by Ginger Scott
“Great, you made my pixie mad,” I say, rolling my eyes. My legs are tired from the morning, so I rest one hand on the table behind me.
“You’re tired from standing. How do you expect to ever get on the field again, to compete, if you can’t stand and have a conversation?” Becca says, her eyes shifting from my hand on the table, which I quickly remove, to my face.
“I’m sorry, how do I…what?” I’m too stunned to respond to her. I look at my dad to fill in the blanks—and there are dozens of blanks. Maybe even hundreds.
“Becca, give me a second,” he says. The woman nods and steps back to the other side of the room, pulling a cellphone from her pocket and flipping through apps on how to be evil to pixies and new amputees.
My dad clears his throat, looking over his shoulder to the table I’d just let go of. He urges me to sit, but I refuse. Becca might see me resting, and fuck if I need another dose of her today. My father leans against the table, crossing his arms. He looks down for a few seconds before he begins to speak.
“I thought you’d get more out of sessions if you had someone like Becca to work with. She’s a para-athlete. She was one of the first women in the Iron Man competition…”
“What’s wrong with her?” I ask, my eyes raking over her hard body, wondering what her tracksuit is hiding.
“She lost her right leg, below the knee. Just like you,” he says. My eyes shoot to his, and my lips push together hard. She didn’t lose anything just like me. Nobody lost anything like me. I lost everything.
“And she’s here because you think…” I don’t finish, my jaw working back and forth as I fail to complete that sentence. I let my dad fill it in.
“She’s here because you’re an athlete, Joss. Because she can get you back on that field, and if you work hard enough—in time for you to play your senior year,” he says.
I laugh hard once and stare at him.
His chest rises slowly as he draws in a long breath, his demanding eyes full of expectation. The coddling period is gone. He’s returned to being the coach. But what if I just need a father? What if I just need someone to hold me and tell me it’s okay that I’m only going to be what I am now? What if I need a daddy to tell me another boy will love me one day, just like the one who disappeared?
Just like the one who died.
That thought flashes through me unwanted, and my eyes burn instantly. I run my arm over my face and turn away.
“I’m done playing. You need to get over it. I have. I’m done for today too,” I say, walking as quickly as I can to the main door. Stephanie rushes out to help me, but I hold a hand up, telling her I’ll see her tomorrow. She looks hurt, and I feel bad. I know she’s only trying to help me. That’s what all of her positivity is about—about making me feel good about the tiny strides I made. But that’s all they are. Tiny. And those small things exhaust me; they feel impossible to the point where I will myself to believe I’ll never achieve them. It’s easier than being disappointed at the end.
I get to the car and stand at it, my arms draped over the roof, my fingers tapping urgently while I wait for my dad to come out behind me. It takes him nearly ten minutes to leave the clinic, and I see him take a card and program a few things into his phone with Becca before they shake hands and he strides my way. She pushes her sunglasses on her face and keeps her body pointed my direction, watching me. This time, I break the hold and look down.
“That was rude,” my dad says, unlocking the car and getting inside.
I laugh and open my door, climbing in after him.
I shake my head and buckle my belt, every move of my arm an angry jerking motion. I fold my arms over my body and let my good leg bounce nervously, my teeth clenched. I hold back everything I want to say, but I rehearse it in my head in an effort to rid my system of it. It has the opposite effect, and by the time we pull into our driveway, I’m so mad I want to kick a hole through the car door and take off running, never looking back.
But I can’t. I barely walk.
My father leaves the car and doesn’t look my way, and his dismissal of what just happened fires me up. I step from the car and slam the door.
“Fuck!” I yell.
He freezes, spinning in his spot before taking several steps toward me. He points his finger, his head cocked to one side, and his jaw clenched.
“You DO NOT talk to me like that!” he yells.
“Like what? Like your broken, disabled, disappointment of a daughter? Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fu…”
My father’s hands rise up and I flinch, almost falling backward. But he doesn’t hit me. I don’t know why I thought he would. He has never put a hand on me in violence. Instead, his hands grip my shoulders, and his hold is hard and rigid, forcing me to face him.
