Chapter 5 #3
“Look at this. She already has pumpkins out at her house. She put a bottle of pumpkin ale next to this one and it’s throwing up its insides.”
“Where did she even find that many pumpkins in Florida right now?” Leo says. He’s happy to be home, looking at a silly picture on his mom’s phone and, as he enters the kitchen, his mood lifts even more as sees the spread of takeout tacos on the large marble-top island.
“Oh, also, did I tell you who’s in a coma?” Sheryl says, following behind him.
“Jesus, Mom, I got here like thirty seconds ago.”
“Amber, from your high school. You remember Amber.”
Leo does not. He only went to that high school for a semester before his parents decided to have him learn at home and on the road as he started to travel more frequently for junior tournaments across the country.
“A boating accident, if you can believe it.”
“Oh my God,” Leo says, spooning some pico de gallo onto the taco he’s been building. He desperately wants to change the subject. “Where’s Dad?”
“Probably on the phone with Brian, at least he was when I got home from work. You guys head to Astana next, right?”
“Yeah, in a few days. Then it’s Stockholm and Vienna before the Paris Masters. You’re coming to that one again, yeah?”
“Me? Miss a Paris tournament? Please, Leonardo,” she says, wiping some guacamole from the corner of her mouth.
Leo glances at the fridge and sees that there’s still a fingerpainting of a beach with a rainbow over it displayed from kindergarten.
In clumsy handwriting, the corner of the crinkled paper reads: Leo, age four.
That’s why his mom started calling him Leonardo.
When he was little, before he started playing tennis, he was always drawing.
He would spread his art supplies out on the coffee table and draw pictures for hours.
And then he would come home from preschool and kindergarten with even more drawings.
His mom would put as many as she could on the fridge, but honestly, she could’ve wallpapered the whole house with them.
Leo glances back at his mom, who’s noticed him admiring the fingerpainting.
“You were my little da Vinci back then,” she says, staring at him lovingly. “I always have to keep one of your paintings up there.”
“Maybe I could’ve been a famous artist instead of a tennis player,” Leo says.
“I didn’t say the paintings were good,” Sheryl jokes. “You drew some of the worst dinosaurs I’ve ever seen, to be honest.”
“Wow,” Leo says, cracking up, as his dad, finally off the phone with Brian, comes into the kitchen and puts his hand on Leo’s shoulder.
“The dinosaurs?” he asks Sheryl, who nods, fake-grimacing. “The brontosauruses. Oof. They were sad.”
“Okay, I was gonna go easy on you both in Rack-O for once, but now?” Leo shakes his head as he takes the last bite of his second taco.
It’s times like these, though few and far between, when Leo wonders what his life would look like if it didn’t revolve around tennis.
The sport means everything to him. Chasing the high of winning a tough match or taking home a title in a faraway city is addictive.
Nothing else in life even comes close to that feeling.
But who would he be without tennis? Would he be in real estate, like his mom?
A dentist? Maybe an art teacher? (Apparently not.
The brontosauruses.) Would his nights be filled with more moments like this one, sitting around the kitchen island with his parents talking about childhood memories over takeout?
Would he be sitting there with a boyfriend?
A husband? That question still floats across his mind, despite how much he’s tried to stamp it out over the course of his career.
What if he came out to his parents, right here, right now?
He doesn’t think they would have any problem with his being queer.
They’ve always voted blue, anyway. But when he thinks about the conversation it would lead to, particularly with his dad—Are you sure?
Is that a good idea? Will you go public?
What about countries you visit that aren’t as accepting?
What about your sponsors? What about homophobic fans?
—it immediately flattens the idea of sharing that part of himself with them.
It all just feels too messy, too uncomfortable, too uncharted.
He’ll keep it to himself, not just to hide it, but to protect it from the unknown.
It’s not like he’d be coming out because of someone special in his life, either.
So, he flips over his next Rack-O card and leaves that thought behind.
Tonight, as the September sky twists into pinks and purples out the kitchen window, he just wants to savor how easy, how normal, how nice this is.
After lacing up his sneakers before leaving for practice the following morning—despite the slew of luxurious options available, Leo still only wants to practice at the Delray Beach Tennis Center whenever he’s home—he searches for his sunglasses.
He checks on top of his dresser—nope, just a small stack of books, including Andre Agassi’s memoir, and a couple framed photos of him with his dad at the tennis center as a kid and with Ollie and Tess during one of his game nights.
He checks inside his nightstand—nope, just a couple condoms, headphones, and some plane tickets he’s saved over the years, specifically the ones to and from the cities where he won his fifteen titles.
He’s just about to give up the hunt when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.
“Mom! Perfect timing. Really quick—did I leave my sunglasses there last night? I can’t find them and want to make sure I didn’t drop them at Break Point or something.”
“Leo,” Sheryl says softly.
“They’re those black Nike ones, they’re polarized?”
“Leo—”
“Sorry, yeah, what’s up?”
“Leo, it’s about Dad.”
The quiver in her voice suddenly becomes more apparent to him.
“What? What happened?”
“He, um. Honey, he had a stroke this morning,” she says. “We’re at the hospital.”