Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
NAOMI
Montreal, Canada – August
Canadian Open
“You wanna pair up in New York?” Lois asked as she sat next to me and held out an apple. I accepted it and took too big a bite, so it was a moment before I answered her.
“You wanna double up? Aren’t you defending?”
Lois nodded. “You know how I always get contemplative around this point of the season?”
It was my turn to nod, accepting that she wasn’t going to answer my question directly.
“So I’ve been thinking, and it dawned on me as I was landing in Montreal that the only reason you’d come back is for something big.
You were done. You were home, you got a dog, you had a great job.
Was it the way you wanted it to end? No.
But you’ve won pretty much everything. More than once, so there were worse ways to leave a career behind.
Except something was missing. Which means you have an end date, and if you retire without us sharing the court at least once, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. ”
I looked around the players lounge to see if there was anyone close to us, even though Lois wasn’t talking particularly loudly. It wasn’t necessarily a secret that I was retiring, but I also hadn’t made any kind of announcement and had no intention of doing so. There was no one close.
“You’re right. If everything goes the way I want it to, then by this time next year, I will be retired on my own terms. So yeah, if you wanna play in New York, I’m down.”
Lois smiled broadly. “Amazing, I’ll enter us once Alisha soft-launches the idea.
Let me—” Her eyes turned to where my phone was propped up on my water bottle, playing Sam’s match in Vancouver.
Seeing as I’d lost the semi-final in Washington, I’d flown to Montreal while the finals were taking place, which meant I hadn’t seen him since our weird exchange on the treadmills.
“He looks rough,” Lois said, and I returned my focus to the match.
She wasn’t wrong. Sam looked both too pale and too red. His T-shirt was soaked through and sticking to him.
A message flicked down onto my screen. Without speaking, Lois pulled her phone out and found the match, leaving me to pick up mine and open my messages.
Wyatt:
You watching Sam?
Lois settled her phone on my bottle, and the camera was focusing on Sam at the changeover. He was breathing shallowly and had ice towels wrapped around his neck and draped over his legs.
Yeah. He doesn’t look great
Wyatt:
He looks like he can’t breathe
Why hasn’t he called the trainer on?
Wyatt:
I think we’re past the point of a trainer being able to help him. He needs to get off the court
The umpire called time, and Sam took a shallow attempt at a deep breath, handed his ice towels over, and returned to the court.
As he accepted three balls onto his racquet, he pried his T-shirt off his stomach only for it to immediately contour to him again.
“Looking good. Hit your marks and make him run.” The mic picked up Albie’s words, and Lois snorted.
“What does he mean, ‘looking good’? He looks like he could get knocked down by a feather,” she said. I was inclined to agree.
Wyatt:
He can’t be serious.
At what point would the umpire intervene?
Wyatt:
Fuck the umpire, why is his dad not taking one look at the state of his son and saying stop?
That was the million-dollar question. Even in the worst moments of our professional relationship, there was never any doubt in my mind that Mum would put my wellbeing first.
Sam’s service game was weak. He couldn’t make his opponent run because he could barely move. At the end of every point, Albie’s voice came across the mic with encouragement. It almost made me feel sick. But he kept on playing.
“Why isn’t he calling this?” Lois asked quietly.
“The same reason we wouldn’t have when we were with our mums.”
We wouldn’t want to let them down.
Lois huffed. “They wouldn’t have let this go on for so long.”
We watched Sam muddle through the next two games, neither of which he won, and sit back down.
The ice towels were around him before he’d even settled in the chair. He left them draped over his shoulders and thighs as he leaned forward and rummaged in his bag.
I’d noticed over the last few weeks that Sam always put his phone at the top of his kit bag, which meant, in theory, it would be in his eyeline right now.
I took a chance and sent him a single text.