Apples Never Fall

Brooke went back inside. She peeled back the foil and breathed in deeply. She didn’t need to taste a single mouthful to know that Savannah had cracked the recipe.

Chapter 70

It was a cold, blue, sunlit August morning. Hard to imagine a deadly virus in this crystal-clear air.

Stan Delaney diligently went through the stretching routine prescribed by his daughter to protect his crappy knees before he went on the court. He and his wife were going to have a hit. Just a gentle hit.

“You two have never had a gentle hit in your lives,” Brooke said.

Joy was next to him doing her own Brooke-prescribed routine when his mobile phone rang.

“For heaven’s sake.” Joy rolled her eyes. She complained that he was too attached to his phone. He had it in his pocket all the time and placed it right next to his plate when they ate. She said that was poor etiquette. He thought that was the point of the damned thing.

Stan peered at the screen. “It’s Logan.”

“Quick, quick, answer it, then!” Joy would never let a call from one of their children go unanswered, especially not now, after everything that had happened. They might laugh over it one day, but their laughs would always be tinged with horror.

“Dad,” said Logan. Stan clenched the phone tight. Logan didn’t sound like himself. “Yeah, mate?” He steeled himself for death or disaster.

“You remember my friend Hien?”

“Of course I remember him.” A car accident? Did Hien have the virus?

“He has a son. Six years old. Hien has been asking me to come and watch him play tennis for months now, and I’ve been putting it off, but this morning I thought, Oh, to hell with it, the kid has been stuck at home doing online learning. So anyway, I finally did, and, Dad—”

He paused, and in the pause, hope rushed like mercury through Stan’s veins.

Logan

said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Stan watched the hair on his arms stand up. “He’s pretty good then, is he?”

“Yeah, Dad, he’s pretty damned good.”

The first time Stan saw Harry Haddad play—a kid who had never set foot on a court before—it was like seeing one of the world’s natural wonders. Only a coach sounded the way Logan sounded right now, and Stan knew that Logan was a natural-born coach even if the fool boy didn’t seem to know it himself.

“So, I know it’s been a long time,” said Logan tentatively.

Don’t ask me.

Please don’t ask me.

Do it yourself, son, do it yourself, please say you want to do it yourself.

Logan lowered his voice as though he were sharing a shameful secret and said, “I think I want to coach him.”

It was the high of an ace or a perfectly executed smash.

Stan silently fist-punched the air.

“What?” said Joy. “What is it?”

Stan waved her quiet. He kept his voice controlled.

“He’d be lucky to have you,” he said.

There was silence, and the next time Logan spoke his voice had firmed. “You think I can do it?”