“Well,” she said finally. “Okay. I mean, I’m still upset. But thank you for saying that.”
I glanced outside, the phone still at my ear, just in time to see the guy who’d chased down the ball take a shot at the goal. It wnt up and wide, banging off a nearby tree before bouncing back to the driveway, where Dave Wade, in jeans and an unzipped blue rain jacket, scooped it up in his arms. He shook his head at something his friend was saying, then took a jump shot. I was watching his face, not the backboard, as it clanged off the rim. He didn’t look surprised.
“I do have to tell you, though,” my mother said now, over the still-tentative silence between us, “I was very hurt you never called me. I don’t think you realize, Mclean, how hard it is to always be reaching out to you, and to continually be rebuffed.”
Dave’s friend went up for a layup, stumbled, and sent the ball into the backyard. “I didn’t mean to not call,” I told my mom, watching as he jogged after it. “But Dad got hurt, and I had leave school to go to the hospital.”
“What?” she gasped. “Oh my God! What happened? Is he all right? Are you all right?”
I sighed, holding the phone away from my ear. “He’s fine,” I told her. “Just needed some stitches.”
“Then why did you have to go to the hospital?”
“He didn’t know where his insurance card was,” I replied. “So ...”
Before I could finish this thought, though, I heard her exhale, a long, hissing noise like a tire losing air, and I pictured whatever truce we might have had deflating right along with it.
“You had to leave school because your father misplaced his card?” I knew better than to answer this, as it was not an actual question. “Honestly! You are not his mother, you’re his daughter. He should be keeping up with your documents, not the other way around.”
“It was fine, okay?” I replied. “Everything’s fine.”
She sniffled, then was quiet for a second before saying, “I was so excited yesterday about having you come down to the beach with us. As soon as I heard the house was ready, all I could think of was you.”
“Mom,” I said.
“But then even that has to be so complicated,” she continued. “I mean, you didn’t even want to hear about it, and that used to be something you loved so much. It makes me incredibly sad that instead of having a normal life—”
“Mom.”
“—your father is dragging you from one place to another, and you’re having to take care of him. Honestly, I can’t for the life of me understand why you don’t . . .”
There was another bang from behind me and I spun around just as the door was knocked open, the basketball again soaring through it. It hit the linoleum and bounced, right at me, and as I grabbed it, the phone between my ear and shoulder, I was suddenly infuriated. My mother was still talking—God, she was always talking—as I stomped to the open door and out onto the deck.
“Sorry!” Dave’s friend yelled when he saw me. “That was my—”
But I wasn’t listening as, instead, I took every bit of the anger and stress of the last few minutes and days put it behind the ball, throwing it overhead at the basket as hard as I could. It went flying, hitting the backboard and banging through the netless hoot full speed before shooting back out and nailing Dave Wade squarely on the forehead. And just like that, he was down.
“Oh, shit,” I said as he crumpled to the pavement. “Mom, I have to go.”
I tossed my phone on a deck chair, then ran down the steps to the driveway. Dave was lying in the driveway, stunned, while his friend stood a few feet away staring at me, wide-eyed. The ball had rolled into the street, stopping by a garbage can.
“Holy crap,” the friend said. “What kind of shot was that?”
“Are you okay? ” I asked Dave, dropping to my knees beside him. “I’m so sorry. I was just—”
Dave was blinking, looking up at the sky. “Wow,” he said slowly, then slid his gaze over to meet mine. “You are much better than us at this game.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to this. I opened my mouth to try, or at least to apologize, but nothing came. Instead, we just stared at each other, and I thought of a few nights earlier, sitting on those hard wooden stairs, the sky above us. Strange meetings, above and below ground, like crazy collisions, refracting then attracting again.
“Dude, that was incredible,” his friend said, shaking me loose from this trance. “You went down like a mighty oak, felled in the forest!”
I sat back on my heels as Dave pushed himself slowly up on his elbows. Then he shook his head hard, like they do in cartoons when they’re trying to unscramble their brains. It would have been funny, maybe, if I hadn’t been the one responsible for the damage in the first place. “I really didn’t mean to—” I finally managed.
“It’s okay.” He did another head shake, then got to his feet. “No permanent damage.”
“That’s a relief,” said his friend, who had gone to chase down the ball and now returned, bouncing it in front of him. “I know he’s not much to look at, but this boy’s brain is like a national treasure.”