knew Kearson loved field hockey.
Kearson went straight upstairs and fell on her bed in a heap.
Her mother followed her. “Tell me.”
Kearson tried to catalog all her failures from the day’s match. How she couldn’t seem to connect with Mel, as if they were speaking two different languages on the field. How Phoebe had started off the game by trying to cheer Kearson on only to grow so frustrated with her, she wouldn’t say two words to her. And Coach, the way he screamed at her. His voice was like ice in her veins, freezing her when she needed to stay warm, stiffening her when she needed to play loose.
Annoyingly, her mother kept interjecting with some vague defense of her. That this was Kearson’s first game. That she was still learning. That she had never played with the varsity team before. That it was supposed to be fun. It began to occur to Kearson that she could never explain this. Her mother wouldn’t ever understand. Kids who just wanted to screw around and have fun did intramural sports. On the Wildcats varsity field hockey team, fun was not the point. Fun was the by-product when the girls won. The varisty girls played with an eye on college scholarships and state titles and national competitions. This was the big time, which made Kearson’s shortcomings a big-time failure.
Kearson pretended to fall asleep so her mother would leave, and once her mother had, Kearson quietly wept until she actually did.
The next game, the final one of the regular season, the Wildcats were the visiting team at Franklin Lakes. Technically the Wildcats had already clinched a spot in the finals, and the game didn’t mean anything, except it meant everything.
Kearson didn’t perform any better. In fact, she played worse because in her heart Kearson knew she simply wasn’t good enough to compete at this level. Failure was her inescapable destiny. And like an infectious disease, she would take the entire team down with her. Coach wasn’t the only one exasperated with her. Now her teammates were too. Mel stopped making eye contact in team huddles. Phoebe lost her voice trying to steer Kearson’s actions from the sidelines, and now she sat mute with a blank stare. They all seemed to know Kearson was a lost cause. It may have been a meaningless game, but for the Wildcats it was hospice.
And then, about ten minutes into the second half, Kearson saw her mother arrive in a black wool coat trimmed on the collar and cuffs with faux leopard fur.
The Franklin Lakes bleachers—one for home fans and one for away—were located on the same side of the field, next to the high school building. But Kearson’s mother wanted to be close to her daughter, so she walked around to the opposite side of the field and stood in the parking lot, behind a chain-link fence, just a few feet away from the Wildcats’ team bench.
Having Coach narrate Kearson’s endless missteps was one kind of misery. But to have her mother attempt to drown Coach out with her cheers was next-level torture. Her mother’s shrill encouragements for a game she clearly didn’t understand blasting at the backs of all Kearson’s teammates and Coach was the most humiliating experience of her life. Kearson was already on edge; her mother pushed her over.
Kearson was subbed out near the end of the second half, after almost accidentally colliding with Mel in the midfield. She went to the bench and sobbed her eyes out. That’s finally what shut her mother up.
Later, Kearson found her mother waiting for her in the kitchen. There was no sushi this time, not even false pretenses of celebrating. Kearson could tell her mother was upset, the string on her tea bag wrapped so tightly around her finger that the tip was changing color.
“Just tell me, Kears, does Coach yell like that at all the girls?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand.” She sounded genuinely boggled. Like it was impossible. Wouldn’t other parents have complained? Wouldn’t she have heard something?
“Mom, please. It’s my fault. I screwed up like a hundred and one times.”
“I don’t want anyone screaming at you like that, Kearson. Hell, I don’t even do it, and I’m your mother!”
“You don’t get it,” Kearson told her, exasperated. She was already so upset with herself, she didn’t want to now have to go over everything a second time, justify that her fuckups were indeed big enough to have warranted Coach’s wrath. “I’m going to bed.”
“What’s that on your face?”
“What?” Kearson lowered