“You called.” The way he said it sounded like there was no other option besides picking up. My heart had been hurting before he answered, but when I heard his voice so steady and sure, it made it melt a little.
“I miss home.”
I heard him roll over, and I couldn’t help but wonder if his hair was already ruffled by his pillow. “Home Texas or home Wisconsin?” That’s a fair question. I spent my whole life until college in Houston, but the last four years before leaving the States, I spent basically all my time in Wisconsin. Most of it with him.
I loved every second.
“Both. I guess that’s why my homesickness is so bad.” More sheets rustled and it made me wonder if he turned on a light?
“Did I ever tell you about my high school summer job?”
“No. I thought you worked on your family’s farm.”
I could hear the nod in his voice as he talked. “I did, but farm chores weren’t paid. It was just expected. If I wanted to have spending money, I had to work a job on top of that.”
“What did you do in a town that small?” I think about my hometown of Poblocki and its one stoplight. “Did you work at the Pig Wig?” Every time, I got a kick out of the nickname for the local grocery store.
“Nah, not there. For two years I was the mower at the town cemetery. I would go out on Saturday mornings and push the lawn mower around the headstones.”
“That’s so creepy.”
I could practically see the shrug he would give me if we were face to face. “It was honestly kind of peaceful. Almost never hotter than eighty degrees, and when I got thirsty, I drank out of the well.” He paused for effect. “Looking back on it, drinking water from a ground well, surrounded by dead people, maybe wasn’t my best idea. But hey, it didn’t kill me.” I laughed out loud. The kind that bubbled in your chest first before spilling from your lips. I hadn’t laughed like that since I left. “Maybe that cured all your ailments?”
I smile just to myself. “You know, I think it did. Tell me another?”
“Pa insisted Henry and I learn how to drive in that same cemetery. I asked him why and he told me that if we wrecked the car and died, at least they wouldn’t have to take us very far.”
“That does sound like Charlie,” I laughed.
“He’s not one to pull any punches.”
I glanced at the clock on my phone. It was about time to be getting up, which meant I’d kept Wyatt up long enough. “I should probably let you get back to sleep.”
“I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I had known you were homesick anyway.”
“Well, you fixed it for now. Thank you,” I whispered, because it felt like if I spoke too loud, it would disturb the peacefulness of the morning here and the middle of the night there.
“Anytime, Nash,” he replied, and we hung up, the kiss our unspoken vow that was never mentioned.
For the rest of that day, I carried the warmth of that conversation around in my chest. My memories of Wyatt and Wisconsin and college. It was exactly the kind of story he would tell me when we were driving out to visit his parents, or sharing a shake at Kopp’s.
The whistle blows and knocks me out of my reverie. Even though Coach spends the rest of practice running us into the ground, I can’t help the little smile I carry from remembering that call. It might have been the first time, but it certainly wasn’t the last time I called him at an ungodly hour, just needing to hear his familiar voice in that moment.
We return to the locker room hours later, decimated. I did not, in fact, keep up my conditioning during the off season. “I can’t believe we had to run that suicide four times,” I complain as I strip off my practice jersey.
“I know. Every single time it was someone different not making the cut,” replies Lauren, already dragging her street clothes out of her bag.
Danica pipes up, “It was me at least once, so I’m sorry for that.”
A chorus of ‘all good’s’ ring out.
We might be a new team made up of a mishmash of players from around the world, but we all speak one common language—volleyball.
We got our asses ran into the ground today, obviously, but I liked what I saw. Danica has an uncanny feeling for adapting when her set is too close to the net. She never panicked for one second. I’ve never seen a libero—a team’s best passer and scrappiest player—chase down a shanked pass she would physically not be able to get as hard as Simin did today. I look around me and all I see are possibilities and endless talent.
Almost instantly, the homesickness is gone—because I am finally home.
Chapter Six