“That would be fucking amazing. Then I wouldn’t be late to practice. I’ll text you the address of the place.”
“Cool.”
Oh shit, wait. “I’ll need to switch her car seat to your car somehow. Maybe I can do that now—give me your keys.”
“No need. I have a car seat in my car already.”
I blink. “You do?”
“My mom got it when Hope first started coming over. So we can go to the park and stuff.”
I shake my head, amazed. “I owe you one, Alan.”
“Ryden, you owe me about a billion.”
• • •
I’m in the locker room changing for practice when my phone rings. It’s Alan.
“They won’t let me take Hope home,” he says when I pick up. “Something about me not being on an approved list.”
Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. “Put the lady on, I’ll talk to her.”
The woman from the front desk comes on the line. “This is Sonya.”
“Yeah, hi, this is Ryden Brooks. Hope’s father?” A few of the guys in the locker room pause what they’re doing and look my way. I duck behind my open locker door and lower my voice.
“Yes, Mr. Brooks.”
“Listen, you can send Hope home with Alan Kang. He’s her babysitter. It’s fine.”
“Mr. Brooks, we can’t do that. You need to come in and add Mr. Kang to the approved pickup list and sign the form.”
“I will, tomorrow. But can you just send her home with him today? Just this once? I’m telling you it’s okay.”
“I understand, but I still can’t do that. We need to have it in writing, for legal reasons.”
I kick the row of lockers, and the clang reverberates throughout the room. “I was in this morning filling out all your paperwork and there was nothing about an approved pickup list.”
“You have to ask for that separately.”
I can’t deal with this woman. “Can my mother pick her up?”
I hear the clack of Sonya’s typing, and a second later, she comes back on the line. “Is your mother Deanna Brooks?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, she’s fine. She’s listed as an emergency contact.”
I exhale. “Thanks.” I hang up and call Mom. She doesn’t answer the house phone. Her music in her office is probably too loud. I try her cell. Four rings and then voice mail. I redial. Same. Fuck.
Five minutes and countless calls later, I still have no idea where my mother is.
The guys are all leaving the locker room and on their way to the field.
“You coming, Brooks?” Andrew, one of our fullbacks, asks, filling his water bottle at the fountain and screwing the lid back on.
“Yeah. In a minute,” I say. He gives me a wary look but shrugs and leaves.
I rest my forehead against the cool metal of the lockers and try to think. Hope can’t stay there until I’m done with practice. If I don’t get her before three, I’ll be charged extra. And I don’t have anything extra to give.
I have no choice. I have to go.
I shoot Alan a quick text that I’ll meet him at the day care, grab my keys, and start to run, still in my cleats and shin guards. When I get to my car, the clock on the dashboard says two fifteen p.m. Practice is starting now. And I’m on my way out of the parking lot. Coach is gonna have my ass.
Alan’s waiting outside the day care building, leaning against a brick column with a sign that says No loitering.
“Why are you out here?” I ask.
“They made me leave. Said people without kids aren’t allowed in there. I think they thought I was some sort of creeper or something.”
I sigh. “Be right back.”
There’s a line at the metal detectors, and the security people don’t seem to be in any rush, chatting with each person who comes through. My heart is pounding, every second feeling like an hour. Finally I cut to the front of the line and say, “Sorry, I’m in a rush. I have to pick up my kid.”
The middle-aged woman at the front of the line with ’80s hair—you know, the kind with the bangs that are hair sprayed to look like they’re flying in every possible direction—stares at me, appalled. She takes in my soccer gear and my long hair and my sweaty face and looks like she’s trying to decide if she feels bad for me, “poor teenage dad, what a shame,” or if she wants to tell me to go to the end of the line and wait my turn like everyone else,