Checked

  Anyway, school marches on, and I tolerate it. I’m an average, not-special person to my teachers. And you know what? I don’t care.

  I don’t have time to wash cars anymore, but I haven’t seen Mr. Reynolds for weeks, so one Sunday I take Sinbad down there just to see what’s up. It’s about ten in the morning when I knock on his door. I wait for five minutes, ’cause you never know how long it’ll take. And sure enough, he finally answers the door. “Conor MacRae!”

  “Hi, Mr. Reynolds. Just seeing if you need me to do anything.”

  “You know what? I’m a little short on cash right now.”

  “You don’t have to pay me!”

  He seems annoyed, so I’m just about to tell him forget it when he says, “Oh, all right, come in.”

  I follow him through the house to the kitchen. It’s a mind-bending mess! Gunk encrusted all over the stove, dirty dishes everywhere, and the floor gray with dirt. I think the floor’s actually supposed to be white. I try not to show how surprised I am.

  “Maybe you could clean up in here,” he says. “But I can’t pay you this week.”

  “You don’t have to pay me,” I say again.

  He gestures toward the room. “There you go.” Then he leaves.

  It’s hard to know where to start. I text Dad: Don’t think I can go jogging today. I might be helping Mr. Reynolds for . . . I think about it, then type in a few hours.

  On the table are three different bowls partly filled with soup. A half-eaten can of tuna. Three black bananas. A pot with some dried oatmeal. I don’t know why, but for a minute I can’t get started. I stand there in the middle of all that mess and don’t even think. Sinbad nudges me and I look down. “It’s a crazy world” is the only thing I can think of to say to him. I know he understands, ’cause he understands everything. And a feeling wells up in me like, What are we all doing here in this world? Like seriously, what? Shouldn’t this man’s niece be here sometimes, cleaning up for him? But she’s apparently not, so it’s down to me: I get to work.

  At my house, we always start with washing dishes before we get to cleaning counters, the floor, the stovetop, etc. There’s hardly any dishwashing soap left, but I find some clothes detergent, so I use that. I start soaking all the pots and dishes that need it, then wash and dry the ones that don’t. When I open the cabinets to put stuff away, they’re all empty—he seems to be using every single dish and pot he owns. So I decide where to put everything, then do the dishes that have been soaking. He actually doesn’t have that many dishes, so the whole operation takes just a little over an hour. I realize I should have been soaking the stove and start that now, though I’m not optimistic that the stove can be cleaned, ever, no matter how much it soaks.

  I sweep the floor and feel pretty shocked over how much dirt, dust, and food bits there are. Mop the floor—turns out it’s off-white with flecks of gold. Almost two hours gone; I turn to the stove. No matter how much I scrub, there are places where the gunk just won’t come off. I get really involved in one corner, and after I get it clean, the stove looks imbalanced, everything a mess except for that corner.

  Hour three. The stove is passable, and Dad has texted me that it’s time to come home and eat. So I walk into the hallway calling, “Mr. Reynolds?” He doesn’t answer, and I find him in a bedroom, snoring. The bedroom isn’t that messy, which kind of relieves me.

  Sinbad and I return home, him to dog food with watercress and me to boiled chicken.

  “So what was up at Mr. Reynolds’s house?” Dad asks.

  “I cleaned up his kitchen. I’m not quite done. It was the biggest, dirtiest mess I ever saw.”

  Dad nods and devours his chicken. Me too. Every meal, we always eat like we’re starving, just ’cause we usually are. He cleans up the kitchen to give me a break.

  Sinbad seems to feel blah, so I don’t take him out again. He had chemo a few days ago, and while he hasn’t been awful since then, he’s definitely been low energy today. And yet Dr. Pierre keeps saying he’s doing well, so I don’t know what to think. I wonder if I’m just being too sensitive to how he feels. I pet him for half an hour, concentrating the whole time on the petting.

  So there I am, feeling sad, and all of a sudden Sinbad jumps up and wags his tail! “Are you okay?” I ask, surprised.

