Wing Jones(56)

Coach Kerry has different ideas. She has us doing all kinds of crazy stuff that she claims will make us faster. Make us stronger. Make us better.

I’m not running with Aaron as much now; he’s training with the boys’ team, same track as us, but on the other side. Feels farther than that, though. Still, when we go round and round that track, I can feel his eyes on me. I know he’s watching.

I hope he’s not watching right now. Coach Kerry has me and Eliza in some kind of harness, the kind Santa would use for his reindeer, and we’re pulling weights, actual weights. Usually running makes me feel light and free, but this, this isn’t running. I’m sweating so much I can barely see, and I can hear Eliza panting as we both try to drag these dumb weights around the track.

“Again,” says Coach Kerry after we get around. “I know you girls can be faster.”

“Why we gotta do this?” says Eliza, and it’s the closest I’ve ever heard her come to whining.

“You’ve got to do this because I’m the coach and I told you so, and because it’s going to make you faster. Once you take these things off, you’ll fly. Trust me.”

“I already do fly,” Eliza grumbles, but we push off again, and this time, it is a little easier.

Between training, visiting Marcus, and hanging out with the team, time flies by. It’s only two weeks till my first official race. Two weeks till all this dream running, all this, becomes real. I can’t help hoping that maybe Marcus will wake up by then. That he’ll be there, cheering for me, the way I always always cheer for him.

I’m still cheering for him. I’m still hoping he’ll defeat everything and everyone, to prove that Marcus Jones can’t stay down, that Marcus Jones always gets up.

Maybe we’re more similar than I ever knew.

Finally, it comes. My first official race day. I wake up with my blood singing, my heart jumping, my feet kicking. Every part of me is ready to go.

It’s also my sixteenth birthday. When I get to breakfast, my mom, LaoLao, and Granny Dee are sitting around the table, a small cake in the center.

“Cake for breakfast!” Granny Dee declares.

“And noodles for dinner,” says LaoLao. I’ve been having noodles for dinner on my birthday for as long as I can remember, and before that. Long noodles to represent a long life. Every year my LaoLao makes the noodles from scratch.

I wish, like I wish every morning, but especially on this morning, that Marcus were here. I’ve never had a birthday without him. I try to remind myself that he’s had longevity noodles every year for his birthday too, and that has to count for something. He’s gonna live a long life. He’s just taking a little break right now, a little halftime. He’ll wake up. And until he does, I’ll keep wishing, wishing as hard as I can.

And maybe, today, because today is my birthday, my wish will count for something. Maybe my wish will come true. And maybe by the time it is Marcus’s birthday, in August, he’ll be eating his own birthday noodles and making his own wishes.

Another wish, a secret one, flutters by, and it has Aaron’s name on it. I watch it for a moment, fluttering, floating, and then I grab it tight and crush it before anyone else can see it. I can feel the remnants of the mothy wish wings on my skin.

“Wing? Did you hear me? Are Aaron and Monica coming tonight?”

I look up. “What? Why would they come?”

My mom gives me a bemused smile. “Because they always come to your birthday dinner. I just assumed…” When I don’t say anything she goes on. “Of course, it’s fine if you want it to be just family too.”

But it isn’t just family. Because half our family isn’t here. And it hurts that my mom thinks I don’t have any friends of my own and the only people who would come to a birthday dinner at my house aren’t even really my friends.

Two new wishes flutter next to me.

Aaron is your friend! says one.

Another wish pops up next to it. Aaron is more than your friend! it says.

I bat the errant wishes away and smile at my mom.

“I’ll ask Monica if she can come over.” I pause. “And Aaron.” And then. Because now I have friends too. My own. “And Eliza? You met her the day you saw me run?”

My mom smiles. “Of course! Whatever you want.”

“Now eat some of that breakfast cake before it gets cold,” chides Granny Dee. “And what time did you say we had to be at that race today?”

I’m smiling so big you could probably sink an ice cream cone in each of my dimples.

“Three,” I say as I cut into the cake. No frosting, just the way I like it. We’ll have a proper birthday cake later, with whipped cream and berries, but birthday breakfast cake is always buttery pound cake.

“We get there at two,” states LaoLao with authority. “So we not late.”

“We wouldn’t miss it for anything,” says my mom. “I just wish … I wish Marcus could be here. He’d be so proud. And your daddy. I wish he was here too.” She’s still smiling, but her eyes are suspiciously overbright. A familiar cloud follows her words, a big dark cloud I know all too well but don’t want around on my birthday. Maybe that makes me selfish.

Granny Dee takes a bite of cake. “Well, I know that I for one am going to tell Marcus every last detail when he wakes up,” she says, her mouth full. “And I know your daddy will be watching. Don’t you worry about that.”