We are up ten.
We are down thirteen.
We sit up straight on decades-old bleachers, throw our shoulders back like our physical therapists train us to do, but soon we revert to a coiled position. Leaning forward, elbows digging into knees. Muscles tense like we are about to strike prey. We cannot dribble the ball, flick our wrists in the perfect follow-through to a baseline jumper, so we yell.
You got this!
Take it to the hoop!
Foul! Foul! Foul!
That’s a foul! Jesus Christ, ref, make the call.
We quiet down when the referee, a kid with glasses and a frosted afro, throws us a look. The point guard’s mother is the loudest of all of us. She meets the ref’s eye then shouts to her daughter. Shake it off, sweetie. They were all over you. We saw. She nods, mumbles to herself, Oh, we saw, alright.
The dad who barks out missed calls during the games—Walk! Foul! Travel! Charge!—mutters over his shoulder to us, Remember the guy from last week? He was even worse. We’re lucky our girls walked away from that game without crutches.
The point guard rises slowly to her feet. She limps for a few steps, but leaps to action when the whistle blows. Her orange and yellow braids make her look like a flame streaking down the court.
The point guard’s mother says to us, They better not hurt my girl. We need her.
+
We shuttle our girls to practices, plying them with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and baby carrots on the way so their legs will run faster, jump higher, so their coach doesn’t send another email. Even a Porsche can’t run without fuel, she wrote. We spend our weekends connecting tournament dots around the state. Bend, Redmond, Newberg, Beaverton. We pile into minivans and station wagons and early-model SUVs. We paint our windows yellow and green and scrawl our devotion across our rear windshields: Go Warriors! #1 Champions!!! We marvel that once upon a time we spent our weekends doing anything but this.
+
This week is The Rumble by the River. Twenty teams vying for the privilege of draping a mass-produced medal around their necks and having their picture snapped in front of a banner emblazoned with a boulder-sized basketball. Plus that amorphous, incalculable X-factor: the thrill of victory.
We arrive early per the coach’s email. We yawn our way through warm-ups. Then, the girls form a circle at center court, the whistle blows and we snap to attention.
Arms up!
Move your feet!
Rebound!
We are up ten.
We are down thirteen.
We coast along on the tide of the score. Rising, falling, feeling our stomachs clench with nerves when our girls fall behind, then flood with exhilaration at the sound of ball kissing net. Our shoulders tense with each jump shot, feel the bumpy surface of the ball against our fingertips. Our girls’ blood is our blood. We are made of the same muscle, the same bone. A bond beyond biology: the stepdad, the not-yet-stepmom, the adoptive mom feels it, too. Our breath flows into their lungs, our sweat streaks their cheeks. We gave them their first balls before they could toddle across the living room, picked out onesies that gleamed Champion in gold glitter across their barrel baby chests. Destiny purchased at Old Navy for cheap.
Between games we cram into booths at the nearby Red Robin, try to whip up conversation on the backs of our girls who are seated nearby at a separate table. The girls cluster around their phones. They look like puppies in a pile, scrambling to get position closest to the captain. The captain’s mom keeps the scorebook at the games. After the games, she snaps photos of the scorebook pages that distill each individual girl’s efforts to the quantifiable: points, fouls, rebounds. She texts the group with the scorebook photos. Great game!!!! She is always generous with the exclamation points and heart emojis. We appreciate the textual gushing, especially when the lines next to our daughters’ names are blank.
At the restaurant, scraps of songs blurt from their phones’ speakers and break through the girls’ giggles at the table. Girls, we are in a restaurant, we warn. They exchange looks, roll their eyes, click the volume lower. They are old enough to have their own table, but not so old that they eat their mandatory broccoli without being told. They still order chicken fingers from the kid’s menu. The waitress indulges them with a wink. They’re my favorite, too.
We steal glances at the girls’ table. We don’t want them to hear us. The only thing we are supposed to say to them about the game is, I love to watch you play!
We hoard our cold-eyed assessments for when the girls are out of earshot. The post players forget to box out no matter how loud we yell. The point guard blew an easy lay-up. She is having a dry streak. Her steals end in bricked lay-ups and her foul shots are air-balls. But boy does her hair look great, we say in compensation for our criticism. We are relieved the point guard’s mom is not one of those white moms who doesn’t know how to care for their Black children’s hair. We infuse the point guard’s hair with a lot of meaning: her mom must be culturally sensitive, appropriately multicultural. She is passionate about her daughter, we know that much. The point guard is quiet when she’s off the court. Sometimes we think she is missing from the line-up before a game, but usually she is huddled behind her mom. We wonder if she needs a break from the weight of our eyes upon her, the weight of our expectations, our questions.
They looked good today, strong. The not-yet-stepmom says from the end of the table.
