“Dad, Dad, Dad! What’s brown and sticky?”
Damian wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. “I don’t know, what?”
“A stick!” Emily flopped into the armchair, giggling at her own joke.
That actually a pretty good one, definitely better than yesterday’s. He chuckled. “Nice, I’ll have to remember that, tell the guys at work.”
Emily giggled again, looking proud.
Damian looked at the time on his computer screen. “You’re home early. Shouldn’t you be at hockey practice?”
Emily’s giggles stopped. “I got dumped from the team.”
“What? But you set up all three goals last match. And kept that so-called prodigy on the other team from scoring at all.”
“Okay, I didn’t exactly get dumped. The coaches want me to do extra training and maybe go up a level. And they phoned Mum.”
Ohhh. Oh dear. No, wait, don’t jump to conclusions.
“And what did Mum say?”
“What do you think she said?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.” And why he’d be asking his ex-wife later on this evening why she hadn’t seen fit to let him know whatever it was that had happened.
Emily slumped further into the chair. “She said I was getting to the age where I needed to think about my future, and I should be focused on studying, not sport.”
Think about her future? She was ten!
“And she wants you to stop playing?”
“She wants me to stop playing hockey, but thinks tennis might be good as it’ll keep me fit for studying better and also be good for meeting people.”
As in, it was more socially acceptable to have a daughter prancing prettily around a tennis court than charging down a hockey field. Except, of course, Emily wouldn’t prance. She’d charge, regardless of venue.
Damian squinted at his daughter. “What did you say?”
No answer. Which was answer in itself. There was a screaming match and now Emily wasn’t talking to her mother. Fairly normal.
Damian stood and headed for the kitchen, he always schemed better while cooking. “If I can talk your Mum into letting you finish out this season in hockey, we have paid for it after all. Would you agree to a summer of trying out tennis?”
“Why?”
“To get on her good side, and it’s close enough exercise-wise to keep your skills and fitness up if we can get you back onto the team next season. But you have to do it properly, commit like an athlete.”
He could see it now, Emily, in the shorts and t-shirt she’d prefer over any tennis dress, belting aces at some poor country-club kid on the other side of the court, playing to win, no matter who the kid’s parents were. One summer, and she’d either be on her way to Wimbledon, or back on the hockey field.
The DNA of Stories 