Chapter Twenty
Rhys
I blow my whistle loudly and the shrill, piercing sound announces the end of play.
“Alright, half time,” I call. “Good job everyone.”
Excited squeals meet my declaration, followed by dozens of tiny feet pounding the grass as a horde of little girls descends on me.
“Did we play well?” seven-year-old Lila asks me.
Considering she shoulder checked a five-year-old on the opposing team and sent her off the pitch and out of the match crying, the question is hard to answer.
Is she effective? Yes.
Would her approach land her a red card and multi-game ejection in a non-children’s league?
Also yes.
“You played phenomenally well.”
I’m met with a chorus of excited cheers from the group of girls now standing before me and staring eagerly up at me. The vast majority of them don’t even reach my navel so their chaotic display of enthusiasm is reminiscent of a dozen Minions jumping up and down in celebration. Girl chat is as equally indecipherable to me as the Minion language, so the comparison tracks in more ways than one.
We’re down two-nil so my dubbing their performance as “phenomenal” is also debatable, however half of the team’s roster is made up of younger girls who don’t even understand the concept of scoring, so I have to manage my own expectations.
One of the older girls who does understand scoring, and doesn’t enjoy the feeling of losing any more than I do, is marching towards me with a stormy expression on her face.
“Don’t lie to them, Daddy. We’re playing terribly.”
Hayes stalks past me and plops down into one of the chairs on the sideline, a pronounced pout making a home for itself on her lips.
“Go get some snacks,” I say to the girls who are still waiting expectantly for me to give them their next directive. They start to disperse when I call, “And Angie! Next time number eight yanks your braid on the pitch, you kick her in the shin. Heel to your bum first and then you release your foot right into her tibia. Got it?”
“Yes, Coach,” she throws excitedly over her shoulder, running towards where her mother waits for her with orange slices.
I turn towards Hayes, offering words of encouragement. “There’s still a half to go.”
“Another embarrassing half if we keep playing the way we have been.”
The girls play in a very informal seven-and-under mixed age league that holds games every Sunday in our neighborhood park. It’s meant to be a non-serious, fun way to get kids off their screens and outside more, so I both coach one of the teams and officiate most of the games.
No parents have complained about the obvious conflict of interest in my double role yet, and I think that’s probably because they come to the park to drink seltzers and hang out with their other parent friends as much as they do to watch the actual games.
To be fair, there’s very little “game” involved — most of my time is spent gesticulating on the sidelines as I try to convince the preschool-aged girls to run. If by some miracle I manage to do that, then the next step is to eventually get them to run in the right direction for the entirety of the match.
This is about as far from the Champions League as you can imagine, but it’s my favorite way to spend my Sundays, especially because it’s time I have with my girls.
But none of that matters to my Hayes. She’s the best — or some, like Rogue, would argue the worst — of her mother and I combined. Competitive to a fault with a touch of sore loser sprinkled on top.
It’s not out of a love for football specifically. Everything she undertakes, whether it’s a throwaway game in a kid’s league, her math homework, or trying to read books beyond her level, she does with a stubborn determination and a hatred of failure.
She’s studious and focused and I think when she grows older, instead of grounding her for catching her sneaking out at night, her mum and I will have to beg her to close her books and go to a party instead.
“We can come back from being down two-nil, Cloud.”
Her features soften at the nickname. Hayes has beautiful, broody gray eyes, like a troubled sky after an afternoon of heavy rain, hence the moniker.
“Not if we score on ourselves again.”
I sigh internally.
Yes, that really did happen.
Unfortunately, but quite hysterically, we’re averaging about one goal scored on our own goalie per every three games we play, no matter how much I scream and wave my arms at them from the sidelines to turn around and go the other way. That can be frustrating for the older girls, but Hayes is always careful not to call out specific players.
Whichever little girl is the goal scorer is always thrilled at having put one in the net and comes running towards me for a high five, one I’m only too happy to give out because their little faces are so excited.
The own goals happen often enough that the Daily Mail even ran a piece about it with a front-page cover. Slow news day or not, coaching this little league may be severely hampering my chances of ever getting a legitimate professional coaching job once I retire as a player.
“Comeback victories taste the sweetest, little cloud. Believe me. We have something to play for and they don’t,” I tell her, coaching her like I would if this was a World Cup Final. “Now where’s your sister?”
I turn and scan the pitch only to find my youngest crouching in the low grass, still in the middle of the pitch and seemingly unaware that halftime has started, her tiny hands plucking flowers out of the ground.
As much as Hayes’s dismay is unsurprising, so is Ivy’s disinterest. She’s far more interested in examining the flora on the pitch than she is in touching the ball, for example. The number of times I’ve seen it fly past her while she picked a dandelion or a daisy has done numbers on my blood pressure.
