Hannah Gersen - Home Field

Dean always felt as if he needed August, as if these long days of practice, unfettered by academic or familial demands, were an interlude that restored him in some way, a time of simple feeling and nostalgia that connected the man he had become to the boy he had once been. It was the time of year when he felt that he knew who he was.

But this year that clarity was gone.

Don’t try to get to the end of your grief. That’s what his mother-in-law had told him. She had moved in with them for a few weeks over the summer, and Dean still missed their late-night conversations.

Two teachers waved to Dean from the other end of the lot. Dean waved back vaguely. He didn’t know the other faculty that well. He was sequestered in the east annex, where his office, the weight rooms, and the locker rooms bordered two gyms, one large and one small. The teachers’ lounge was at the other end of the school. That was fine with him. Although he taught PE, Dean didn’t think coaching had much to do with teaching. He was more like a mechanic, or a horse trainer, like his father. The point was, he didn’t consider his work to be intellectual. He’d never thought this was unusual, but Nicole had seized on it on one of their first dates.

“But the kids learn so much from you,” she’d said. “Of course you’re a teacher.”

“All I care about is winning games. If they happen to learn something in the process, that’s just a by-product.”

She’d laughed, but he wasn’t going to be one of those men who claimed that football was “character building.” It wasn’t a civilized sport. The training could be brutal. The players were often crude. He could think of few lessons that would serve anyone for a lifetime. It was a moment-by-moment kind of game. That was why he needed it now. All summer long he had been living “one day at a time,” as everyone advised. It was an act of will not to look ahead, not to think about all the ways his future had been destroyed. He tried not to look back, either, but that was harder. Everyone said he couldn’t blame himself, but Dean knew they were all thinking the same thing, that it would never happen to them, that they would never let it happen. And at the same time everyone told him how shocked they were, how they had no idea, how they never would have guessed that someone like her, a woman so, so, so. . they always struggled to say what had fooled them. So normal, perhaps. Or maybe: so undefined. So easy to project happiness onto.

Maybe they all just had crushes on her. Dean got notes of condolence from her country club clients, most of them male, all of them recalling Nicole’s sunny nature. She always had a smile for me, one wrote. As if that meant anything, Dean thought bitterly. He hated how grief made him cynical. The world, for him, was now full of shortsighted, awkward idiots.

Dean drove down Main Street, which was actually Route 40, an old road you could take west all the way to Utah. Or east to Baltimore. Dean could still remember learning the roads in the area, before everything became rote, before he met Nicole. There had been a time when he wasn’t even sure he’d stay very long in this particular corner of western Maryland, this tiny town tucked into the skinny arm of the state. Even though it was several hours from his father’s, it had seemed too close to where he’d grown up. Or maybe it had just seemed too small.

Willowboro had never been prosperous or historically significant. Unlike other nearby towns, which had hosted Civil War battles and bunkered generals, Willowboro’s wartime role was to receive the bodies of the dead after the Battle of Antietam. This ghoulish task had taken place in the town’s livery stables, now the site of Weddle’s Nursing Home. The place gave Dean the creeps, but he had to visit it every October with his players. They would sing fight songs, and then Dean would give an overview of the season, with slides. It was called “A Night with the Coach,” and it was open to the whole town. The point was to get people to visit their infirm relatives, and it worked. Only Christmastime was busier.

Dean turned right at the stoplight, driving past the four businesses that were the cornerstones of Willowboro’s social life: Asaro’s Pizza, Mike’s Video Time, Jenny’s Luncheonette, and the post office. Willow Park was tucked behind them, a small but quaint landscape with arched stone bridges, wooden pavilions, playgrounds, and, of course, willow trees — the grandchildren of the original trees, planted at the turn of the century. Before it was called Willowboro, the town was called Weddle, for its founding brothers. Dean thought that the dopey, sleepy-sounding “Weddle” was more fitting.

Willowboro was bounded by two stoplights, and the town quickly thinned out on either side of them, the sidewalks petering out to accommodate the shoulders of wider roads. The Legion Hall, with its beige siding and sloping black roof, marked the edge of town. The football banquet, homecoming dance, and prom were held there every year. A half mile past the Legion Hall was Shank’s Produce, which was owned by Dean’s sort-of in-laws, Vivian and Walter Shank. The Shanks were the parents of Nicole’s first husband, Sam. Sam was buried ten miles from here, and after the Shanks moved away, they talked about getting him exhumed to a cemetery closer to them. Nicole thought they said things like this to get under her skin, but Dean thought they were just odd people. Stephanie liked them, though. And they were a good influence. He doubted she’d be going to a college like Swarthmore if they hadn’t pushed her to apply.

The new Sheetz loomed ahead, bright red and yellow and simple in design, like something a kid would make with Legos. Dean stopped to fill up and then decided to go ahead and get some subs for dinner. It was the third time this week they’d had them, but it was the only thing the boys ate with any kind of appetite.

He ran into Jimmy Smoot in the parking lot. He was with a girl Dean didn’t recognize and drinking a mouthwash-blue Freeze. His Adam’s apple bulged in his skinny, razor-burned neck and Dean thought that Garrett was wrong; this kid was not going to bulk up, not ever.

“Hey, Coach,” Smoot said. “You tried these? It’s team colors.”

“You should drink chocolate milk after practice. You need protein with your carbohydrates.”

The girl crossed her arms. “Plus milk doesn’t give you Smurf lips.”

“This is my sister, Missy,” Smoot said. “She’s going to be a freshman this year.”

“ Melissa, ” the girl corrected. She was tall, like her brother, and had his rangy, broad-shouldered frame, which she accentuated by wearing oversized clothing: baggy jean shorts and a black T-shirt with the word HOLE on it. Layered over the T-shirt was a short-sleeved button-down, also oversized. The ensemble was intensely unflattering, but Dean recognized it as “alt style.” Stephanie had explained this term to him when she began to dress in the same way.

“Are you an athlete, like your brother?” Dean asked her.

“Missy’s going out for cheer squad,” Smoot said. “She can’t help herself, she just has to cheer me on — oh, shoot! Brain freeze!” He pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut, as if it was the worst pain he’d been in all day.

“You drink those things way too fast.” Melissa turned to Dean. “I don’t play sports. I’m not coordinated.”

“Maybe you just haven’t found the right sport.”

“Maybe.” She nudged her brother. “Come on, you said you’d drop me off.”

“Yeah, okay. See you Monday, Coach.”

They waved guilelessly, completely absorbed by the logistics of their evening and the politics of siblinghood. They couldn’t see Nicole’s ghost, and for that, Dean was grateful. Both the best and worst thing about working with kids was that they had almost no ability to imagine life beyond the age of thirty.