Read Online Gracie by Suzanne Weyn - Free Book Online

wanted everything his way. Well, not this time. “No!” I shouted back at him. “I’m not good enough!”
    â€œDo you think anyone gets good on their own?” he asked, coming toward me. So he had noticed that I was training myself. I hadn’t realized he paid even that much attention to what I did. “I coached Johnny,” he said.
    â€œJohnny was a natural, ” I said bitterly, repeating what I’d heard him say a thousand times.
    â€œJohnny was a boy,” he said.

    I didn’t want to hear any more about how Johnny was a boy and I wasn’t. There was nothing more to say about it. I was right near the girls’ room, the one place Dad couldn’t follow me, so I bolted inside.
    Standing by the door, breathing hard from emotion, I listened while Dad kept talking to me from the other side. “I didn’t have anyone who cared,” he said. “No one took the damn time. Maybe I wouldn’t have screwed up my knee. Maybe I could’ve gone on with my game.”
    Tears came to my eyes. He’d never talked to me like this, never shared much of anything about his past. It had hurt me that he thought I was so unimportant. Now he was trying, though. He was trying.
    â€œGracie, I honestly don’t know if you’re good enough,” he continued. “Let me help you.”
    Tears rolled down my cheeks. He stopped talking and waited. All I had wanted was a chance. I supposed he was only asking for a chance, too.
    But was it too late for both of us?
    Maybe so. It felt too late.
    Footsteps in the hallway told me he had given up waiting for me to come out. I heard the sound of the exit door as he pushed it open.
    Could I move from my spot? I didn’t know.
    And then I was out the door and running after him. I caught up on the cement path as he headed for his car. We walked the rest of the way side by side, not talking. I had to go to school, but I went as far as the car.
    If he was willing to take a chance on me, I’d give him the chance to do it.

Eleven
    Dad and I started training hard. He got me up early and we worked until after dark.
    Dad was tough, but guess what? I was tougher. I was just a hair better, but there were times I left him panting, struggling to keep up with me. This shocked me and I think, from the look on his face, it took him by surprise, too.
    In a way, our daily training sessions became a battle of wills. Neither one of us wanted to admit that the training was torture. We both acted like it was a piece of cake; though I don’t know what kind of cake leaves you struggling to breathe and feeling like you might vomit at any moment.
    Mom, Mike, and Daniel thought we had lost our minds. “Delusional” is what Mike called us. It occurred to me that he might be right.

    One night, I heard Mom and Dad arguing. Since Johnny died, they fought more than they ever had before. It was almost as if they blamed each other for his death, though I don’t see how either of them could possibly have been to blame for such a stupid, tragic accident. My guess was that they felt that they had to blame someone. I knew
because I’d felt the same way. My parents just turned that need to blame against each other.
    This conversation, though, was different. It was quiet and intense, as though the subject was so serious they couldn’t risk any of us kids hearing. I was in the dining room, though, and I could hear them talking in the kitchen. Mom asked Dad why his paychecks weren’t showing up in their bank account.
    â€œI quit my job,” he told her.
    At first Mom didn’t say anything. She must have been as stunned as I was. Quit his job?
    â€œWhen?” she asked him after a moment.
    Dad didn’t answer.
    â€œWithout discussing it?” Mom asked indignantly.
    â€œI couldn’t tell you,” Dad replied. I wondered if Dad felt the same way I did, if Johnny’s death had made him simply stop caring. Just