4

I SPENT THE NIGHT on the living room couch because I couldn’t make it up the stairs to my room. The next morning, I tried to concentrate on a Sports Illustrated article on Chris Paul. But reading about basketball just made my knee feel worse.

“Mind if I watch some of the pre-game shows?” my dad said.

I told him I didn’t. We stayed like that for a while—me on the couch, Dad on the chair next to it—watching the ESPN commentators evaluate which teams had the best shot to win that week. That Dad was watching ESPN on a Saturday wasn’t surprising. He spent most fall Saturdays watching college football. What was unusual was that he was watching TV this early. Usually, he’d be downstairs studying last night’s film until almost noon.

During a commercial, Dad said, “Think I’ll go ahead and make some of my special waffles—the ones with the secret ingredient. Want one?”

I shook my head. I was in no mood for breakfast. Besides, Dad’s “special waffles” were just the frozen kind you put in a toaster. His “secret ingredient” wasn’t much of a secret, either: all he did was put a chocolate chip in each little square.

Still, his offer was pretty significant. Dad hadn’t made me breakfast since before the season started, and I knew he was just trying to be nice.

Dad nodded. “In that case, you want to tell me about the prognosis?” He gestured toward my knee.

I wasn’t in the mood to do that, either. “Didn’t Mom already tell you?”

Dad shook his head. “When she found out I wasn’t the one who took you to the hospital, your mother wasn’t exactly pleased. I thought it best to keep a wide berth.” 

He tilted his head toward the basement door.

As sorry for myself as I felt at that moment, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, too. “You slept downstairs?”

He had done this before, but only when Mom was really pissed.

“So what did the doctor say?” he asked.

I told him. A grade three sprain. The meniscus. Two-month recovery time.

“No surgery?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“That’s good news.”

I wasn’t so optimistic. “That’s what the doctor said. But two months means I won’t be able to play basketball until Christmas, Dad. And that’s if I’m even allowed on the team. And why would I be?” Suddenly I was talking very quickly. “The whole point of tryouts is to cut people. If I’m not at tryouts, I’m just making the coach’s job easier. What is he going to do? Cut an extra player so I have a spot once I’ve healed?”  

Now that I was done airing my grievances, I heard my mother’s footsteps come down the stairs. I hoped she hadn’t caught my complaining, because I knew it would only make things worse for Dad.

I watched him watch her enter the living room. “Mike was just filling me in on the injury,” he told her. “What a bummer.”

Mom stood somewhere behind the couch. I still couldn’t see her. “If you had taken Mike to the hospital, he wouldn’t need to fill you in,” she said.

“That’s true, Mary,” Dad said, “he wouldn’t.” But he sighed in a way that made it sound as though he didn’t really agree with her. Then he got up, walked past her, and headed for the basement.  

It’s not like Mom never used the basement. The washer and dryer were down there, and so was an elliptical exercise machine. But as far as I knew, that day was the first time Mom ever followed Dad downstairs. That’s how angry she was. 

Even then, she didn’t go all the way into the basement. I knew because she didn’t shut the door all the way. When I sat up and craned my neck I could see her standing toward the bottom of the stairs, but still on the stairs, which technically wasn’t in the basement, just on the stairs that lead to the basement.

Then a strange thing happened. As I looked at Mom, an image of Kirsten Howard inserted itself into my view: there she was, ball under her arm, skipping down the stairs, brushing Mom’s shoulders as she breezed on by.

“Explain to me how this isn’t choosing sports over your family, Jeff,” Mom said, and just like that Kirsten vanished. “I’m totally willing to listen. Just take me through the thought process that results in this not being you caring more about sports than your son.” 

I hated seeing Mom like this—hands on her hips, lips pursed, standing rigid—so I lay down again.

Truthfully, I felt bad for both of them. This was just a newer, angrier version of the argument they always had. Mom didn’t live and breathe sports, which meant for her they would always just be games. If a father chooses to coach a game instead of taking his son to the hospital, he’s clearly choosing sports over his family. Even if somebody else volunteers to drive the son to the hospital, as John Atkinson’s father did. And even if the son tells the father that he should stay and coach, as I definitely did.

The thing is, for those of us who love sports, this love doesn’t seem like a choice at all. That sounds crazy to a lot of people—and maybe it is. But it doesn’t feel crazy. For a sports nut, making sports a top priority feels like common sense. It feels like second nature.    

“I don’t care,” I heard Mom say. “That’s not good enough, Jeff.”

I tried to tune her out because the sports vs. family argument was ongoing and totally hopeless. Mom and Dad would yell for a while and then give each other the silent treatment until the argument didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. I think I was in third grade the first time I remember watching them have this fight. Dad had taken me to a girls’ high school basketball game between Lakeshore and Groveland. Before the game, he showed me how to keep a shot chart. I was still holding the shot chart when I got home, and Mom freaked out. She told dad that he was a liar—that he tricked her—that he didn’t go to the game to be a good father; he went to be a good scout. I remember being shocked. As far as I was concerned, he had been a great father. He’d taught me how to keep a shot chart and then trusted me to do it right. Until Mom started yelling, I’d felt like Dad’s assistant coach.

Finally, Mom came back upstairs and asked me if I wanted eggs or pancakes for breakfast.

I said, “Cereal is fine.”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Really, I don’t mind.” And unlike Dad, who listened to me when I said I wasn’t hungry, Mom went to make eggs or pancakes, or both, even though I just told her I didn’t want them, and somehow that made me feel even more hopeless.

A few hours later, Dad came upstairs. “I just talked with Andy on the phone,” he said to me.

“Andy?”

“Andy Wight. Your JV basketball coach.”

He looked at me but spoke loudly enough for Mom to hear.

“I used to scout with him before I took the job as the girls’ coach,” Dad said. “I think you’ll really enjoy playing for him.”

I sat up. “Wait. Does that mean I’m on the team?”

Dad smiled. “How much you do or don’t get to play, that’s going to be up to you and Andy. But he says he’ll save a spot for you on the roster.”

Now I smiled, too. “Thanks, Dad.”

He didn’t say anything, just nodded and turned and headed downstairs again, pulling the door closed behind him.

I looked into the kitchen at Mom. She hovered by the counter, using an electric mixer, and I wondered if she’d even heard Dad over the noise.