  It was Philips, his lean face clean-shaven. He was slightly out of breath, having run from the two-mile mark. Robbie was at his side, dazed but happy. “Go, Megan!” he screamed. “Reel them in!”

  She heard him; there was some micromovement on her face that Dean felt only he could see. He watched as she began to make up the distance between herself and the runners ahead, shortening the space as if she were manipulating time. It was as if she were doing it with her eyes, with Nicole’s faraway gaze.

  Adrienne had crossed the finish line, and the crowd was now following Megan’s trajectory with greater excitement. Dean noticed one of the reporters directing the photographer to get a picture of Megan.

  When Megan finally passed the minipack, there was real agony on her face, but she still had ten yards to go. Dean started to scream her name, and the people around him picked up the chant. Robbie and Bryan jumped up and down like younger versions of themselves. Megan’s arms turned sinewy as she crossed the line, reaching past an imaginary ribbon.

  She stopped almost immediately and bent over like she was going to throw up or gag. The other runners, the ones she had beat, came rushing across the line in third, fourth, and fifth. They kept jogging, as directed, but Megan wouldn’t move. Dean ran over to her, ducking beneath plastic tape to get to her.

  “Megan! You broke twenty on your first race!”

  “My heart.” She pressed her hand to the middle of her chest. She meant her lungs. “I’m going to die.”

  “Keep running,” he said. “Real slow. I’ll go with you.”

  She started to jog, barely picking up her feet, her eyes on the ground. When she got to the end of the chute, she sped up just enough to sit down in a grassy spot, free of foot traffic.

  “You have to keep moving,” Dean said. “You have to cool down.”

  “Okay,” she said, lying down on her back. She stretched her arms above her head and smiled at the sky.

  LATER THAT DAY, Dean tried to describe the moment to Laura. They were lying on her futon, looking up at her slanted ceiling. Late-afternoon light glowed on the pale yellow sheets and the walls, which Laura had painted sage green.

  “She’s going to remember today for the rest of her life. No matter what happens to her, she’s always going to remember today. How she felt. How that grass felt, how blue the sky was. It makes me proud.”

  “Why does it make you proud?” Laura teased. “All you did was cheer her on.”

  “It just makes me happy to see a kid like that. Someone who’s got everything going for her.”

  “Don’t you feel that way about Stephanie, too?”

  “No . . . I mean, I’m proud of her. Of course I’m proud. I love her. But it’s more complicated. I can’t appreciate her the same way. There’s guilt, because of her mother.”

  “Do you blame yourself?”

  Dean rolled over onto his side to face her. “I don’t know, Doctor.”

  “Sorry,” Laura said. “I’m not trying to analyze you.”

  “I know.” Dean tucked her hair behind her ear, admiring her long neck. He traced her collarbone with his finger, and then down past her clavicle, between her breasts. He wished he could stay all afternoon, all night.

  “I wish you could stay,” Laura said.

  “I could,” Dean said. “The boys are with Joelle again tonight.”

  “You know I can’t,” Laura said. Tim was a subject they really couldn’t discuss. Dean didn’t know why he was pushing. He didn’t want to force a breakup. He just wanted comfort. And little pockets of time. That’s what it felt like in her pale green room. Like he had found a place to go for a little while, where the past and the future didn’t press down on him.

  “So what did Joelle say about Megan running?” Laura said. Dean could tell she was trying to get past the awkwardness, that she didn’t want to discuss Tim, either.

  “She was waiting in the parking lot when we got back. But Ed was there, too. When he saw the medal, he couldn’t believe it. He said the only reason he was angry was because he hadn’t gotten to see the race. What could Joelle say after that? Bryan actually smoothed things over by asking if he could go to church with them the next day.” Dean sat up and searched for his underwear at the foot of the bed. “I should probably get going, right?”

  “Maybe . . . I don’t know. Stay for a cup of coffee?” Laura pulled on her robe, a plaid flannel that matched her faded slippers.

  Dean finished dressing and followed her down the cramped stairway that led to her small living room. She lived in an old stone house that had been divided into three apartments. Her slice of the pie was a narrow two floors, the downstairs a living room and misshapen kitchen and the upstairs a low-ceilinged bedroom that was likely once a maid’s quarters.

  Laura described her decorating style as “recovering graduate student.” There were stacks of books and magazines on the floor, a pilled sofa draped with scarves, a large trunk that doubled as a coffee table, and two precarious CD towers, looking like miniature skyscrapers amid a city of low book buildings. Dean examined her books while she made coffee. He didn’t recognize any of the authors, except for a romance novelist Nicole sometimes read.

  “You know, she lives around here?” Dean said, holding up a paperback. “She’s very nice. You’d never know she’s a millionaire.”

  “Oh God, I can’t believe you saw that!” Laura laughed. “I got that at the airport.”

  “Looks like you go to the airport a lot.”

  “Stop it! Everyone has their guilty pleasures.”

  “What’s the guilt?” Dean skimmed the summary on the back.

  “You want to borrow it?”

  “Maybe I will.” Dean stuck it in the back pocket of his jeans.

  Laura smiled. “I bet you read two books a year—and neither of them is a novel.”

  “Maybe two and a half.” Dean held up a thick paperback called Abnormal Psychology. “Is this part of your self-help collection?”

  “Ha, right. I should have sold all my textbooks when I had the chance.” Laura came over to him, b
ringing a mug of milky coffee. “I keep thinking I’m going to use them again.”

  Dean skimmed the titles. Many referred to depressive disorders. It occurred to him that Laura probably understood Nicole’s psychological makeup much better than he ever could.

  “Are you thinking of your wife?” Laura sat down next to him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is that okay for me to ask?”

  “It’s fine,” Dean said. “I just don’t know what to say about it. I try to understand it. People say it’s a sickness of the mind, but I lived with her and she wasn’t crazy.”

  “Sometimes I think suicide is a way of controlling death. There’s a logic to it.”

  “That’s some logic.”

  “I always try to look for the germ of reason. I don’t believe in crazy.”

  “Is that what you tell Robbie?”

  “You know I can’t talk about that.” She adjusted her robe, covering her neck with the shawl collar. “He doesn’t really ask about those things, anyway. He’s trying to figure out how to live without a mother.”

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” Dean said. He was shaken by her simple summary of his son’s predicament.

  “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t be talking to you at all, let alone about Robbie, let alone doing any of this . . .”

  “Hey, don’t beat yourself up,” Dean said. “This started before things got complicated.”

  “Did it?” She raised her eyebrows. “You know, I already broke up with Tim once for you. Last spring, before you stopped talking to me.”