Chapter Nine Soraya
Chapter Nine
Soraya
Let the foolish,
The selfish,
The small and the weak,
Shine through,
So that I see him as he is,
And not as what I hoped.
Let the silly things topple the proud.
—A spell for falling out of love
Soraya thought she was going to vibrate out of her skin. She had her leggings on, her T-shirt for her sons’ high school, a baseball hat that said boy mom, and absolutely no confidence that her boys were going to be remotely happy to see her.
She held on to her Stanley cup as she got out of the car and walked slowly across the lot toward the bleachers, and briefly sighed in relief when she saw Daisy and Nora standing on the sidelines whispering to each other.
How weird to find Nora’s presence comforting.
Only recently she would have crossed the street to avoid talking to Nora, as long as she was sure she hadn’t seen her.
But now she and Daisy were the two most important people in her life, and Soraya needed them.
Even when they were doing things that freaked her out and making fun of enneagrams and vision boards.
At least they listened to her. Believed her.
It was more than she could say for anyone else in her life.
“Yay, sports!” Nora did a mock cheer as Soraya approached. “Can’t wait.”
She ignored Nora’s sarcasm, which she’d begun to realize was her love language. “Thank you for being here.”
One set of bleachers was already full, with parents she knew mainly from church, and she hesitated. She didn’t want awkward questions; she didn’t want to deal with anyone giving her the side-eye.
Nora charged ahead. She sat right in front, and Daisy followed, then Soraya sat beside Daisy. Nora glanced behind them, but Soraya didn’t because she didn’t want to see people whispering or any of their speculative glances. She couldn’t bear it.
She looked through the fence and saw David standing on the third-base line, chewing sunflower seeds, spitting them into a paper cup he was holding and clapping against his wrist, doing his coach Go Team! routine.
Then their eyes caught, and she wanted to crawl underneath the bleachers and hide from him. Up until she’d gotten the job at the apothecary, grown a spine, and gotten some good friends, she’d been going to church with him. But just a week and a half without seeing him made this feel weird.
He lifted his chin, like a weird, hostile greeting.
She frowned and did not wave or lift her chin.
She looked over at Nora, and Nora sputtered a laugh.
“What?” Soraya asked.
“Your face. You look like you just saw a mouse.”
“Mice are cute,” Soraya muttered. “I feel more like I saw a cockroach.”
When the teams filed into the dugout, she turned her focus to the kids.
“All right, ladies,” David shouted. “Let’s see some hustle!”
“Ladies,” Nora scoffed. “God, is he the coach in a ’90s sports movie?”
“For the villains,” Daisy said.
“Close,” Soraya said.
When he turned away from the boys, one straggler came careening out of the dugout and ran smack into David and into the spittle/sunflower seed cup, which crushed against his chest.
A dark streak leaked from the bottom of the cup onto his white shirt.
His expression was furious as he scowled at the kid he clearly wanted to yell at but couldn’t because his parents were sitting in the stands.
“Oh noooo,” Soraya whispered, putting her hand over her mouth so she didn’t laugh.
“Deserved,” Nora said, and Daisy nodded in agreement.
There were a few uncomfortable giggles around them, so she wasn’t the only one who found it funny.
David recovered, then moved back into position on the third-base line as their first batter went up and stood in the box. She looked down at his shirt stain again and then looked down farther and noticed his shoelace was untied.
“Strike!” The umpire’s call was loud and decisive.
David didn’t like it. “Are you blind!? That ball was so high, it practically hit a seagull!”
He stepped forward like he was about to go and argue with the ump toe to toe, when his cleat caught that loose shoelace and he tripped, the whole crowd gasping as he fell into the side of the dugout, clinging to the chain fence to keep himself from sprawling onto the dirt.
He straightened up, his face red. He was not a clumsy man.
He was proud of his athleticism—and all the high school baseball that never translated into anything more but was a whole box bursting full of potential that he liked to talk about endlessly, even though the potential was long since squandered.
But he could’ve been someone.
She could feel all that and more coming off him in waves, anger a shimmering aura around him.
His anger wasn’t her problem.
That thought almost made her smile.
The next pitch was wild, but the batter swung anyway and tipped the ball right off the end of the bat, sending it flying. It went right toward David, and to avoid it, he had to duck and dive, this time tripping and falling into the dust as he did.
Daisy and Nora both looked at Soraya, who was sitting there with her mouth dropped open.
“Oh my God.” Nora stared at Soraya, her eyes wide. “You transferred your humiliation to him. The harm that he meant for you.”
“No,” Soraya said. “That’s not . . . possible.”
“This is amazing.” Nora smiled. “It’s amazing.”
Everything David touched turned to disaster the whole evening.
It was like God had reached down and had his finger hovering right over his head.
Not quite set to “smite” but, still, between outbursts, collisions with his own players, and mustard and sunflower seed spittle spilled on his shirt, his pride was probably charred.
“I’ll admit it.” Nora leaned over and elbowed Soraya. “This is more fun than I thought it would be.”
Soraya bit the inside of her cheek and turned her focus back to the game.
It was her son Levi’s turn at bat, and her chest seized up, because she did not want him to be embarrassed.
“Go, Levi!” she shouted, and she didn’t care if people stared at her. She was here for her son. They could judge her or whisper about her all they wanted.
