Hannah Gersen - Home Field

“Daddy—” Bry began.

Dean held up his hand. “Robbie! Did you put your brother up to this?”

“Why do you always blame me?”

“Get out from under there right now.”

Robbie rolled out at the foot of the bed. He was wearing one of Nicole’s dresses, a pale blue one with buttons down the front. On his feet he wore a pair of her heels, with bows. Everything feminine about his older son — his shaggy overgrown hair, his long-lashed and expressive eyes, his slender neck and arms — was brought into relief.

“Steffy was trying things on—” Bry said.

“Never mind! I don’t want to hear it. Just get back in your regular clothes.”

Bry began to cry. He was always the first to do so; sometimes he seemed to be the family’s designated mourner, tearing up whenever his mother’s name was mentioned by some sympathy-wishing stranger. “I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his nose with Nicole’s ruffled cuff.

“I’m sorry, too,” Dean said. “I’m sorry I had to see this.”

“It’s not that big a deal.” Robbie tossed his head to get his hair out of his eyes. Dean had to look away, but when he averted his gaze, he caught his sons’ bizarre image in Nicole’s vanity mirror.

“Just change back into your clothes, all right?” Dean said.

“Steffy said you told her to try things on. So can’t we?”

“Don’t be smart with me. You know the answer to that question.”

“Why didn’t you just get rid of them?” Robbie said. “Stephanie already has a ton of dead-lady clothes from Goodwill.”

“Don’t talk about your mother that way.”

“What, that she’s dead?”

“We’re not a family that just dumps things at Goodwill.”

“What kind of family are we?”

“I don’t know, Robbie! Will you get out of those clothes?”

Bryan was still crying. “I’m sorry, Daddy! I didn’t know you would be so mad.”

“It’s okay,” Dean said. He glared at Robbie over Bryan’s head. “I’m going downstairs. I want you down there in five minutes, in your normal clothes. Got it?”

Bryan immediately began to unbutton Nicole’s ruffled blouse. Dean hurried out, not wanting to see his scrawny chest beneath. In the kitchen, he got a beer and downed it quickly, and then opened a second can and poured it into a glass, like he was a civilized person having a drink at the end of the day. Everyone had told him this would happen, that his boys would “act out,” but Dean had steeled himself for something quite different. He thought they would pick fights, punch walls, break things. Instead they had become quiet. They never talked about their mother, except when Dean brought her up, and even then, they said very little. He never had any idea what they were thinking. And now this. He couldn’t even tell anyone about it. There was a sexual element that disturbed him.

“Boys!” he called.

They came downstairs together. It was such a relief to see them in their T-shirts and shorts that Dean immediately apologized.

“Let’s go out to dinner, okay?” he said. “We can go to the Red Byrd and surprise your sister.”

“But you got subs,” Robbie said, pointing.

“We can have them tomorrow,” Dean said. “Come on, don’t you want to get out of the house? You’ve been stuck here all afternoon.”

Only Bryan nodded, but that was enough for Dean.

The radio came on loud when Dean started the car, startling the boys, but somehow it cleared the air.

“Steffy’s leaving next week,” Dean said. “We have to figure out something for you to do when I’m at practice.”

“I don’t want to go to Aunt Joelle’s,” Robbie said.

“You don’t like playing with your cousins?” He wasn’t eager to leave them with Joelle, but there was no reason for them to know that.

“She has Bible verses taped up everywhere,” Bryan said. “And she makes you say one before she gives you a snack.”

“It’s good exercise for your brain to memorize things,” Dean said, trying to find the secular virtue. Joelle’s fundamentalism was getting harder to ignore. It had started before Nicole’s death, but then he’d had Nicole as a buffer. Or maybe it was that Joelle had spent her energies trying to convert Nicole instead of him. She thought love of Jesus could cure Nicole, that modern psychology was a crock. Dean was no big fan of psychology, either, with all its doped-up promises, but he thought Joelle’s minister told bigger lies, with his shiny face and his PowerPoint “teachings.” Nic had gone to Joelle’s church one Sunday and returned confused. “They actually think they’re talking to God,” she said. “Can you understand that?” Dean’s answer had been no, he couldn’t. He assumed that God had more important people to talk with.

“What if we went to Grandpa’s?” Robbie said.

“Grandpa lives too far away,” Dean said, carefully.

“We could stay overnight,” Robbie said.

“All week? No, that’s not going to work.” He couldn’t believe they wanted to go back there.

“Maybe Grandpa could come live with us,” Bry said.

“Grandpa would never leave his horses,” Robbie said.

Dean had long since accepted that his father preferred horses to people, but it was still jarring to hear Robbie say it. At Nicole’s memorial, his father talked about how good she was with the horses, and how much they would miss her. It was as if he could only understand the loss by imagining the animals’ response.

The Red Byrd was up ahead, with its row of cardinals perched on the roof and its old-fashioned marquee promising the best red velvet cake in Maryland. The parking lot was already crowded with cars. Dean snagged one of the last shady spots, next to a car with a bumper sticker that read MY CHILD IS AN HONOR STUDENT AT WILLOWBORO HIGH. They had four of those stickers at home, but Stephanie forbade their display.

Inside the restaurant, the atmosphere was noisy and friendly. Dean eyed a corner booth and asked the hostess if it was in Stephanie’s section.

“Steph’s not working tonight. I think she’s on tomorrow night.”

“Are you sure?” Dean asked.

“I can double-check the schedule—”

“No, it’s all right. I must have gotten mixed up. We’ll just take the booth, if it’s free.”

They followed the hostess across the dining room, past a couple of people Dean knew from the Boosters Club. He nodded in their direction. He knew he should stop and chat, but he didn’t.

“Steffy lied?” Bry said.

“Obviously,” Robbie said.

Dean gazed at his placemat, seeking solace in its usual lists of presidents or cocktail recipes, but instead found himself staring at last year’s football stats, a nearly undefeated season. The Red Byrd had printed these placemats after they won the state championship — a triumph dampened for Dean by Nicole’s depression and Stephanie’s disdain. Neither of them had gone to many games last fall. As Dean read the old scores, numbers he could have recited in his sleep, he had a sudden, fervent wish for Nicole to return, to sit here beside him and put her hand on his leg. The wish radiated through him, through the whole of his day. Through every day.

A waitress appeared, greeting him by name. “You like our placemats?” she asked. “We’re going to have to make another batch this year, I bet.”

“I sure hope so,” Dean said, forcing a smile.

“You boys ready to order?”

Robbie and Bryan stared at her silently.

“I think we’re going to need some more time,” Dean said.

IT WAS STILL light outside when they got home from the Red Byrd, so Dean suggested a walk through the meadow behind their house and down to the creek. The boys agreed, picking up walking sticks in the backyard. They had been shy with him all through dinner, but by dessert they’d relaxed. Dean blamed himself for yelling at them earlier, but he blamed Stephanie, too. Her absence had put them all on edge. They were so fragile right now that any little thing worried them. Stephanie was a mother figure, whether she liked it or not. Dean thought she liked it, but it was hard to tell. Sometimes Dean got the feeling she was putting off her grieving until she was away at college, where she could be alone. Other times he thought she had decided to just put her mother’s death out of her mind, something to be dealt with later. It hurt him that she would not admit her sorrow to him; it hurt him even though it had been years since she shared anything true with him. He was accustomed to being shut out from her world.