Page 14 of Gave Proof Through the Night

“What was that?” Marisela says.

“Nothing. A fish.”

“A fish?”

“It’s a long story.”

“With you it’s always a long story, mijo, I don’t know where you get this from.” A beat. “Probably your father.”

Probably.

I pick up the fish and look it dead in its enormous plastic eyes. It looks back at me with a blank expression. I set it down on the table very gently, and that’s when I notice the card propped against the gift basket.

Heavy stock. The Irvine team logo embossed across the top. Inside, handwriting that slants hard to the right, all caps:

Welcome to the aquarium. Orange power!—M. Laakso

Just a few days ago I was standing on a boat out of Newport Harbor watching a pod of dolphins surf the wake while a producer told me to look “more amazed, Jeremiah, like you’ve never seen the ocean before.”

I was born in Miami. I have seen the ocean.

The day after that, I spent six hours at Disneyland with some of the other newly announced players. We took photos in front of the castle, on the carousel, and rode in a parade float. Then I ate a turkey leg the size of my forearm per the recommendation of our plaid-wearing escort.

I have never had a stranger week in my professional life. It was awesome. Or, as I told my father later that day, “Muy padre.”

But here’s the part I haven’t said out loud to anyone, not even my agent…

When I was eight, my father took me to see a movie about an underdog hockey team coached by a guy who’d already given up on life. There was a kid on that team, smallest guy on the bench, wearing eleven because it was the only number left in his size. By the end of the movie, he’s the one who scored the winning goal. I rewound that scene so many times the tape wore thin in that exact spot. I told my father I wanted to be that kid.

My father, who does not have a sentimental bone anywhere in his body, said, “Then be better than him.” End of conversation.

When I played for Corpus Christi, I wore 29. A nod to the biblical book with my name. It’s a good chapter. It’s a good number.

But then a bunch of guys out of Toronto decide to create a team inspired by that classic movie… and recruited me to play for them. Me! So when they asked if I had a jersey number preference, I said I wanted eleven, and didn’t explain why. They didn’t ask why. Maybe they already knew. That underdog kid from the movie.

“Mijo. Mijo, are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“I was saying, the studio thinks the new pilot could be very Dynasty. Very glamorous. They’re not sure yet if I’m a lead or a diversity hire, but I told them, I said, my son just won an Olympic gold medal and now he’s going to be five minutes from my door, can you imagine the story there, the press would eat it up…”

She rattles on about posing together for a big social media push, scripted reels, some kind of reality TV nightmare.

She has said more words to me in the last four minutes than in the previous twenty-six years combined.

I let her talk.

“I just think it’s a beautiful coincidence that it’s also an incredible photo opportunity, no?” She goes on. “Reunited with my baby boy. I already wrote the caption.”

“I can get you tickets,” I say finally. “If you want to come to a game.”

“Oh.” She pauses. “Well, of course, I would love that, it’s just my schedule right now is so, you know how it is, with the pilot. I’d have to check…”

There it is.

I knew exactly how she’d react to game tickets. I offered anyway.

She’d been baffled by hockey from the start. Not annoyed. Baffled, the way you’d be baffled if your kid came home and announced he wanted to wear nothing but togas to school. Hockey was a sport for “los güeros,” not Mexicans.