“I can’t,” I say, my eyes wide and trying to focus on anything but him. I begin to blink, the tears coming. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can!” he yells, shaking me lightly, willing me to listen. My head falls forward and the sobs come.
“I’m never going to be what I was…I can’t. I just…” The cry takes over everything, and my dad pulls me into him, his hands clutching my back at first and soon his palms work along my spine and shoulder blades, attempting to soothe me.
I mourn. And in our driveway, the sun barely up, the summer heat threatening to begin already, my dad holds me. He holds me without saying a word. He doesn’t bring up his opinion, what he thinks I can do, or what his plan is with Becca with the laser eyes and the sharp tongue. He just holds me.
When I needed him, for once…he’s there.
I cry in his embrace for several minutes, until we both know that Todd, my tutor, will arrive soon. We walk inside, my dad’s hand on my back until I move down the hallway toward my room. He pulls out my books and leaves them for me on the table, and after freshening up in the bathroom, I begin my studies silently, preparing myself for my last test of the year while my dad leaves for his job.
Todd comes, and I let him proctor my exam without my usual snarky remarks. He waits for them, and his eyebrows narrow more than once when I don’t deliver. I catch him about to speak a few times, his mouth making the movement of drawing in a breath, but each time he halts himself. When I open the door to let him out, my test tucked away in his polished-leather briefcase, I laugh quietly to myself. I think Todd was worried about me, but didn’t want to ruin the easy day—his last with me.
His hands are washed of me, just like everyone else.
I move to my room and lay on my bed, removing the socket and pulling my leg across my body to stretch. I wonder if this will ever feel like routine. I wonder if I’ll quit waiting to wake up.
I pull out my phone and run through the few texts from Kyle and Taryn, both complaining about the other being a pain in the ass. They fight over who gets to help me and bring work home for me from school, and their kindergarten-like banter amuses me for a few minutes. I write them back, calling them babies, then move to the messages I have saved from Wes. There aren’t many. Mostly short notes that he’s outside my work, or that he’ll wait for me after practice. It’s the last one that gets me the most—he wrote it in the parking lot, while the rain was pounding the bus and his truck. It probably sat in his queue waiting to be sent for several minutes, finally clearing and coming to me just before he jumped into the water to save my dad.
You would have been great today. Nature just wasn’t ready for you to show that girl up yet.
I laugh lightly and let the tear fall down my cheek. I feel him every time I read those words. Wes believed in me more than anyone. He believed in me differently than my dad, different from Kyle or Taryn. He knew my weaknesses, and loved them, and he loved my doubts too. He told me they were what made me strong, but lately, they’re too heavy to bear. They’re swallowing me, and I’m not sure there’s any of that girl left inside.
The coolness of the sheets against my face lulls me eventually, and I let my phone fall from my hands onto the bed next to me, my eyelids heav
y as the sound of wind whistles through my window. I sleep hard, and I dream of Wes.
In my dream, he’s at his family’s house. I drive up in my father’s car, on my own, without any help, and I step from the car and run to him. My leg is still gone, but I’m able to run. Wes sees me, and he holds his arms wide, catching me when I leap to him. I feel his arms around me, and the warmth seeps into my bones. It’s all so real, which only makes the pain more intense when I wake up an hour later to the sound of my front door opening.
“Joss, it’s me,” my dad’s voice echoes down the hallway.
“I’m in here. I took a short nap,” I say, my voice groggy and my eyes puffy. I’m pretty sure I cried in my sleep.
My dad knocks lightly, but pulls his hand into a fist quickly when the door falls open. “Sorry, I know you don’t like the knocking thing,” he says.
I smile lopsided and push myself up to sit, stretching my arms over my head before shrugging.
“It’s okay. I would probably find a problem with anything you did to wake me up,” I admit.
He chuckles.
