Neither one of them ever made a big thing of it. And I never pushed.
I thought it was working.
He drove her to every single practice since seventh grade. An hour each way, when her club team practiced in Mankato.
He built her a hitting net out of old fence posts and cargo netting behind the shed.
He sat through every match. He kept stats on a clipboard nobody asked him to keep.
He knows her kill percentage better than her coach does.
And he’d never once called himself her dad.
That last part, I took for respect. I thought he was being careful with her. Giving her room.
I didn’t understand, until that Thursday, that a man can be careful for so long it turns into fear.
After supper that Tuesday, Travis went out to the shed.
He does that when something’s on his mind. He says he’s checking inventory. But there isn’t much inventory to check in October.