  He drops his jaw in a smile and slaps his two front paws on the floor, what he does when he wants a walk. “So you were just tired?” I ask.

  He slaps his paws on the floor again, so I get up and leash him. “I’m going to take Sinbad for a walk!” I call to my dad. I hear him on the phone talking angrily, so I figure he’s speaking to Jenny. At the same time, I don’t get why they would be fighting now. I mean, it’s been ten or eleven months since she left. But there was a kid at school who said divorce goes on forever sometimes. His mom lost half her hair when she was going through divorce. But when does it end then? Sinbad jumps up, laying his paws on my shoulders, and I try to forget the adult world—I’d rather be in the dog world! But I still feel my dad’s argument there, under the surface in my brain.

  I bring a flashlight, and we move down the street. The beam bounces off a cat’s eyes in the distance, but Sinbad doesn’t notice—he’s never had the greatest eyesight. Hope that cat gets inside—you know the coyotes are out. Nighttime’s pretty cool in Canyon Country. All of a sudden it seems like you can hear better than you can in the day. And the moon hangs over the hills like it’s right there, ten miles away or something.

  We take our usual route, down the street and—since he seems to be feeling well—up the path at the hill. It’s still kind of spooky since the fire, the way some of the branches still don’t have leaves. But there’s a lot of new growth. At the top, I turn off the light, sit down, and let Sinbad sniff, but I keep him on the leash so he doesn’t run off after an animal in the dark. The street below is quiet. I see a huge TV going in a couple of houses. Most of my friends don’t watch TV. We’re more into our computers or iPads and video games. For a while everybody on last year’s team watched The Walking Dead, but then we stopped all at once. Jae-won calls it the mind hive when we all do the same thing at the same time.

  Sinbad doesn’t explore, just lies down, and I think maybe it was a mistake to bring him up here. Then he lays his head down and closes his eyes, and I know it was a mistake. It just makes me feel like I’m having trouble breathing, like when you get accidentally hit in a hockey game.

  I hear a small noise and turn on the light, spotting what looks like a tarantula. Usually they come out when there’s been rain, ’cause they love damp conditions. It’s bone dry, but there it is anyway. They’re not really dangerous to humans, they just look scary. I got nothing against tarantulas. Sinbad spots it and kind of sniffs at the air, but then he’s not really interested and closes his eyes again. I don’t know what comes over me, but I suddenly stand up and stomp on the tarantula about five times as hard as I can. Afterward I just stand there with my eyes closed. I say, “I’m sorry,” out loud. “But I just don’t understand why Sinbad has to be sick,” I say, opening my eyes and looking up. I vow to double down on my praying. I vow to work harder. I vow to rescue at least twenty dogs when I’m grown up. But I just don’t know if anybody’s listening to me.

  CHAPTER 34

  * * *

  REGULAR SEASON STARTS in October. I start walking Sinbad in the neighborhood instead of up any hills. And the weather cools off, which he seems to like. I’m away a lot for school and hockey, and when I’m home, he’s become quite clingy, like he always wants to be touching me. He even scratches at the door when I’m in the bathroom. Then it’s finally Saturday, and we have a game Sunday morning. I say some prayers, and I’m in bed by eight.

  When the alarm goes off at four a.m., I shoot out of bed and head right to the kitchen to start Dad’s coffee. He’s still asleep, I guess, ’cause the house is totally quiet. Sinbad doesn’t get up either, but I dump a cup of kibble into his bowl. I eat a lot of oatmeal with whole milk and a banana. No sugar. Th
at’s my go-to breakfast on game days. Then in the car I’ll have a whole-milk yogurt. I force myself not to eat too quickly, but it’s hard ’cause I just want to eat and get to the game. The beginning of the regular season always makes me think of the year before, and the year before that, and so on. I mean, I’m only twelve, and here I am doing this memories thing like my grandparents. On the refrigerator, Dad keeps pictures of me in my uniform from every year I played. When I take my bowl back to the kitchen, I pause at the pictures. My hair is down to my shoulders in the first two.