He hit the ball and sent it soaring, and Soraya jumped up to cheer, with Daisy and Nora cheering beside her. The team was on fire after that, with her son making it home, and three more hits loading the bases. There were two outs, and this was it.
It was make it or break it.
The batter had a strike one.
Then a ball. Another ball. Then strike two. Another ball.
Full count.
She held on to Daisy’s shoulder and braced herself.
When the last pitch was thrown, it was wild, and the call from the umpire was egregious. “Strike three.”
“What?” David shouted from the sideline, then he walked forward, hand out, gesturing wildly at the umpire, deriding the bad call. When he normally would’ve stopped, he just kept going.
His face was red, his cheeks puffed out as he strode toward the official. It was like all his self-control had evaporated. It was the very worst of him, a temper he usually only saved for Soraya or the boys, on display for a stadium of spectators.
“You’re gone!” the umpire yelled. “Two games!” He held his fingers up, his face red. “Two-game suspension.”
“You can’t do that to me!” David shouted. “I sponsor the field! I own Nichols Realty.”
Soraya felt a slow, curling sensation of horror at the center of her chest, secondhand horror he didn’t feel for himself.
It was official. She was embarrassed for him. She had the ick, as her boys would say.
Deep down to her soul, she had the ick now when she looked at that man.
That posturing, ridiculous man with a spit stain on the front of his shirt, trying to pretend he was special, that his business name on the field meant he mattered.
But he was just a man who had to send pictures of his penis to women on the internet to feel something.
Nora was laughing almost helplessly, her hand over her mouth as she tried to regain some composure, and Daisy was staring in open-mouthed wonder.
Soraya put her hands on her face, her cheeks burning. “This is . . .”
“Just and fair,” Daisy said.
“Magic,” Nora added.
Magic.
The feeling burned in her chest.
She was thrilled with David making a spectacle of himself in front of everyone, but her boys had to be dying of embarrassment, and she couldn’t enjoy that.
“I’ll be right back.” She stood and walked down the bleachers, heading quickly to the dugout.
Levi was in the doorway, staring out at his dad, who was having a total meltdown, and Jaden was deep in the dugout, probably hiding.
When Levi saw her, his whole face lit up for just a moment. Like when he’d been a little boy. Like when he wasn’t angry at her.
Her heart clenched tight.
Then his expression dulled.
She moved closer to the fence. “Good game.”
“We lost.” He looked down.
“You did great, though.”
“You came,” he said.
She took a sharp breath, words gathering low in her throat and getting caught there.
Why would he ever think she wouldn’t? That had something to do with David, she was sure.
But this wasn’t the time or the place to ask.
“Of course I did.” Her throat was tight, her words hushed.
“I wouldn’t miss it, sweetie. I love watching you play. ”
“I’m . . . I’m glad you’re here.” But he didn’t come closer, and she knew there were a hundred potential reasons for that.
Him being mad at her. Him not wanting David to see him talking to her. Him not wanting his bros to see him talking to her—which honestly would have been true before the separation, so she didn’t push.
But she did wave at Jaden in the dugout and take the win when she got a chin tilt in response.
It was, in fact, almost normal.
It wasn’t good enough, though, because they weren’t coming home with her afterward. Why was this the choice? Hanging on to her self-respect, trying to make a better future. She could sacrifice herself for her sons, but she couldn’t sacrifice them on the altar of public perfection.
She didn’t want them to grow up to treat women this way. She didn’t want this narrative—about how she didn’t matter apart from David—to be the thing they believed, and she was already part of why they believed it.
Because she had, for so many years.
All she could do now was try to fix it.
Without embarrassing them. Without shouting that she loved them in front of all their friends or making anything worse because their dad had just given the slapstick silent-film performance of a lifetime in front of the whole team.
Part of her clung to that. To the hope they would see him more clearly now.
She walked away from the dugout, and Nora and Daisy fell into step beside her.
“I fear,” Daisy said, “we’re witches.”
The word hit Soraya funny in her chest. And yet, she felt powerful. She felt in control.
She wasn’t sure if she’d ever experienced that before.
Strength and power were wonderful, but being able to laugh at David like the ridiculous man-child he was . . . that was gold.
Because she wasn’t the one who should be embarrassed. He was the one who had sent that picture of his penis in a church bathroom. Hadn’t even been able to wait until he got home. Who sat there and listened to a sermon and got horny?
She put her hand over her mouth.
“What?” Daisy asked.
“He’s so ridiculous and sad.” She wiped tears from her cheeks. From laughter or sadness, she wasn’t sure. “An existential threat to my health and happiness, but sad.”
“Yeah,” Daisy agreed. “He is.”
“The saddest,” Nora said.
The public humiliation of David Nichols was something she could really get used to.
She’d always been told not to embrace that part of herself.
But all the softness, all the sweetness and light and whatever else she had tried to portray for all these years, hadn’t kept her safe.
It hadn’t made her more important to anyone than David was by virtue of the fact he was a man.
So, for the first time in her entire life, she took that little ball of anger in her chest and kept it there.
She was going to nurture it. Hold it close. It made her feel powerful.
In the midst of her pain, it was a bright, beautiful beacon.
And she could honestly say she’d never experienced that before.