Page 36 of Scoring Chance

To the outside world, Des’s parents put on a good front. They showed up at his games and participated in a few booster events, just enough so people wouldn’t speculate on the state of their marriage. The few times I went over to Des’s house though, I’d feel a chill. That sense of warmth you’d feel in a home was missing. No wonder Des wanted out as much as possible.

“Did it ever get…” A lump hits my throat.

“Physical? No. They were mostly passive aggressive and sniping toward each other. Very Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

I swallow. “I remember that one time, you showed up at my door at midnight.”

“Fuck. I remember that. They were having one of their arguments about money that would go on and on. That night, my dad comes into my bedroom, which he would never usually do. He’s pacing and still red-faced. I see him having a breakdown in real time. He says they only got married because he knocked her up with me. He told me how he’d regularly fantasized about a different life where he could go anywhere in the world, where he wasn’t tied down.”

“Des.” My hand instinctively goes to his arm. “I’m so sorry.” I can’t imagine ever telling my kids that. That’s something a child never forgets.

“When I came home the next morning, he apologized and said he didn’t mean it. But, like, you said it, fucker.” Des’s parents got divorced less than a year after he graduated from high school and went off to college. “Your parents were saints. Your mom made me pancakes the next morning like I belonged there.”

“You did.”

He’s quiet a long moment.

“I always thought if I had kids,” he says slowly, “that I’d mess them up. That I’d turn into them somehow. I’d marry the wrong person, and the kid would be stuck in the middle. So I made a decision a long time ago that I wouldn’t do it. That I wouldn’t have a kid until I could guarantee I wouldn’t be like my parents. And then the years passed, and I never got there.”

I feel something in my chest shift—this tender ache that moves like a tide. Des never talks about his family. Not like this. Not with this much weight behind it. There’s something about the darkness that’s like a truth serum.

“Ever since I moved in here, I’ve been thinking about things. People loved to tell me that I’d regret not getting married and having kids. But I haven’t felt that regret. I have an awesome life.” His mouth twists as he searches for more words to complete this thought he’s struggling with. “I never wanted to be in a situation where I told my kids they ruined my life. I never wanted to be like my folks.”

“You’re nothing like them,” I say.

He snorts. “You don’t know that.”

“I do. You’ve been an amazing Uncle Des. You were there for them when their mother died. You show up.” Des helped with little things like school pickups and grocery runs, but he was also this shoulder for them, for all of us. He’d take them on drives in his sports car with the top down and make sure they had a disgusting amount of Christmas presents under the tree.

He turns to me, his eyes shining slightly in the dark. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“You don’t have to. They just need someone who cares.”

“You think I care?”

“I think you’re still here.”

That shuts him up. For a moment, the only sound is the soft whoosh of the fan overhead.

“I used to be jealous of you, you know,” he says suddenly.

“What?”

“In high school. Your house. Your family. The way your parents hugged you. The way they liked each other. It felt…like a different planet.”

“They weren’t perfect.”

“Didn’t need to be. They were safe.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them again.

“I don’t know how you did it,” he says. “How you had kids. Got married. And then…lost Katie. You’re a single dad to four kids. How are you not exhausted?”

“I’m definitely exhausted. That’s par for the course,” I admit. “Here’s the thing: I don’t know how I’m doing it, but it doesn’t matter because I’m doing it. There are tough times, and I get through them. All those nightmare scenarios in your head right now—sick kids barfing on you, the grossest diaper blowouts you’ve ever seen, trips to the ER—they’ve happened, and they sucked, and I got through all of them. How did you get through cancer?”

“One chemo treatment at a time,” he says.

“We’re resilient, and so are they,” I say, something I need to remind myself about constantly. I sit up, feeling a crease in my forehead. “But I still worry. All the time. Even though I know we can get through things, I still worry. I worry that I’m not enough.”