“Oh, hey. I stopped to pick up the mail. There are some magazines in here, and a few of those catalogues you used to like,” he says, tossing the pile of mail on the bed next to me. I glance down to see the one on top for an online store where a girl can order almost anything and have her name put on it.
“I have always wanted a Joss spoon-and-fork set,” I say, lifting it and holding it in front of me on display, my finger tapping at the picture.
“You’ll have to ask Santa for that,” my dad says with a wink. That was always his comeback, for everything I asked for. Santa never followed through on most of it. “I have your last homework assignments. Taryn said she was going to the Stokes’ house right after school and Kyle had a meeting. I said I’d deliver.”
My dad throws the homework pile on my desk just inside my door. It’s thin enough to fit into the file folder, which is a relief.
“What kind of meeting did Kyle have?” I ask, thumbing through the name catalogue in my lap.
My dad doesn’t answer right away, so I glance up at him. When I do, my stomach knots. I know before he says it.
“Cal State’s looking at him. They have to meet at the school, with his dad, since he’s still a junior,” he says, his lips pursed as his eyes drift down and to the side.
“That’s great,” I swallow. I mean it, even though it sounds pathetic and half-hearted. I want Kyle to get noticed. I just wasn’t prepared for the disappointment I would feel lamenting my own dream.
“Anyway…I’m gonna see if I can get something going on the grill later. I’m going to run to the store. Any special requests?” he asks, diverting the topic.
“I’m good with whatever,” I say. His face starts to fall so I smile and nod. “Really. I’m good. And I like anything from the grill. Maybe burgers, if you want.”
“Burgers it is,” my dad smiles. He pushes his hand into his pocket for his keys, but leaves it there, his posture half of what it once was. “I won’t be long.”
I watch him leave and wait for the sound of the door closing before I let out the breath I’ve been holding. My lips flap and the sound makes me laugh. I pull the catalogue back up to my face and read the name in the sample: Florenza. I chuckle to myself. Nobody has that name. And if they do, they aren’t buying vanity bottle openers.
Rolling my eyes, I toss the catalogue back down on my bed, and it slides sideways along the stack of mail, a small, cream envelope sticking out. I glide it forward with my thumb and pick it up between my thumb and forefinger. It’s addressed to me, with no return address on the front or back. The envelope is the kind that’s sent along with greeting cards, but my birthday isn’t for another two months. It’s been years since my dad’s mom has sent me money for no reason, and I’m not sure my mom’s mom, Grace, would just send me something out of the blue.
I turn the envelope on its side and push my finger through the one space that isn’t glued down, pulling the flap away and tearing along the seam. There’s a regular piece of notebook paper inside, folded in thirds, but I can tell from the backside that there isn’t any writing on it.
I pull it from the envelope and unfold it in my lap as the small ticket slides loose, landing on the bare skin of my leg. My breath hitches.
“Oh my god,” I whisper.
My heart begins to drum loudly in my chest, the sound filling my ears. I lift the tiny ticket in my fingers and hold it up to examine it:
ADMIT ONE TO TARYN AND JOSS’S RACE
The words are faint, and the finger smudge is permanent. The edges are soft, worn from being kept in a pocket or hidden in a box—wherever Wes kept his secrets. I’m the only other place he’s shared them. And somehow, he’s sent me this for safekeeping.
Somehow, meaning he’s…alive.
I don’t call anyone. I don’t ask for help. I just begin pulling on my leg, starting with the sock then the socket, fitting everything in place, my hands fumbling as I try to work quickly on something I’m far from comfortable with yet.
Once it’s on, I stand, finding my balance, and stuffing my keys and phone into my back pocket. I leave a note on the counter for my dad, telling him I’m trying a short walk. He’ll be pleased. Maybe less so, if he knew how far I was really going. Or maybe that would please him more, to know I’m pushing myself.
I leave through the garage, avoiding the few small steps on our concrete porch. I’m not good at climbing and navigating obstacles yet, but the driveway is clear, as is the garage. My dad makes sure of it.