“Bow!” Ivy turns and gives me a brilliant, semi-toothless smile. “Come eat something.”
“Okay, Daddy!” she calls, and then she’s running towards me with all the uncoordinated excellence of a five-year-old.
I scoop her and the flowers she still holds clutched firmly in her fist into my arms and kiss her cheek. “Find anything good?”
“Look at this one,” she says, showing me a purple flower as I settle her into a second foldable chair next to her sister.
“Very pretty,” I say. “Not as pretty as you though.”
She giggles, staring wide eyed at the petals. “Can I have hair this color?”
“Of course you can. Whatever color you want, Bow.”
Since she’s been old enough to start showing signs of her own personality, Ivy’s had a fixation with bright colors. She shuns anything gray or black when it comes to clothing, she picked fuchsia as the wall color for her bedroom, and the drawings that come home with her from school use every single marker in the box and then some, earning her the nickname ‘Rainbow’.
Over the years, ‘Rainbow’ became the diminutive ‘Bow’, and ‘Raincloud’ became ‘Cloud’.
“Isn’t she a little young to be dyeing her hair?” someone inquires.
I turn towards the snooty voice of the stranger and find a woman with thin lips and even thinner mental abilities, if the obvious judgment in her tone is anything to go by.
Straightening to my full height, I glare at her.
“Jog on, lady. No one asked you,” I bark crisply.
“She can do whatever she wants,” Hayes adds, ever her baby sister’s defender.
The woman pales, not at my daughter’s words but at recognizing who I am.
“I’m s-sorry,” she mutters before slithering away.
“I can’t change my hair?” Ivy asks with a devastating lip tremble that makes me want to go after the woman and force her to apologize.
“Of course you can, bow.” Crouching, I cup her chubby cheeks and rub my nose against hers, making her giggle. “You’re your mother’s daughter. You were born to have different colored hair,” I add, running my fingers through her messy blonde locks.
“What are we talking about?”
This voice, I welcome with a huge fucking grin. Standing and spinning around, I find my wife looking up at me with a smile tugging at her lips.
I’m reaching for and kissing her in the same breath, indifferent to the dozens of watching eyes I know are on us. A picture of this moment will be in the papers tomorrow, but I don’t care. In fact, I welcome the press acting as my own personal megaphone to broadcast to the nation just how obsessed I am with my wife.
“Hi, Silver,” I say huskily, pulling away but keeping her close to hide my now obvious erection, a terrible thing to be sporting at this particular event.
“Hi, Mackley,” she answers, equally breathless.
I hear the girls call for her from behind me, but I ignore them. A displeased rumble sounds in my chest instead.
“You know how I feel about you calling me that,” I warn.
She laughs, the sound as clear as a bell.
“Even now?”
“Even now,” I confirm. “The only time you should say our name is when you’re introducing yourself or the girls. But I don’t want you calling me that.”
It reminds me of a time when Thayer would refuse to say my name, all in an effort to keep her emotional distance from me.
No such distance is allowed now or ever again.
She strokes the hair away from my face, her eyes softening as she touches me. “Yes, Rhys.”
“Better.” I smack a kiss on her lips. “How was Pilates?’
“Exhausting and fun. How’s the game?”
“We’re down two-nil.”
“Ouch. Hayes must be thrilled.”
“Ding ding ding.”
“And Ivy?”
“Well she hasn’t touched the ball once, but she’s picked quite the special bouquet of flowers.”
Thayer laughs again. The sound slides beneath my skin and goes straight to the organ in my chest. She tilts her head and looks past my arm and over to our daughters.
“Hey, girls,” she calls warmly.
“Mummy!” Hayes gets up and grabs her hand, pulling her over to her chair. “We’re down two.”
“I heard, baby.”
“What if we lose?” she asks anxiously.
“What if you win?” Thayer challenges. “Think of what’s possible and try to reach for that. Plus, those are the best victories because you really earn them,” she adds, unknowingly echoing my words.
God, I fucking love her.
“Okay,” Hayes says, fresh determination etching itself on her face. “I just need to get better at dribbling, I think.”
“Your Mum can teach you, Cloud. She’s always had superior ball handling skills, even to this day.”
“Rhys,” Thayer cuts in, her eyes narrowing on me even as she fails to hide the mirth in them.
“What?” I ask innocently.
“Don’t be cheeky.” She turns towards our other daughter. “What about you Ivy Bell? Are you trying to win?”
“Whatever Hazy wants,” she answers, using her nickname for her sister. She thrusts her small flowers into her mum’s face. “Daddy said I could change my hair color like this.”
