Page 7 of The Heiress
I was ready to wave or offer some acknowledgement, but Elisha’s eyes were peeled to the ground. Taylor and I might have been invisible for all we knew.
“Weird,” Taylor muttered, surprised that Elisha had chosen to outright ignore us.
I blinked in surprise too, the two of us looking at each other dumbfounded. Elisha was quiet in class, so I assumed she was shy, but to shun us seemed harsh.
We discussed Taylor’s times as we walked to the parking lot and decided we’d do sprints every other day. Or rather, she’d do the sprints and I’d supervise.
Mom emerged from the car as she saw us approaching. “I was getting worried,” she said.
“Sorry, Mrs. Carter,” Taylor jumped in. “It was my fault. I wanted to do some extra drills.”
Mom smiled at Taylor. “How’s the tennis training?” She unloaded my video gear and put the bags in the car.
“Really good,” Taylor said enthusiastically.
“You’re welcome to come and play at the house any time,” Mom said.
“Thank you,” Taylor said. “See you tomorrow?”
“Sure,” I said, folding down the walking frame. “See ya.”
Mom waited until Taylor had started her car before turning on the engine. And then she waited another minute before saying, “You haven’t overdone it, have you?”
“No. I’m fine.” Curt and clipped.
“I worry,” Mom said, her voice small.
I sniffed, but didn’t reply. And I hated myself for it. The cold shoulder, the silent treatment. Illogical and immature, but until my life could be normal again, I wanted Mom to suffer with me.
“You should invite Max and Taylor around this weekend,” Mom said.
“She’s got tennis,” I said bluntly, too bluntly, because Mom was quiet the rest of the way home. And regret engulfed me. I didn’t want to be mean to Mom, didn’t want to put the burden of guilt on her, but it was hard to be forgiving. Hard to move on and be accepting of my injury.
Because deep down, I couldn’t get past how thiswas not my fault,that it was my mother’s negligence that had ruined my life. Not ruined it, smashed it to pieces. One moment of distraction, one stupid call, eyes on her phone screen and not on the road.
Okay, it would have been easier to excuse a random act, like a bird flying into the windscreen or a tire blowout or slippery or icy roads. But your own parent making a phone call, non-urgent at that, it ate at me, it gnawed at me. And for all my intentions of getting over it, I was only human.
And that was why I trained religiously. Gym every morning, physical therapy exercises twice or thrice a day, and now able to hit a tennis ball.It was in hope that one day I wouldn’t blame her,that I could well and truly forgive her.
Because I really didn’t want to punish Mom—she was already punishing herself.
––––––––
Iwas itching to hitsome balls against someone, not just the backboard behind our tennis court, so I called Max to see if he could come over.
Max must have felt sorry for me. He was scheduled to do some yard work for one of his clients—Max’s parents ran their own landscaping and maintenance company and Max mowed lawns and trimmed hedges, mainly for old people. But he said he could come for twenty minutes, before doing Mr. Campbell’s lawns.
It was better than nothing, and probably twenty minutes was as much as my body could handle. Yesterday, I’d used crutches or sometimes nothing, and I paid for it.
Max arrived with Taylor. Seemed they’d been hanging out, making me feel guilty that I’d interrupted their time together. Max brushed it off by saying he’d been about to take Taylor home anyway, and Taylor had jumped at the chance to hit with me again. She still couldn’t contain her excitement over the fact that we had a private court.
We hit in various combinations before Max had to leave. He said he’d come back later, but Taylor said she’d get her Dad to pick her up. That was why I needed to get my car back, I was such an inconvenience to everybody.
With the ball cart nearby, Taylor and I hit ball after ball, practicing forehands, backhands and volleys. The hardest thing for me was trying to serve because I was too afraid to put any weight into my legs. Previously when serving, I would get air bound, driving up with my legs to generate power and velocity through my torso, but now the best I could do was rely on shoulder elevation to get the ball over the net. My serve had been a dominant part of my game, but now it was embarrassing to be hitting it over at a pedestrian pace.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Taylor as she pummeled my weak attempt for another cross-court winner.
“You know, until you can start to...uh... propel your body, you should concentrate on a kick serve,” she said. “Get some spin on it.”
