She said, ‘You don’t have to say you’re sorry,’ because he didn’t. If they started saying sorry, where would it begin and where would it end? They went down to the hotel buffet breakfast, silent in the lift, and never spoke of it again.
‘We were always so proud of you!’ said Joy now to her children. ‘You were all incredibly talented and you all did your best . . . and that’s all we could ask for!’
Troy snorted. Joy glared at him.
Stan said to Savannah, ‘Every single one of my kids was good enough to play on centre court at Wimbledon –’
‘Except clearly we weren’t,’ interrupted Amy.
‘You were!’ Stan pounded his fist on the table, so hard that the crockery rattled. The Happy Father’s Day balloon spun frantically.
Joy looked at her children: Brooke had her elbow on the table, her forehead rested on her hand, Logan lifted his eyes to the ceiling, Troy grinned that inane grin and Amy pulled a strand of blue-dyed hair across her face and sucked it, a childish habit that made Joy want to scream.
Was it because none of them had partners with them today that it felt like she’d hurtled back through time to the dinner table of their childhoods? Or was it the sudden explosive sound of Stan’s fist on the table? He had no right. They were grown-ups. Didn’t the stupid man realise that he no longer had the power to send anyone to their room? They could stand up and leave whenever they liked. They could move interstate or overseas. They could choose to never visit, to never call, to never have children.
The children had all the power now.
And how inappropriate to behave like this in front of Savannah. Stan’s fist on the table might remind her of previous foster placements with abusive fathers. No-one knew what that child might have suffered.
Stan leaned forward on the table, his shoulders huge and muscled in the shirt that Amy had given him, a size too small.
‘This one was a beautiful player.’ Stan pointed at Amy, his eyes on Savannah. ‘Impeccable ground strokes. The ball just fizzed off her racquet. It was a pleasure to watch her play.’
Oh, it was true. It had been a pleasure to watch Amy play. Joy and Stan used to exchange smiles as their ponytailed daughter glided back and forth across the court, when she was maybe eight or nine, back when she had a ‘funny little personality’ not ‘a possible mental illness’。 （Joy never forgave the GP who wrote that particular referral letter.）
‘We used to call her the Comeback Queen,’ reflected Stan. ‘Remember?’
He looked down the table at Joy.
‘I do remember,’ said Joy carefully, because that was much later, and that wasn’t such a good memory. She’d suspected that as Amy got older she began to deliberately lose points or games just so she could claw her way back to a win. Amy loved being the underdog. It was a dangerous, stupid strategy against the better players. The better players gripped that lead between their teeth and ran with it. Amy had lost matches she should have won because she’d mounted her comeback too late.
‘Once she lost nine games in a row and still went on to win the match,’ reflected Stan. ‘Incredible.’
‘But?’ said Amy airily.
‘Does anyone need another tea or coffee?’ asked Joy.
‘But then she got to fourteen or fifteen, and she started choking,’ said Stan. ‘Simple as that.’
It had been awful to witness. Amy would shout at herself. It wasn’t her opponent she was fighting but herself, the voice in her head. Amy! You stupid idiot! Sometimes Joy felt like that summed up Amy’s whole life: a constant power struggle with a cruel invisible foe.
‘Choking?’ asked Savannah.
Amy wrapped both hands around her throat, stuck her tongue out and put her head on one side.
‘It’s a sports term,’ Stan explained to Savannah. ‘It basically means that your state of mind prevents you from reaching your potential.’
‘Stan,’ said Joy. It felt like he was undressing in public. Or undressing his family. It felt deeply personal. These were conversations they’d had about their children, in the privacy of their bedroom. Amy did choke. If she was serving for the match you could almost guarantee she’d double-fault.
‘Joy,’ said Stan.
He couldn’t be stopped. It was like standing in front of a semitrailer speeding towards you.
He said, ‘Amy lost the match in her own mind before she’d even walked out on that court and her mother and I, we just couldn’t work out how to . . .’