  My heart speeds up. Even though I keep saying I want to play in the NHL someday, my real-world goal has always been AAA. I smile and feel really proud. I wonder if I’ll be on the first line today. Coach says he doesn’t even know who’s starting. It’ll be a game-time decision.

  I wash my bowl and double-check my bag, which I packed last night. I can’t find my mouth guard, so I unpack everything. There it is on the bottom of the bag. I repack. I take two big breaths. Then I smile. I love games. I love them!

  Dad comes sleepily into the dining room. “What did you eat?” he asks.

  “Oatmeal and banana.”

  He gulps down a banana, pours all the coffee into his big thermos, and we’re off.

  The game’s in Riverside, an hour and a half away. Coach Dusan has told us to get there seventy-five minutes early for every game so we can do some light dryland exercises and still have time to get dressed without a big rush.

  When we get to the rink, some of the guys are already standing around in the parking lot. I find out what locker room we’re in and rush inside to dump my bag, then join the others. We run a couple of times around the far end of the parking lot, then do some stretching. The sun hasn’t risen yet as we stretch on the asphalt. We close our eyes and visualize skating, scoring, winning.

  Finally it’s time to get dressed. In the locker room, Jeffrey, the second goalie, acts like an idiot per usual. He’s telling everyone on D that they better not screw up, ’cause he shouldn’t have to cover for our mistakes. He’s accusing us of not trying hard enough, and we haven’t even done anything yet. When there’s an annoying guy on your team, you just have to try to ignore him. Two parents are supposed to keep an eye on the locker room, but they’re not around. I stand up and start walking out, and suddenly Jeffrey is right in my face, saying, “You better not screw up.” I push him out of the way, ’cause you’re allowed when someone’s acting like a jerk. Jae-won, Lucas, and I walk out together and sit on the away bench. The warm-up buzzer sounds, and we all skate around carrying a puck. I look over at the opposite team. A couple of them are as big as bantams, but they look slow for this level.

  The buzzer sounds again, and Jesus cries out, “One-two-three!”

  “GRIZZLIES!”

  “One-two-three!”

  “GRIZZLIES!”

  “Who’s gonna win?!”

  “GRIZZLIES!”

  Matt gets the start, and I can see Jeffrey is upset, even though he knows he’s second goalie. Coach doesn’t send me out. I’m disappointed, but I get over it quick. He sends out five guys from his AAA team last year.

  Jesus moves across the ice so fast, it’s like he’s improved by 50 percent since last week. All you can do is admire a guy like that. No jealousy! He loses the puck in a crowd, but Aidan 1 swoops in and picks it off, flicking it back to Jesus, who shoots and misses.

  This is my first regular game with Coach Dusan, and he’s talking constantly. “Oh, that’s great, take a shot lying on the ice. What?! You have got to be kidding me. That’s offside! What?! What happened to the playbook? Come on, skate. SKATE, Aidan!” Then forty-five seconds later, I’m out there—second line, not too shabby.

  We’re in our offensive zone, but Avery loses the puck, so we’re on a back-check. I knock a guy kind of hard against the boards, but nobody blows a whistle, so I go after the puck, hacking my stick at his until the puck is loose. I scoop it up and push off hard on my skates.

  Then I almost lose the puck for no rational reason. So I lower my head to get situated, and the next thing I know I’m flying through the air. I land on my head and bang my shoulder to the ice before the rest of me follows. Then I’m in a daze, but I kind of see Jae-won pushing the kid I think hit me. The refs skate in to break it up. I vaguely think to myself that I’m not hurting. But I don’t want to get up. I’m really comfortable just lying there. I wonder what’s going on in the game. Then Coach Kyle is there, bending over me. “How are you doing?” he asks, and my head clears a bit.

  “I’m okay,” I answer.

  “Do you want to get up?”

  “Not really.”

  Lucas is kneeling beside me, resting his hand on my shoulder. I lie there for a moment while he kneels, the area between his eyes all crinkled up with worry. I become aware that I hurt after all: my shoulder aches. My head doesn’t hurt, but it’s cloudy.

  “I shouldn’t have lowered my head,” I say, suddenly realizing it.

