Cover art by Jenn, Check her out!
I’m haunted by a vision of John.
I no longer see him diving and stretching to reach that ball, to save us.
Instead I see him surrounded by darkness, a cloud, a mist. I see his head tipped back, drinking straight from the bottle. Hope lost.
And I see him unconscious, yet still there, hanging on. How much did it take to drown him?
And I wonder if that question was on his mind? Would he still get to heaven? Would he find that field, that goal to protect? Or would the black, the beyond, simply swallow him?
We opened that canister in 2019. The world had certainly moved on, changed, and the Covid was spreading that year. Alice had been gone for an eternity, 5 whole years. When we closed that canister in ‘99 and placed it on that bottom shelf in the shed out back, we knew nothing of the cancer that would spread through her body.
You got one I can bum?
I’m looking at the envelope now, that familiar scrawl of hers. I was frightened to read her letter at first, couldn’t push myself to open it. I just kept staring at those words and remembering that first night. Eventually, after letting the tears and sobs come through and shake me, I did open it. I’ve read through it probably a thousand times now.
To my William,
I can still see you, interrupting my precious reading time and that filthy habit. You clumsy son of a bitch.
The night of our lives.
I wouldn’t and couldn’t trade it for anything, we are destiny, we are forever.
The family we’ve been blessed with, the love we share, it all seems so much like a fairy tale at times.
Watching William Jr. and Ann become versions of us, but all their own, I wouldn’t and couldn’t imagine a life any more perfect.
And I’m proud of you. The teacher you’ve grown into, the kind hearted man who gives and gives for those students, they’re blessed to have you and so am I.
It’s 1999, can you believe it? 12 years we’ve been together, and so much has happened in that time. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other, it’s as if Ann was in a rush to get here before we’d even met. You made me feel like a slut, but maybe I liked that.
I can’t wait to see where the next 20 years take us and if you’re reading this in 2019, get your ass up to that bedroom and make me feel like a slut all over again.
I love you more than you know. You make me smile, laugh, but mostly you make me appreciate everything in this world, this life. I couldn’t imagine a life without you, and I never will.
With Love,
Alice.
I remember overcast skies as we took to the field that day.
But my spirit was bright and lively, this was it. My first tryout.
It was the day I met Katherine Snow. I remember some of the guys thinking it was a bit strange that a boys travel soccer team would have a woman as the coach, the manager. But she put us through the paces that first day, it didn’t take long for us to realize she knew the game, and it was nothing but respect from us moving forward.
We were getting older, at least we thought we were. Those early teenage years are funny, just couldn’t seem to wait to grow up.
I remember Snow testing us out, our ball control. We were all probably a little nervous, because at the end of the day we knew some of us would be cut from the team. We stood on the touchline as she showed us how to pop the ball up with the top of your foot, juggling the ball, controlling the ball, but none of us seemed to be able to showcase a top player’s touch that day. Everyone losing control of the ball before we could count 10 touches. She certainly had her work cut out for her.
When we broke into teams and I took my place in goal it was all business.
I was barking at my defenders, diving all across that goal mouth, doing all I could to prove I was a keeper worth keeping. But there were only two of us trying out for goalkeeper that day. I knew the other keeper well, he was the younger brother of that Varsity and State Champion goalkeeper Manny Senessi. Carter Senessi wasn’t a giant like his brother, but he could get down to those low shots better than I at the time, and he was brave, diving out at the feet of the attackers. But I had my size and my hands. I always had great hands.
By the end of that tryout I was gassed, scraped raw high on the hip, but satisfied with my display. I was sad to see some old teammates’ careers sort of die that day, not everyone made the cut.
We would become the Valley Hawks, competing in Virginia’s Old Dominion Soccer League.
We would wear blue and white trimmed jerseys, that Kappa brand, a man and a woman sitting back to back, I’ll always remember that little symbol and those first kits.
But of course, I was a goalkeeper, my kit had to be different. For me they chose the Barcelona goalkeeper kit. It was black with the Barca logo dead center, and I’ll never forget those tiny rubberish circles all along the shoulders of the shirt. That first time pulling it over my head, it felt right, it felt good, this was my team and I was the goalkeeper.
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