I glanced at Coach Boynton, and I saw that underneath the humorous bravado, the showmanship, he was tense. Tense and tight. He wanted this for Tate. He wanted Tate to make it.
That’s the kind of coach he is, the kind of man he is.
“Tate, Tate, Tate!”
Tate opened his eyes and I wanted to cower into a corner and cover my head. He took a few steps back to power himself forward.
I could not stand this. I could not stand the self-recriminations he’d belt himself with later, the harsh judgment.
“Tate, Tate, Tate!”
Tate drew his arm all the way back, his muscles strong and tight.
Oh dear God. I put my hands over my eyes, then slit my fingers so I could peek.
His arm lashed through the air, quick, like a wink.
I felt my throat constrict, my heart palpitate....
That ball arched, arched, arched, spinning, spinning, spinning.. . .
I could not breathe.
Closer and closer and closer . . .
Oh please, oh please, oh please.
Whoosh.
A clean shot, all the way through, nothing but net.
Pandemonium.
Later that night I made a cup of lemon mango tea and puttered in my greenhouse.
I hung up another strand of white Christmas lights, threading them through the rafters, then checked my bulbs, picked off dead leaves . . . and thought about Tate.
After the ball slipped through the net, his teammates whooped into happy hysteria and tackled him to the floor, the kids on the edge of the court streaming toward him like stampeding buffalo. Coach Boynton leaped into the air, arms raised high in victory, and shouted, “I knew it! I knew he’d make it! I felt it in my bones!”
He pulled Tate out of the pile of kids and hugged him, hugged him off his feet.
Tate caught my eye, seeing me because I had thrown my hands up in the air and cheered a truly high-pitched screech of triumph.
We stared at each other, me hooting, he shocked to see me, more shocked to hear me hooting, and then a smile, this huge amazing smile spread across his handsome face, his teammates and the other kids jumping up and down and yelling.
“Tate, Tate, Tate!”
Tate, Tate, Tate.
They lifted him up on their shoulders and ran around the gym. I saw Coach Boynton discreetly wipe tears from his eyes.
Later they all went to pizza, pop, and ice cream. I was told that Mrs. Boynton joined them there, sort of a romantic date night, and they toasted Tate with root beer.
Overcome, I slipped into a wicker chair, held the cross, heart, and star charms in my hand, and cried. I cried like I hadn’t cried in years.
Cried and cried.
I remembered that Grandma Violet told Brooke, Caden, and me that Faith and Grace often cried, too, although they tried to do it privately without, as she said, “Too much self-pity. Everyone has their burdens to bear, but I’m told they understood the power of a strong cup of tea with a shot of whiskey, herbs, and a pretty parasol.”
Faith and Grace lived through that wretched journey across the Atlantic and when they arrived in South Carolina, filthy, bug infested, emaciated, nauseous, and exhausted to the bone, they were half-dead.
“They itched,” Grandma Violet told us one summer day as she kneaded a loaf of bread. “Their hair was matted to their heads with grease, grime, and probably vomit, their own and from others on the ship they tended to. Their long dresses had swept the decks of the ship and were caked with defecation, rancid water, rat droppings, body fluids, seawater, and rotted food. There was something wrong with their stomachs. They had another petticoats-on-fire sort of problem, indeed they did.
“Anyhow, Charleston was bustling. Men in top hats and suits and women in swishing hoop dresses and flowered hats, their hair in ringlets, stood right next to sailors and merchants, laborers, con men, pompous business owners and beggars. There were carriages and dogs, slaves with their masters, horses and livestock, and a cacophony of languages from the French, Scottish, Caribbean, Jewish, Bermudan, and German people who all lived there together.
“Faith and Grace were attacked by two men that first day off the dock who ran off with their raggedy bags and the velvet satchel, which held their witchly items and all their money.” Grandma Violet pounded the bread with her fist, as if even thinking about it made her mad.
“The women followed those scoundrels into an alley and fought both men with the knives their brothers had given them.” She dropped the dough in a pan with a heavy thud. “They were so weak but they were desperate for that satchel. The men tried to attack their womanhood and they ripped their dresses. Faith and Grace used our family’s most potent and fiery witch spells, stabbed them, twisted the knives, grabbed their tattered bags and satchel, and left them crumpled in the alley.”
We gasped, as Grandma Violet swished her hands together to get rid of excess flour. “They were no longer silly girls but strong women.” She locked her blue gaze onto my blue and green one, then to Brooke’s and Caden’s, for emphasis. “That’s what you’ll grow up and be, too, dears. Not women and men who fight in alleys, necessarily, but women and men who know their minds and can speak them clearly. Anyhow, Faith and Grace skittered on out of that sleazy alley, looking behind them to make sure no one saw, then found a boardinghouse to stay in and collapsed. They had survived a treacherous journey. They were ill and itchy, and they had lost everything: their families, their homes, their friends, their country. They cried, oh, how they cried.”
She shook her head, her own blue eyes filling, then told us the rest of the story.
When Faith and Grace finally ventured out, they found Charleston to be hot, humid, and chaotic. The slave trade disgusted and appalled them. When they saw how slaves were treated, they cried again.