  “You hurting?”

  “I don’t think so. Is the guy a jerk?”

  “I don’t think he hit you on purpose,” Lucas says. “It looked like he was going for the puck. I think he’s sorry. He’s in the penalty box. So’s Jae-won.”

  “How’s your breathing?” Coach Kyle asks. He looks so serious you’d think I was dying.

  “It’s kind of hard to breathe,” I say.

  “Don’t worry about it right now. You want to get up?”

  So he holds me as I push myself to my feet, and we walk to the bench together. I hear all the players hitting their sticks on the ice and the boards for me. The people in the stands are cheering. Coach Dusan puts his arm around me and helps me to the bench. Then I lean over and throw up.

  “I’ll get your dad,” Coach Kyle says, and he rushes off.

  I know that throwing up after a hit like that is a sign that you have a concussion. All the other players leap up while Coach Dusan lays me down on the bench. It seems like only a minute has passed before Dad is leaning over me.

  “I called 911,” he says. “Just relax.”

  It’s really embarrassing, but I practically shout out, “I don’t want to die!”

  “You’re not going to die,” Dad and all three coaches say at the same time. I can hear that the game is continuing. Players are yelling for the puck, and skates are digging into the ice.

  I want to keep talking, but at the same time I want to take a nap. In fact, the more I think about it, the better a nap sounds. Like maybe a ten-day nap. That sounds beautiful. I close my eyes, which feels great. Maybe I’m awake, and maybe I’m not. Not sure. But the next thing I know, Dad says, “Wake up, you need to be cleared by a doctor before you sleep.” So I force my eyes open until the paramedic arrives.

  “Can you hear me?” the guy asks.

  For some reason that makes me shoot up so that I’m sitting. Then I barf again. Oatmeal. “Just lie back,” the paramedic says.

  The two paramedics lift me off the bench and set me on a gurney. As I’m being wheeled out, I wonder idly who’s going to clean up the floor where I barfed. My shoulder still hurts, but not a lot, so I think that’s okay, nothing broken. I’m more worried about my head. I can’t think right. It’s like my head is filled with jelly instead of a brain.

  As they set me in the ambulance, I open my eyes. “Dad?” I say.

  “Right here,” he answers.

  “Just checking.”

  He sits there with his hand holding mine. I don’t think I’ve held my dad’s hand since I was about seven, but it feels good now. I want to say I quit hockey, but then I think maybe that’s premature. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow. Right this second, though, I want to quit hockey. It’s not worth it. It’s just a game, and my brain is, well, it’s my brain. It’s more important than a game, isn’t it? I curse myself for not keeping my head up. The hardest thing about sports is that sometimes things are just plain your fault, your responsibility.

  At the hospital, they check my eyes and ref
lexes, plus ask me a lot of questions. They decide to keep me overnight ’cause I threw up twice. And they’re not sure if I lost consciousness. I close my eyes to sleep, thinking my dad will take care of everything.

  Sure enough, he does. Because the next time I open my eyes, I’m lying in a hospital bed hooked up to an IV. That stinks! Dad is sitting next to me reading a golf magazine, even though he doesn’t golf.

  “Seriously? I need an IV?” I ask.

  Dad leaps up. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Do I have to have this thing stuck in me?”

  “Just overnight for observation. And no video games, computer, or reading when we get home. No exercise, either. The doctors say you need to rest your brain and body both.”

  “Who’s taking care of Sinbad?” I sit up.

  “Lie down. The neighbor’s got him.”

  “Which neighbor?” Some of them are nicer than others.

  “Jack and Susan. Don’t worry, they love dogs.”

  “Then why don’t they have any?” I ask reasonably, even though they are some of the nice ones.

  “They like to travel.”

  “Are they going to make him sleep outside?”

  “I didn’t ask. Sinbad is going to be fine. This is your time to relax. In fact, it’s important for you to relax now.”

  “But Dad, he has cancer.”

  “He’s doing well on his treatment, and he’s going to be fine for one night.”

  “He’s not doing that well. Can you go home and stay with him?”