Greg Iles: Sleep No More

Eve Sumner appeared on the first day of fall. Not the official first day-there was nothing official about Eve-but the first day the air turned cool, blowing through John Waters’s shirt as though it weren’t there. It was chilly enough for a jacket, but he didn’t want one because it had been so hot for so damn long, because the air tasted like metal and his blood was up, quickened by the change in temperature and the drop in pressure on his skin, like a change in altitude. His steps were lighter, the wind carrying him forward, and deep within his chest something stirred the way the bucks were stirring in the deep woods and the high leaves were pulling at their branches. Soon those bucks would be stalked through the oaks and shot, and those leaves would be burning in piles, but on that day all remained unresolved, poised in a great ballet of expectation, an indrawn breath. And borne on the first prescient breeze of exhalation came Eve Sumner.

She stood on the far sideline of the soccer field, too far away for Waters to really see her. He first saw her the way the other fathers did, a silhouette that caught his eye: symmetry and curves and a mane of dark hair that made the mothers on both sides of the soccer field irrationally angry. But he hadn’t time to notice more than that. He was coaching his daughter’s team.

Seven-year-old Annelise raced along the sea of grass with her eye on the ball, throwing herself between eight-year-old boys nearly twice her size. Waters trotted along behind the pack, encouraging the stragglers and reminding the precocious ones which direction to kick the ball. He ran lightly for his age and size-a year past forty, an inch over six feet-and he pivoted quickly enough to ensure soreness in the morning. But it was a soreness that he liked, that reminded him he was still alive and kicking. He felt pride following Annelise down the field; last year his daughter was a shy little girl, afraid to get close to the ball; this year, with her father coaching, she had found new confidence. He sensed that even now, so young, she was learning lessons that would serve her well in the future.

“Out of bounds!” he called. “Blue’s ball.”

As the opposing team put the ball inbounds, Waters felt the pressure of eyes like fingers on his skin. He was being watched, and not only by the kids and their parents. Glancing toward the opposite sideline, he looked directly into the eyes of the dark-haired woman. They were deep and as dark as her hair, serene and supremely focused. He quickly averted his own, but an indelible afterimage floated in his mind: dusky, knowing eyes that knew the souls of men.

The opposing coach was keeping time for the tied game, and Waters knew there was precious little left. Brandon Davis, his star eight-year-old, had the ball on his toe and was controlling it well, threading it through the mass of opponents. Waters sprinted to catch up. Annelise was close behind Brandon, trying to get into position to receive a pass as they neared the goal. Girls thought more about passing than boys; the boys just wanted to score. But Annelise did the right thing all the same, flanking out to the right as Brandon took a vicious shot at the net. The ball ricocheted off the goalie’s shins, right back to Brandon. He was about to kick again when he sensed Annelise to his right and scooped the ball into her path, marking himself as that rarest of boys, one who understands deferred gratification. Annelise was almost too surprised by this unselfishness to react, but at the last moment she kicked the ball past the goalie into the net.

A whoop went up from the near sideline, and Waters heard his wife’s voice leading the din. He knew he shouldn’t show favoritism, but he couldn’t help running forward and hugging Annelise to his chest.

“I got one, Daddy!” she cried, her eyes shining with pride and surprise. “I scored!”

“You sure did.”

“Brandon passed it to me!”

“He sure did.”

Sensing Brandon behind him, Waters reached back and grabbed the boy’s hand and lifted it skyward along with Annelise’s, showing everyone that it was a shared effort.

“Okay, de- fense!” he shouted.

His team raced back to get into position, but the opposing coach blew his whistle, ending the game with a flat, half-articulated note.

The parents of Waters’s team streamed onto the field, congratulating the children and their coach, talking happily among themselves. Waters’s wife, Lily, trundled forward with the ice chest containing the postgame treats: POWERade and Oreos. As she planted the Igloo on the ground and removed the lid, a small tornado whirled around her, snatching bottles and blue bags from her hands. Lily smiled up from the chaos, silently conveying her pride in Annelise as male hands slapped Waters’s back. Lily’s eyes were cornflower blue, her hair burnished gold and hanging to her shoulders. In moments like this, she looked as she had in high school, running cross-country and beating all comers. The warmth of real happiness welled in Waters at the center of this collage of flushed faces, grass stains, skinned knees, and little Jimmy O’Brien’s broken tooth, which had been lost during the second quarter and was now being passed around like an artifact of a historic battle.

“Hell of a season, John!” said Brandon Davis’s father. “Only one more game to go.”

“Today was a good day.”

“How about that last pass?”

“Brandon’s got good instincts.”

“You better believe it,” insisted Davis. “Kid’s got a hell of a future. Wait till AYA football starts.”

Waters wasn’t comfortable with this kind of talk. In truth, he didn’t much care if the kids won or lost. The point at this age was fun and teamwork, but it was a point a lot of parents missed.

“I need to get the ball,” he said by way of excusing himself.

He trotted toward the spot where the ball had fallen when the whistle blew. Parents from the opposing team nodded to him as they headed for their cars, and a warm sense of camaraderie filled him. This emerald island of chalked rectangles was where it was happening today in Natchez, a town of twenty thousand souls, steeped in history but a little at a loss about its future. In Waters’s youth, the neighborhoods surrounding these fields had housed blue-collar mill workers; now they were almost exclusively black. Twenty years ago, that would have made this area off limits, but today there were black kids on his soccer team, a mark of change so profound that only people who had lived through those times really understood its significance. Before he knew why, Waters panned his eyes around the field, sensing an emptiness like that he felt when he sighted a cardinal landing outside his office window and, looking closer at the smear of scarlet, saw only the empty space left after the quick beat of wings. He was looking for the dark-haired woman, but she was gone.

He picked up the ball and jogged back to his group, which stood waiting for concluding remarks before splitting up and heading for their various neighborhoods.

“Everybody played a great game,” he told them, his eyes on the kids as their parents cheered. “There’s only one more to go. I think we’re going to win it, but win or lose, I’m taking everybody to McDonald’s after for a Happy Meal and ice cream.”

“Yaaaaaaay!” screamed ten throats in unison.

“Now go home and get that homework done!”

“Boooooooooo!”

The parents laughed and shepherded their kids toward the SUVs, pickups, and cars parked along the sideline.