"What's that?"
"It means she got fifteen points ahead and they stopped it. Because it wasn't a match anymore." She said it flatly, like reading a weather report. "Two minutes and twelve seconds. I didn't score."
Tom nodded slowly. He remembered, now, Lena calling him from this very building a year ago, and him standing in the PUD yard listening to her tell him that Dani had lost in the semis and was sobbing in the bathroom and wouldn't come out. He remembered saying, "Well, there's always next year." He remembered the silence on the other end of the line.
"But that was last year," Rosie said.
"That was last year," Dani agreed.
"And you're better now. Mama said. She said you're the best you've ever been. She said you got better at the bottom."
Dani stopped chewing. "When did she say that?"
"On Thursday. When she was braiding my hair. She said, 'Your sister got better at the bottom, and nobody even noticed but me and Bea.'" Rosie frowned. "What's the bottom?"
"It's when you're on your hands and knees and the other girl's on top of you," Dani said. "It's the worst place to be. You have to get out."
"Mama said you used to panic on the bottom. And now you don't."
Dani looked out the window. Tom watched her jaw work.
"Yeah, well," she said finally. "She's not going to see it, is she?"
And this was where Tom made his mistake.
He would think about it afterward with the particular clarity you have about the moment just before you put your hand on something you knew was hot. He would remember that he had a choice, and that he could feel himself having it.
He had been rehearsing for twenty-four hours. The pilot light was right there.
"No," he said. "She's not. Your mom made her choice."
Dani turned her head.
"I'm just saying," Tom said, and he could hear his own voice, reasonable and tired, the voice of a man who has been wronged and has been very decent about it, "you don't have to pretend it's okay. It's not okay. She's been there for every single thing, and then the one that matters, she's got somewhere better to be. That's on her. That's not on you. You shouldn't have to carry that onto the mat."
He meant it kindly. That was the worst part. Some part of him actually believed he was giving her permission to be angry, offering to be on her side, and the pleasure of finally saying it out loud to someone who would understand was so strong that it took him a few seconds to see her face.
"Somewhere better," Dani said.
"I didn't mean—"
"You don't get to say that." Her voice was very quiet. "You, of all people. You don't get to sit here and say that about her."