Thayer sits on the ground in between her daughters, her back to me. Her silver hair is tied in a ponytail, so I can clearly see that she’s wearing yet another t-shirt with our last name printed on it.
“That’s a great idea,” she answers, immediately on board. “We can get some dye from Boots on the way home. Which color are you thinking?”
As half-time draws to an end, the three of them whisper and plot what color they’ll dye Ivy’s hair when the match is over.
“Alright, girls,” I boom, drawing all the players’ attention back over to me. “Second half starts in two minutes.” The girls leave their parents and start running past me and onto the field as I shout directions. “Carla, I want your eyes glued to the pitch. No watching for planes in the sky, I promise you they’ll still be up there when we’re done. Ivy, no stopping to pick flowers unless play itself is stopped. Your goal is to touch the ball at least once this half. Bruna, I understand the impulse, I really do, but you can’t just pick up the ball and run with it towards the goal, you have to use your feet. Lucie. Lucie ! No eating on the pitch, for fuc— I mean, go throw those fruit snacks onto the sidelines, please. And Angie, remember what I said — we’re kicking shins this half. I want to see explosiveness with those kicks, alright? Now let’s go and win this match, girls!”
Fifteen minutes later, the second half is over and the match ends in a draw, which I consider a win. Hayes comes up big, as does a girl on the other team, both of them scoring a goal in our favor.
Thayer is the loudest supporter on our side, cheering and screaming from the sidelines and running onto the pitch to hug Hayes when she scores. I’m only too happy to have to go tell my wife to get back on the sidelines so play can continue.
***
That night, we put both of the girls to bed in Hayes’s room, Ivy opting to sleep with her big sister as she so often does. Her freshly dyed lavender-colored locks shine against the white of the pillowcase beneath her head as I sit on the bed and tuck them in.
“Great job today, girls.”
“Soccer is fun!” Ivy calls, pumping up a fist.
Thayer smothers a laugh when I glare at her.
“ Football , love. Don’t let your mother Americanize you on this subject. Your Daddy plays for the national team, you have to call it football.”
“Alright, Daddy. Can we come see you at a game soon?” Hayes asks.
“Of course, little cloud. Whenever you want. How about tomorrow?”
“It’s a school night, Rhys,” Thayer chides.
“Please, Mummy?” Hayes asks, widening those depthless eyes of hers. Thayer is as powerless to resist as I am.
She mollifies, whispering, “Just this once then.”
“Yay!”
“Alright, girls. Time for bed.” I lean over and kiss both their foreheads. “What are our mantras?”
“I am brave,” the girls answer in unison. “I am smart.”
“I am special,” Hayes says.
Thayer and I speak the words along with them, the same words we say every night before turning off the lights and leaving them to their dreams. We’re raising our girls to be confident in knowing how special they are so that no one ever makes them feel less than.
“I am kind,” Ivy adds.
“I am beautiful,” they say together. “I am compassionate.” The word gets garbled by Ivy’s missing baby teeth. “I am…”
They falter, both of them momentarily forgetting the next part as their eyes flutter shut, heavy with sleep.
“I am fearless,” Thayer and I fill in for them.
“I am fearless,” they repeat.
“And?” I prompt.
Thayer rolls her eyes.
“And no boy will ever deserve the air I breathe or the ground I walk on,” they parrot back to me.
“Keep going,” I say with an encouraging move of my hand.
“And if ever one of them is mean to me or tries something on with me, my Daddy will kill them and bury them in an unsparked grave,” they crow back happily as I mouth the words alongside them.
“ Unmarked grave,” I correct, adding with a proud smile to my wife, “That’s my girls.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
She shakes her head but her words carry no heat.
“Goodnight, darlings,” she says, bending to kiss each of their cheeks.
“Night, Mummy.”
I give Ivy an Eskimo kiss. “Goodnight, little bow.”
She giggles. “Night, Daddy.”
Leaning over her, I give Hayes a butterfly kiss. “Goodnight, little cloud.”
She cups my face and kisses my cheek. “ Bonne nuit, Daddy.” She’s been learning French at daycare to surprise her aunt Six and likes to practice when she can.
“Love you,” I call, as I put an arm around Thayer’s shoulders and turn the light off with my other hand.
“Love you, Daddy,” they answer together. It’s immediately followed by the sound of them burrowing deeper into their beds.
Thayer and I leave their room, closing the door softly behind us.
“Those two are Daddy’s little girls through and through,” she says, hooking her arms around my neck.
I hoist her into mine, wrapping her legs around my waist. “Definitely. But why don’t I remind you who my favorite girl is?”
She laughs as I carry her into our bedroom and kick the door closed behind us.
***