I stretch my legs. As I start on my shoulders, I look at my watch. It’s three past eight.
Where is my dad?
My heart drops through my belly.
I run toward my father’s front door. I put my hand on the doorknob and I turn it.
There he is. Lying on one of his sofas, with the TV on ESPN.
Here but gone.
And all that escapes from my mouth is a hushed yelp. “Papá.”
From then on, everything feels like those moments just before you wake in the morning. I am not asleep but somehow still dreaming, the world an ambiguous combination of reality and hallucination.
At some point, I am standing on my father’s front stoop, staring at my sneakers when somebody—I can’t tell if he’s an EMT or someone from the coroner’s office—comes to find me. I look over and realize Bowe is at my side, holding my hand.
“Your father had another heart attack last night and passed away, most likely sometime between eleven and one a.m.,” the man says.
“Yeah, no shit, genius!” I hear myself shout.
Bowe pulls me into his arms.
I think someone gives me a sedative.
* * *
—
Gwen comes over with dinner. Bowe tries to make me eat something. When I look at him, I can’t figure out why Bowe Huntley is in my house, why he is the one beside me.
Gwen tells me this is going to make the news soon. “I’ll do my best to hold it all off until you’re ready.”
I tell her I don’t care who knows. Hiding it won’t fix it.
* * *
—
Bowe feeds me lunch and dinner and breakfast the next morning. I know that because I can see the dishes piled up around me in my bed.
I see my own face on the television and see Greg Phillips reporting that “Javier Soto, father and coach of Carrie Soto, has died unexpectedly. He was not with his daughter at Wimbledon this past July, and some speculated it was due to health concerns. But he was expected to be with Carrie in New York next week for the US Open.”
Bowe tells me later that I threw the remote at the TV and cracked the screen.
* * *
—
In the paper, they print a picture of him from the early seventies at the French Open. He looks young and handsome in his polo shirt and panama hat. He would have loved it. I try to tear it out of the paper to save it, but I accidentally rip it.
* * *
—
At some point, Bowe gets in bed and holds me. He makes me smoothies every morning. He always gives me the wrong type of straw, but I don’t know how to tell him without screaming at him and I don’t want to scream at him.
I walk into the bathroom, thinking Bowe is in the shower. But instead, I find him sitting on the edge of the tub, with the shower running. When he sees me, he looks up and his eyes are bloodshot. He stands up and asks me if I am okay.
I wonder when he is going to leave. I’d have left by now.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, even though I can’t tell if I said any of that out loud.
* * *
—
After my father’s funeral and the reception, Gwen is packing up all the food as I stand there in the kitchen, not moving. She’s telling me about all the times my dad made her laugh.
“Can you please, for the love of God, shut up?” I say.
She stops putting cheese slices into Tupperware and looks at me.
I say, “I’m sorry.”
She takes my hand, but hers is cold and I want her to let go of me. But I also know that even if I ask her to, she won’t.
Bowe goes out onto the court every day. Sometimes I watch him from my window.
He comes inside after a particularly grueling session with a hitter. “How are you?” he says, breathless.
“How the fuck do you think I’m doing?” I say.
I look down and see I’m wearing my father’s slippers. And I don’t remember when I put them on.
Later, I ask Bowe if I should drop out of the US Open, and he tells me I already know the answer. But he’s wrong. I do not.
* * *
—
I am in a T-shirt and pair of Bowe’s boxers when Bowe comes into the room and tells me he’s scheduled to play Franco Gustavo. I’m scheduled to play Madlenka Dvo?áková in the first round in New York.
I hear my father’s voice. “Ah, será fácil. You can whoop her ass.” I turn to see him, but he’s not there.
* * *
—
I am standing in the middle of my living room, looking at all the flowers people sent. The house is overflowing with blooms that are starting to die.
So many people have sent something but not come by. Which is more than I would have done for any of them.