Her not-yet-husband says, I think they have a chance at the finals if our posts can hit their lay-ups. Use the backboard, ladies.
The dad who mutters at the referees, says, That’s a big IF after what we saw today. Those girls have got to use the backboard. And rebound.
The mom who keeps the scorebook straightens. They are doing their best. I’d like to see you post up that incredible hulk. She was fouling all over the place.
He stands down. The refs, Jesus Christ!
We all nod in agreement about the refs.
We smile. We eat our burgers and chicken sandwiches and chef salads. We dip our carrots in ranch. We wonder who we are outside of the Warriors, outside of our filial connection to our girls. The origin of us are the flyers the coach posted by the basketball courts of southeast Portland with one bold-faced question: Does your daughter LOVE basketball? We are teachers, doctors, administrative assistants, stay-at-home-moms, counselors, and the requisite software engineers. But we don’t talk about work. It’s the weekend! Who wants to talk about work on the weekend? we say. We ponder our distant pasts. Who were we in high school? Some of us share the stories of when it was us running down the court, of that one game where we hit the game-winning free throw. Others marvel to find themselves here. I was a theater kid. Never touched a ball in my life! We wonder who among us were the ones shrinking in the corner while the others crafted cruelty from the raw materials of our truest selves. We have our suspicions.
The waitress reappears at the head of the line of tables we’ve cobbled together into one long gallery of parents. One check?
We exchange a look. We are about to make this girl’s day a hassle, a story to tell her friends over a Long Island Iced Tea and a cigarette after her shift is done.
Twelve separate checks. Can you believe that shit? She will say, exhaling a long ribbon of smoke.
And that was only the beginning, before the point guard’s mother found the charge for a side of ranch on her check.
One lady threw a fit because I charged her for a side of ranch. One fucking dollar and she goes off on me like I stole her purse. You should’ve seen her. She turned purple. I thought she was going to have a heart attack right there.
We tried to stop the point guard’s mom. Scorekeeper Mom offered her a dollar to pay for the side of ranch. I’m happy to pick up your ranch. My treat! But the point guard’s mom waved off the offer. Once her outrage started to rise, it was impossible to stop.
I don’t want you to pay for it! Pay for ranch? If I got a salad, would they charge extra for dressing? If I got fries, are they charging me for ketchup? It’s a travesty. This society is falling apart and this is only part of it. Don’t get me started.
She is always on the verge of getting started. Today about ranch dressing. A few months ago, about the team her daughter played on before the Warriors and the coach who didn’t appreciate her daughter’s talent. A week ago, about how the day her daughter came to live with her was the best day of her life. My life began that day. She’s my north star. Then her voice got quieter, She’s the real star of the Warriors. We all know it.
We smiled. We didn’t comment one way or another. Not in front of our daughters, our stars. She insisted that her daughter will have her pick of schools offering scholarships, that she will play in the WNBA. I hope she gets drafted by Seattle or at least a west coast team. I don’t want to have to move across the damn country.
+
At the restaurant, we can’t hold her back from making a scene. We watch her from the table. The team captain shuttles the girls to the bathroom to shield the point guard from witnessing her mom’s meltdown. We imagine the point guard is used to it by now. We pay our checks, tack an extra dollar on to the tip as compensation for the trouble, hope to never be sent to this town or this Red Robin again.
We pile back into the minivans, the station wagons, the early model SUVs. We file into the gym. We unfold the piece of paper with the tournament bracket, winners and losers hastily scrawled on the lines, even though we have it memorized.
We’re on court three this time.
Oh God, not those refs again.
Those refs again. We find our spots in the bleachers, and watch the girls go through their warm-ups. The point guard’s mom sits at the edge of our section. She is still vibrating from the Red Robin ranch incident. We are afraid to ask if they deducted the charge. Her face is bright pink, her white hair in a frizz around her face.
We change the subject. We’re collecting money for a coach’s gift. Scorekeeper Mom is in charge. She knows the coach’s favorite restaurant and is going to buy her a gift card and a bottle of Tanqueray. In her thick southern drawl, the coach jokes about the stiff martini she requires after they lose a game. We laugh and hope it’s not a cry for help. The lazy cadence of the coach’s voice makes everything she says sound charmed, even when she’s screaming at our girls. The point guard’s mom pulls a crumpled ten from her wallet for the gift. Hope you take cash. I’m not into that Pay-mo, she says. Then, she mumbles to herself something about bleeding her dry.
We all bleed. We pay through the teeth for the privilege of carting our girls to practices, to tournaments, to championships, to consolation games. We imagine them standing on a podium, biting a medal and saying that they dedicate this win to their amazing parents. Instead, we are mostly rewarded with sagging shoulders and tears after they lose another game. There is always a better team, always a phenom in two-hundred-dollar high-tops shooting three-pointers and stealing every pass. Private coaching, we grumble and console ourselves that the phenoms usually burn out. Those parents push too hard.