“But they decided to turn their tears into action,” Grandma Violet said, her chin tipped proudly. “Those women loved fashion and they started a business called Faith and Grace’s where they sold dresses, petticoats, corsets, lacy undergarments, parasols, jewelry, handkerchiefs, pretty shoes, bonnets, fabrics for clothing or curtains and pillows . . . and naughty things.”
“What naughty things?” I asked.
“Precious, lacy, seductive naughty things that women wore at night. They rented a tiny corner shop with large windows. They lived above it in a teeny-tiny room with a window, one bed, a washbasin, a battered dresser, and a slanted roof.”
Grandma Violet put the bread under a red and white cloth, her hands gentle now. “They planted a tiny garden out back, all the flowers and herbs we have now, but they tried to hide the herbs a bit, no use getting anyone suspicious again of them being witches, the screaming mob who had wanted to flog them hadn’t left their minds. The point is, dears, they took adversity, they did cry, but then they put up a fight—not only for themselves, but for the slaves. I’ll tell you the story of the slaves another time. That’s a scary one.” She shook her finger at us. “But remember this: Tears and toughness go together.”
I smiled in memory of Grandma Violet, of the stories of Faith and Grace.
I thought of all the tears I’d shed in my years as a hospice nurse, and the tears I’d shed over my grandparents, Tate, Brooke, and my father as I stared through the windows of my greenhouse, through the inky night, at my home, the home that Faith and Jack built. The home Faith lived in and loved in and cried in.
I figured I should turn my tears into action, too.
Just like Faith and Grace.
TATE’S AWESOME PIGSKIN BLOG
I have been given permission to try out for the basketball team.
Boss Mom said yes.
I don’t know if I’ll make it, but man, I’m going to try.
See, I have a shunt in my head that goes from my brain to my heart that gets rid of excess fluids called cerebrospinal fluid. This is the stuff that acts like a liquid pillow in your skull. It swishes through the four ventricles, like the rooms, of your brain. You need this liquid stuff to nourish yourself and for the ol’ nervous system. It goes all over the brain and your special, slinky spinal cord, and then it heads for the hot red stuff, yes, my favorite, BLOOD! The shunt in my head, I know, I know, it’s seductive to you young ladies out there to know I have a shunt, but it regulates the fluids as they flow as smooth as syrup.
If something hits my head too hard, there is a sliver of a slim and narrow chance I will need another operation or pass out or do something weird like start waltzing around a gym with an invisible partner while yodeling or taking off my clothes and then the women would faint with ecstasy, seeing my nakedness and muscles and masculinity and all.
There’s also a teeny-weeny chance I could die.
I know this.
But I could also die because a helicopter goes down and lands on my ears, Bert and Ernie.
I could also die if we’re attacked by space aliens. Even my cyber-blasting, fire-shooting, alien destruction gun operated by Billy and Bob can’t cream all the aliens.
I could die if I swallowed an entire orange at one time and it stuck in my esophagus.
These things maybe could happen. It’s the same risk as playing ball. Sort of.
But I can’t say no to life because of the maybes.
I can’t say yes to fear.
I have ancestors named Faith and Grace. They were part of the Underground Railroad in South Carolina and they got caught hiding slaves underneath their house. Now, that’s scary. But they didn’t say yes to fear even though they knew all along they could have been jailed, hung, or shot for hiding slaves.
I’m seventeen years old. Saying yes to fear is not really in my vocabulary.
People say this is the best time of your life. I hope not. I hope it isn’t. Because a lot of being a teenager is hard. It’s awkward, it’s lonely, you feel alone, no one wants you around, and you’re close to having all your friends reject you. You’ll never have a girlfriend. You’re different.
Try doing all that with a head named General Noggin.
I’ll always be different.
But what I want, this one time in my life, is to be a part of a team and not so different.
I want to be part of a whole group of guys playing ball. I want to be as normal as I can be. For once.
I wanted to play basketball.
Boss Mom said no.
Then she said yes.
Now I’m in tryouts.
I hope I make the team.
Here’s a photo of Faith and Grace, Underground Railroad conductors and women who said no to fear. Faith had blue eyes, Grace had green eyes, and my mom got one of each. That is so radical.
Here’s the question for today: What are you afraid of? Why?
The night before, a kid sitting in the bleachers when Tate made his long shot for pizza downloaded it to YouTube. He included Tate’s blog address. The video showed Tate pretending to think about the deal, asking for ice cream and pop, all the kids laughing, Tate’s concentration, the ball careening up, up, up through the air and swishing through the hoop. It showed all the kids leaping up and down in excitement, and Coach Boynton grabbing Tate and hugging him off his feet.
Friends sent it to friends who sent it to friends.
“Mom, look at this.” Tate pointed to the stats on his blog, awed. “Man. Unbelievable. I could almost call myself a real blogger.”
5,200 hits.
And hundreds of responses from people about what they were afraid of, as Tate had asked. Their responses ran from cryptic and funny, to tragic and rawly honest, the words almost burning up the screen with their searing pain.
“I guess people are reading my blog.” He was absolutely thrilled, almost giddy.
“Yes, son, I believe that you’re right.” I put an arm around his shoulders.
“I think I’m getting to know some people finally, without General Noggin in the way.” He patted his head. “No offense, General Noggin. You’re cool.”
“You are definitely getting to know people, and they’re being honest in what they write.”