“I used to be,” he said, his voice bitter.
The ever-present knot of worry inside her stomach twisted a little tighter. “That’s not true.”
He’d said this yesterday too. She cleared her throat and assumed a neutral tone, like a sportscaster on TV. “This new travel team is just ... well, it’s a higher level of play.”
Higher level of play.She’d learned that phrase from her husband. She still wasn’t sure what it meant. Or if it was even true.
“I’m the worst one on the team,” Matt mumbled from beneath the fringe of bangs obscuring his eyes. She hadn’t had the energy to fightabout haircuts while still submerged under the chaos of moving boxes, pediatrician appointments, school forms, and an ongoing battle with the cable company about the subpar Wi-Fi at their new address.
“But you made the team!” she pointed out. “Most of the kids who tried out didn’t.”
“And I’d rather be playing with those kids, in the rec league. All the kids on this new travel team are assholes.”
“Matthew!” She gasped. Her boys never swore, at least not around her. “Language.”
He gave a sulky shrug. “It’s true.”
“It’s only been a few weeks. Give it some time.”
He slumped lower in his seat and stared out the window. She glanced at him, worry spreading through her body like a virus.
Had it been a mistake to sign him up for this extravagantly expensive travel team? But her husband was convinced that Matt would go from talented to extremely talented if he played with other extremely talented kids.
And if Matt became extremely talented, he could get a baseball scholarship and play in college.
Then she and Garrett could stop lying awake at night wondering how they were going to afford college tuition for four boys on her husband’s new government salary. Plus the money she earned working part-time from home as an on-call advice nurse for a giant HMO, where every call seemed to end with her telling people to go to urgent care, just in case, for liability reasons.
She stopped at a red light and glanced at her son. “Let’s see how things go at the tournament in Pennsylvania this weekend, okay?”
“Is Dad coming?” he asked.
She stifled an irritated sigh. It had been Garrett’s idea to sign Matt up for travel baseball, yet he was never home to help with the travel part.
“No.” She tried to keep her voice free from spousal judgment. “He’s flying home on Saturday. But obviously I’ll be there, and so will your brothers. We’ll leave after school, then drive back right after your gameon Sunday morning because Luke has a soccer game in Ashburn at two, and Johnny has hockey practice at the rec center at four thirty.”
Matt sighed. “I feel like we live in this crappy car.”
She bit back a snappy retort.He’s a child,she reminded herself,and none of this is his fault. Or his choice.
She felt like she and Garrett had committed a form of child abuse by pulling their quiet oldest son away from grandparents, cousins, and a close-knit group of friends just a few weeks before he turned thirteen.
She couldn’t imagine anything harder than moving halfway across the country for seventh grade, away from a school filled with blue-and-gold Future Farmers of America jackets, to a school where most kids would be hard pressed to identify which farm animal produced the bacon in their refrigerator.
Yet she and her husband had done this to their sons.
“I miss the farm,” he said in a small voice, still looking out the window, facing away from her. “I hate that our neighbors are so close we can see into their backyards. I miss Grandpa and Grandma.”
She fought to keep her voice steady. “I miss them too.”
In Minnesota, they’d lived on a farm ten minutes from the dairy operation Garrett managed, with both sets of grandparents just down the road. Healthy, involved grandparents who drove the kids to activities, cheered them on at games and school events, and helped with homework and projects.
Now the boys only saw their grandparents during random FaceTime calls while Garrett traveled constantly for his new job as an undersecretary at the Department of Agriculture.
This week he was in Kansas ... or maybe Nebraska? And she was stuck here, a stranger in a strange land, a married single mom trying, and failing, to raise four boys by herself.
“Luke got in a fight the other day,” Matt said in a small voice, still facing the window. “At recess.”
Her stomach curdled in shock. “What?”
