Hannah Gersen - Home Field

“Doesn’t it drive you crazy that these other runners are passing you?” he prodded her. “You had a good lead.”

“I know I’m faster than them, I don’t have to prove anything.”

“But you do have to prove it. That’s what a race is.” Dean didn’t know how to motivate someone who didn’t care about being beaten. “You want to tell your parents you quit your first race?”

“They’re not even here,” Missy said. “They went to watch my brother practice.”

“Finish the race. Then you never have to run another one in your life.”

For whatever reason this got her moving, and she ended up coming in third for the team, ahead of Jessica and Lori. But he didn’t compliment her. Instead he told her she had run the race poorly, and that he would rather see her run the race correctly for a slower time. Then he made her go on a two-mile cooldown, no stopping allowed. When she returned, she said she was quitting. He told her she had already quit, during the race, and that she couldn’t do it again. It was the kind of antilogic she couldn’t argue against. Instead, she said nothing, not even good-bye when her father picked her up. Her rudeness stung more than Dean liked to admit. He had to remind himself that he’d dealt with worse.

A bunch of blue and white balloons danced above Garrett’s mailbox. Garrett greeted him at the door, opening it before Dean had a chance to knock.

“Coach! I’m so glad you came. What’s this? Miller? Classic, just classic.”

Garrett’s condo was very warm inside. It smelled like potpourri and onion dip, with a hint of Mr. Clean. The furniture was a mix of new, matching items and a smattering of painted wooden “country kitchen” decorations that had to have come from his girlfriend.

“There’s plenty to eat,” Garrett said, guiding him toward the kitchen. “Connie made everything.”

“I didn’t know you two moved in together.”

“Not yet. Connie’s too traditional. But I made sure she liked this place before I bought it. It’s going to be part of a new subdivision, with a pool and tennis courts and a playground. They’re calling it Fox Knoll. I’m going to put your beer in the fridge, okay?”

Dean headed to the spread of food on Garrett’s kitchen island. There were bowls of chips, dips, salsas, pickles, a platter of deviled eggs and crudité, and a make-your-own-sandwich station with honey ham and cheddar cheese. Garrett followed him, filling him in on the team’s news, as well as his plan for the season. Dean half listened. He couldn’t tell if Garrett wanted his approval or if he was talking to him out of a sense of duty. Other people at the party were smiling in his direction, waving, and patting him on the shoulder as they passed. Dean knew almost everyone in attendance. He felt out of place.

“Oh, there’s my friend Tim,” Garrett said, nodding toward someone behind Dean. “He’s here with his girlfriend — actually, his fiancée now! They just got engaged. I can never remember her name.”

“Laura,” Dean said. Even before he turned to look, he knew it had to be her. She was so pretty, wearing a soft-looking light-blue sweater and jeans. Her hair was down in loose curls. He had to turn around before she saw him. Engaged. She’d gone and done it. He must have been her moment of doubt, her last night out.

“That sounds right,” Garrett said. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to say hello.”

Dean looked for someone to talk with. He was rescued by See-See’s mother, of all people. She walked right up to him, pointing a manicured finger toward his chest, like he was her target.

“I have to thank you,” she said. “My daughter has never been happier. And that’s saying something, because she is one angsty little thing.”

“I’m not sure we’re talking about the same See-See,” Dean said. “She’s a real leader on the team.”

“Well, kids always show their mothers their worst.” She extended her hand. “I’m Karen, Karen Coulter — different last name from See-See, but I’m working on getting it changed back to my maiden name. Which will still be different from See’s, but so be it. Her dad isn’t so bad, really. He even said he might make it to one of the meets.”

“That’d be nice,” Dean said, slightly overwhelmed by her sudden confidences. He’d only ever seen Karen Coulter in profile, when she dropped See-See off. Up close, she had a girlish prettiness, with her sparkly makeup and pink complexion, her cheeks flushed from the white wine she was drinking.

“It would actually be a miracle if he came! He hasn’t been around much. And my second husband was no picnic. That’s been hard on See. But now, with you coaching the team, it’s like she has that father figure she’s been needing.”

“I’ve only been coaching a couple weeks,” Dean said.

“According to her, it’s made a world of difference. She’s even starting to think you guys are going to win a meet.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Dean said, and then he felt guilty. He would never say that about the football team. He was embarrassed, he realized. He had the sense that other people were beginning to eavesdrop on their conversation and he worried it would be misunderstood, that people would think — what? That he was no longer interested in coaching football? That he was overcompensating with this nothing girls’ team? He wasn’t used to this kind of vague, amorphous shame, and he didn’t know what to do with the feeling.

“Oh, I don’t care if we win or lose,” Karen said. “I’m not the sports type at all. I just date athletic guys. I’m here with James Price, who apparently you used to coach? He’s right over there.”

A bulky, round-faced man came over, smiling widely like a child when he recognized his old coach. Dean returned the smile but could barely find little Jimmy Price, the lithe, energetic running back he’d coached for just two years before he’d graduated and gone to college — Towson, if Dean remembered correctly. He’d been a part of Dean’s first team. He had to be in his early thirties now, but his conservative clothing, combined with his weight gain, made him look older — though maybe still too young for Karen.

The next few minutes were spent catching up on the past decade of Jimmy/James’s postcollegiate life. He’d gone into sales, his product was X-ray film, and his territory had been in New England, a region he liked at first but over time grew weary of. The long winters, the Yankee reticence. Now he was back home and getting settled. He was apparently settled enough to know not to ask after Nicole, Dean noticed. Then again, maybe he didn’t even remember her.

Somewhere in Jimmy/James’s reminiscences, Dean started to feel depressed. He had become the thing he never wanted to be: a fixture. He was a person that people came back to, a person people referred to in order to assure themselves that some things never changed. And it wasn’t as if he ever got to decide that he wanted to be that person. Nicole had consigned him to it, first by being beautiful and kind, and then by being needy and vulnerable, and then by taking her life and leaving him with his sawed-off one — no, not sawed-off, that suggested a clean break, and his life didn’t feel cleanly broken. It felt as if something had been ripped out of him, leaving him exposed. People felt sorry for his kids, and he felt sorry for them, too — of course he did — but sometimes Dean thought it was worse for him, in the long run, because Robbie and Bry were already on a trajectory away from their mother. Their lives were separate from her in some fundamental way, while his was intertwined with hers in a way that was impossible to put behind him. She was always going to be with him, his ghost that no one else could see.