The slant gives me a little speed, and I work hard to keep the pace up as I make it to the end of our block. The pressure hurts, and I pause at the brick fence on the corner, sitting on the short wall and rubbing my hands down my thighs, working my circulation. The pain is setting in, but I can’t stop.
After a few minutes, I stand and begin to walk again, slower this time, but I force myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I walk beyond Kyle’s street until I find the familiar corner to the Stokes’ home, taking one more small break, holding onto the stop-sign pole, before I cover the final distance to Wes’s home.
There’s an older-looking van out front, a ramp on the side for a chair lift, and the garage is open, some boxes stacked near the opening.
“You want me to put these in too then?” TK says, his back to me as he steps through the door of their home.
“That would be great,” I hear his dad from inside.
He turns and jumps, swearing lightly under his breath when he sees me, but shaking it off and reaching for a hug quickly.
“Damn, I’m sorry. You…you snuck up on me,” he says.
I hold onto his arms, my fingers wrapping around them, searching for ways they feel like Wes’s. They don’t, but they’re welcome anyhow.
“I’m so sorry. I…I was just trying to walk a little, and I found myself here,” I lie. My eyes inspect everything around him while he talks, looking for a sign. Why would Wes be hiding here?
“That’s great,” he says, glancing down, but moving his eyes up to mine. He’s trying not to offend me by looking at my leg.
“It’s okay. You can check it out,” I say. “Actually…I could use a break for a minute?”
“Oh…yeah. Here, I’ll put these in the van later. Come into the house. Dad would love to see you anyhow. Mom’s home too,” he says.
He sets down the boxes that were in his hands on the small stack by the driveway. I notice a few of them are labeled with things like JERSEYS and BASEBALL CARDS. I think they’re some of Wes’s things.
I don’t ask TK, but instead follow him into the house, moving as quickly as I can to the table and chair, my legs ready to rest as I collapse into it.
“Thanks,” I say, stretching my limb out and rubbing the thigh again with my hands.
“Does it hurt?” TK asks. Levi walks up behind him and smacks the back of his head.
“Hey…owwwww! I was just curi
ous,” he says. Levi narrows his eyes on his brother.
“It’s okay,” I say through a soft laugh. “Really. I’d rather people ask questions than try to ignore it. And yeah, right now? It hurts like a bitch.”
Both of them look down as I roll up part of my sweatpants, showing where the socket fits to my leg. The skin is red and irritated, which I know I will pay for tomorrow. Hell, I’m paying for it now.
“You’re still bad-ass, though,” TK says, his eyes on the metal rod that connects to a very simple-looking foot and shoe.
I laugh once. “I’m always going to be more bad-ass than you,” I say.
Levi belts out an over-exaggerated laugh and points to his brother, backing out of the kitchen and sliding past his father. This feeling—the interaction—I’ve missed it more than I thought I had. It soothes.
“Joss,” Bruce says my name with the reverence of a long-lost relative. He’s next to me quickly, his big arm around my shoulders, pulling me into him for a hug. “So glad you stopped by.”
“Thanks,” I say, looking up into his face.
The sadness is there, but he clears his throat, pushing it away for long enough so we can have a conversation. We both feel it though—it’s the hole from Wes. Only…the ticket. I want to show him. But I also somehow know I can’t, or shouldn’t.
“I’m sorry we haven’t stopped by. We talked to your dad at the school, and meant to come to the house. It’s just been a little hectic,” he says, running his hand through the thinning strands of hair.
“It’s okay; I understand,” I say.
Taryn has kept me up-to-date on the major details. I know that the boys kept looking for Wes long after the official search was called off. The media trucks left their block after the first week, moving on to the next disaster or tragedy. Meanwhile, Bruce, Maggie and their boys were trying to find ways to pick up the pieces, to move on.
“Josselyn,” Maggie says, filing in behind her husband. Her smile lands on me with the weight of a gentle feather.
