Down on the floor, the girls began clumping together, their leotarded backs hunching forward, shuddering like red birds.
Fourteen-year-old Jordan Siefert’s palms were pressed against her eyes, her sparrow’s body trembling.
Off the beam now, Lacey Weaver had sunk to the mat, was sitting on her hands and staring up, searching for her mother.
“Mom,” a voice said, and it was Drew, beside her, fingers on her arm.
But at that moment Devon’s seal-slick head finally turned and Katie could see her profile, a faint quiver of her chin.
“Mom,” Drew said again, tugging on her sleeve, “shouldn’t we call Dad?”
Katie looked down at her son, that grave face, his long-lashed eyes.
Nine years old going on ninety.
He was only a few blocks away, catching up on work e-mails at a diner.
“Eric,” she whispered into her phone, “can you come here now?”
“I’ve still got another couple hours to go on this job—”
So she told him.
“Oh God,” he said, after a long pause, a long breath. “Ryan. That poor kid.”
Moments went by without anyone knowing what to do, Coach T.’s absence creating a formless confusion, Bobby V. fiddling with his clipboard, checking his phone, avoiding the parents’ glare.
“Bobby,” Gwen shouted down to the floor, “are you going to keep us in the Mama Cage forever?”
Bobby looked up, scratching his neck anxiously.
“I guess you all can come down here, comfort your girls,” he said.
Spry Gwen was down on the floor in seconds, and the stands started unfilling with worried parents.
Taking two steps at time, Katie hurried down, but Devon was nowhere to be found amid the satiny nuzzle of leotarded girls and all those identical ponytails.
“I never would’ve gotten to Level Seven without Hailey,” little four-foot-seven Cheyenne Chu was saying softly, a hand dragging along the suede-topped trainer block. “She was the best tumbling coach I ever had.”
Her mother, Molly, palms still planted on the sides of her face, seemed unable to speak, staring plaintively at Katie.
“Honey, nothing happened to Hailey,” Katie said, touching Cheyenne’s jutting shoulder. “She’ll be okay.”
But it was hard not to worry for Hailey, Coach T.’s heart’s darling. Soft lilt and side-tilting head, she’d become more than a tumbling coach. She pitched in at the fund-raising car washes, sometimes bringing soy lattes for the parents who’d driven far. Laughed with the girls, gossiped with parents, even told the occasional salty joke. And, after every meet, could be seen dangling one of those long tan swimmer arms around her uncle’s neck and kissing his leathered cheek.
“There she is,” Drew said, startling Katie, who’d almost forgotten he was beside her. “There’s Devon.”
He pointed to the far side of the gym, Devon lingering by the chalk bowl, face red from the dust.
Just as she was about to push through the scrum, Katie felt a hand on her arm.
“I think he was going to propose.” It was Becca Plonski, standing behind Katie, so close her fleece collar tickled Katie’s neck. “I think he bought a ring.”
“No,” Katie said. “I don’t think so.” She wasn’t sure why she said it. Or why she thought she might know better.
“I don’t think so either,” Gwen said, walking up to them. “After all, I sign his paycheck.”
But Becca insisted she’d spotted Ryan at Ahee Jewelers the week before, his hands curled atop the glass cases, rocking anxiously on his feet, the ribbed neck of his windbreaker zipped up over his chin.
“No way,” Gwen said, shaking her head. “A boy who wants to get married doesn’t duck his girlfriend’s calls.”
Before Katie could ask what she meant, Eric rushed up, face flushed, his phone nearly slipping from his hand.
“I’m here, I’m here,” he said breathlessly, his other hand wet in hers. “How’s Dev?”
Arms wrapped around Drew, Katie watched from outside Coach T.’s windowed office as Eric spoke with pouch-eyed Bobby, who kept shaking his head.
When he returned, he pulled Katie aside.
“A hit-and-run,” he whispered.
“Was Hailey with him?”
“No,” he said. “The police are over at St. Joe’s now, talking to the Belfours. But let’s keep that quiet, okay?”
Katie nodded. The police. She didn’t know how anything like that could be kept quiet. Not among these parents.
“Sounds like it was instant,” Eric said, his face pinched. “Snapped his neck.”
A picture came to her: Ryan Beck laughing at something someone said, rubbing his nape, sun-brown always. “Oh, Eric,” Katie said, covering her mouth.
From several yards away, Devon turned and looked at them both. She couldn’t have heard them, not with all the chattering parents and the yelps of the younger girls, but she seemed to.
They walked over to her.
“What happens now?” she asked, looking up at her dad.
“We go home,” he said, gently tugging her ponytail. “And think good thoughts for the Belfours.”