The whistle blows. Go Warriors! we cry from the stands. The rhythmic bounce of the ball, the squeak of sneakers against the freshly mopped floors is the beat of our hearts. We lean forward.
Box out!
Rebound!
Arms up, dear God, girls, put your arms up!
+
We are up ten.
We are down thirteen.
The point guard is throwing the ball away. Turnover after turnover. The coach takes her out of the game. The point guard slides to the end of the bench and gulps water. Our daughters pat her on the back. Her mother shifts in her seat, looks back at us. What does Coach think she’s doing? They need my girl in the game. If they want to win that is. She snorts.
She looked a little tired out there. Maybe Coach is giving her a rest, says the dad who complains about refs, his voice gentle.
Tired? She’s not tired. I mean she might be getting tired of needing to bring down her level of play to match everyone else.
We let her words fall like the spilled cracker crumbs we wiped away from the bleachers before we took our seats. She’s had a rough day. Maybe she didn’t sleep last night. She probably had to pay for that side of ranch. We had to get up so early to make the first game. Earlier than on a weekday.
We are down ten.
We are down five.
First quarter.
Second quarter.
We are up ten at the half.
The third quarter starts and still the point guard is on the bench. The Warriors are rallying, finding their way to keep ahead without their star. That’s the way it goes sometimes. A bench player steps up and her touch is magic for a game. The point guard’s mom steps down the bleachers, closer to the line of players on the bench. We feel the rattle of her every step, feel the slight sway of the bleachers. She leans and whispers something in her daughter’s ear. The point guard freezes for a moment. Her shoulders tense. She takes another sip of water, leans down and starts to fumble with her shoelaces. Her braids form a curtain around her face while she unlaces her sneakers.
Her mom marches to the other end of the bench, taps the coach on the shoulder. We can’t hear what she says. The coach stares at her for a moment before returning her attention to the game. Next thing we know the point guard’s mom and her daughter are gathering their bags, heading for the exit.
Where do they think they’re going? The dad asks.
It’s the middle of the game.
Maybe she isn’t feeling well.
We see them through the sliver of the gym door, in the hallway talking to a coach of one of the other teams. We wonder if we will see her again or if she is done being a Warrior. Her mother rests her hand on the point guard’s back, and suddenly laughs at something the coach has said loud enough that we can hear through the gym door. We know that we would have made fun of the mother in high school, that she logged hours on her guidance counselor’s couch weeping and raging, Why is everyone so mean to me?
+
In the fourth quarter, the other team chips away at our lead. With seconds left on the clock, their phenom has the ball at the three-point line, cocks back for a shot. We watch the red numbers on the scoreboard tick lower, feel the flick of her wrist like a jab in our chest, watch the ball arc through the air and slide silently through the net. We wince at the buzzer, give ourselves a moment to mutter curse words under our breath before we reset.
We let the girls cry on our shoulders. In public we bite our tongues about missed lay-ups and all the rebounds the other team converted to points. We say, You girls left it all on the floor. We are so proud of you.
I love to watch you play! We say through clenched teeth.
Some of us slam the doors to our minivans, our station wagons, our early-model SUVs, and unleash all that we have held back. Don’t be afraid of the defender. Take it to the goddamned hoop. Do you listen to a word I say? The girls nod and swallow. They promise they’ll do better next time.
We make the two-hour drive home. We get ice cream as a consolation prize to fill the void where the medals would have been. We lay in bed replaying the games in our minds, replaying our own games from twenty years ago that remain coiled in our muscle fibers, echoes of when our parents were in the stands screaming our names.
Rebound!
Box out!
Take it to the hoop!
We hear their voices bellowing through our throats, feel our chests full of something we keep losing, something we can’t stop seeking even as we parrot empty words of consolation: It’s only a game. We will set our alarms next Saturday. We will count the minutes until the scoreboard buzzer jolts us back to life. We are the warriors.
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Katherine Sinback’s stories and essays have appeared in The Rumpus, Defunkt Magazine, and Taco Bell Quarterly, among other literary magazines and anthologies. Her essay “I Was Never Here” was named a Notable Essay of 2021 by The Best American Essays. She works full-time as an office manager while dedicating herself to being a parent and writer. Her work centers around girls and women, be they navigating love, adolescence, sexuality, and motherhood, or a grim political dystopia as feminist revolutionaries. Born and raised in Virginia, Katherine lives in Portland, Oregon with her family. She can be found on Twitter @kt_sinback. More at www.katherinesinback.wordpress.com.