Chapter 15 #2
After warming up, Coach and Yoko ate a banana each on the sidelines and talked about the Spanish woman’s strengths and weaknesses.
Coach reminded Yoko of the various ways the Spanish woman had tried to “get her” last time, and Yoko nodded, chewed her banana, and tried to “get in the zone” mentally.
But as she finished her banana and tossed her peel, she locked eyes with a woman across the road, her blond braid swinging.
It was Emilia, here to watch the championship's final match. Emilia locked eyes with Yoko. With that, everything Emilia had told Yoko in the hotel room after Wimbledon fell back on her head. Yoko couldn’t breathe for a moment. She’d spent months trying to forget.
Yoko started the match strong. She whipped the ball back hard and with plenty of topspin, which sent the Spanish woman hurtling back, trying and often failing to return it. Unsurprisingly, most onlookers saw Yoko win the first set 6-1, giving the Spanish woman only a single game.
It wasn’t till midway through the second set that everything changed.
The Spanish woman sent a loose and easy second serve over the net.
Yoko loped over to it, her mind sort of elsewhere.
She knew she could hit a ball like this in her sleep.
But as she attacked it, something in her front leg cracked, and she fell forward and then to the side.
She sprawled on the court, her legs and arms akimbo. Pain ricocheted up her leg.
The crowd cried out, then fell silent, which was all Yoko needed to hear. It was serious. It was more than she could comprehend.
In Japanese, as softly as she could, she said, “Please, no.” But when she forced herself to look at her leg, she saw that her foot was crooked, and part of her lower leg was twisted the wrong direction.
She scrunched her face and tried to prop herself up.
The last thing she wanted was to be carried off the court.
Unfortunately, that was precisely what happened, with Coach coming forward and ordering her to stay still.
The medical team arrived shortly thereafter and put her on a stretcher.
Within hours, she was on an operating table, at the mercy of a team of doctors who pledged to “save her game.”
The Spanish woman won by default.
When Yoko woke up after the surgery, she found Kendall in a heap by her bed. His face was etched with pain, and he looked underfed. He kissed her hand and said, “I was so worried.”
Yoko exploded with love for him. Against her better judgment, she burst into tears. “It’s over, isn’t it?” she asked.
“No! No,” Kendall assured her. “Nobody’s saying it’s over.”
But Yoko could feel that it was over in her bones.
This was confirmed six months later, when she was cleared to run again.
The game wasn’t hers any longer. She didn’t feel it in her swing.
She didn’t feel it in her reflexes, and she didn’t feel it when the ball hit the racket.
Coach was already training three younger recruits at a gym near Boston and spending half the time in the city, half on the island. It was clear he was done with her.
Around this time, Kendall convinced Yoko to move into the main house with him and his mother, abandoning the pool house and her home of the past five years.
With the internet becoming more and more of a game changer, he wasn’t needed often in Manhattan.
Kathy was lonely without Coach around and doted on Yoko and Kendall, baking for them and making elaborate meals.
Yoko sensed how sorry Kathy was for Yoko’s failed career.
Yoko often hated looking at the trophies, as they reminded her of better times in her life, when she’d felt so sure of herself and her purpose.
Now, she watched television with Kathy and waited for Kendall to finish work for the day so they could walk along the beach, go sailing, or drink wine on the veranda.
It was when Yoko discovered she was pregnant that she wrote Akira the first letter. Sick with morning nausea, she sat in the library of the mansion and watched herself make Japanese characters for the first time in what felt like years.
Akira,
I have thought of you endlessly over the years.
I felt that if I worked hard at forgetting you, I could.
Hard work has always seemed second-nature to me.
Hard work has always led to someplace else.
But despite all the work I put into forgetting you, you’ve felt closer and closer over the years.
It’s like you’re right here, sometimes, living in my thoughts, watching my life through my own eyes.
I’ve looked up your career a few times over the years. I’ve watched a few documentaries and noted how you’ve grown and changed as an artist. I’m so impressed by you and your creative spirit. I miss you in my life.
I have just learned I’m pregnant with an American baby. I have not yet shared this news with my boyfriend. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m worried he doesn’t want it. But we’ve been together for nearly five years. I think he loves me. I have to believe that.
I hope you are well and happy wherever you are. Give my best to Himari. Tell her the better woman won.
See? I always make everything into a competition.
Love Always, Yoko
But after Yoko finished the letter, she folded it up and tucked it into a notebook.
She would not be sending such a revealing and open-hearted letter, not to Akira and not to anyone else.
Nobody around here could speak Japanese, so nobody would ever read it and know what she said. One day, maybe, she would burn it.
After a few staggered breaths, she stood and went to find Kendall. It was time to let him know she was pregnant. It was time to step into the next era of her life: motherhood.