The 24th Time My Husband Chose Another Girl, We Left novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Senior Night
Blaine walks out in front of the whole gym wearing another girl's senior-dad badge while Maxine stands beside an empty place. Winona walks out with her daughter.
The announcer called a girl's name, and my husband walked onto the court with her.
He had promised our daughter for three weeks that he would stand beside her tonight.
He had said it at dinner, in the truck, and on the phone from a job site.
Now he was walking between the girl and her mother in the navy blazer I had bought him for our daughter's signing day.
I was in the tunnel by the locker rooms with the program in my hand.
I had read it twice while we waited.
Under the girl's name it listed one parent, her mother.
Under our daughter's it listed two, me and her father.
I had saved him the place on her left.
Now I saw the badge on his lapel, a white circle that said SENIOR DAD.
Below it, in black marker, someone had written KENZIE.
The whole home side clapped for him.
Maxine stood beside me in her jersey with her chin up and her hands tight on the bouquet.
"Is that Dad?" she said.
"Yes."
"Does he know it's the wrong senior?"
I didn't answer her.
Coach Ostrow put a hand on the doorframe beside her. "Maxine, you're up in one minute. You can take your time out there."
"I don't need time," Maxine said.
She said it to the floor.
The announcer read her name, and her position, and that she had signed to play in college next fall.
Then he said, "Escorted by her parents."
I walked out with her on my right arm.
On her left was a gap the width of one grown man.
The announcer waited.
Across the court Blaine looked up from Kenzie's side, saw us, and lifted his free hand in a small wave.
A man behind the home bench laughed once, the wrong kind of laugh, and stopped.
I kept my eyes on the far basket and walked Maxine to the foul line.
The photographer took the picture of the two of us and the empty place.
When we got back to the tunnel, Coach Ostrow was holding a second bouquet.
"The booster club made two," he said. "Nobody came for this one. Take it."
I took it.
My hands were steady, which surprised me.
Leah found us in the hallway before the tip-off.
She had a paper cup of cocoa for Maxine and a tissue already in her hand for me.
"Winona, I told him to stand with you two," she said. "I swear I did. I said, she's your wife, go be with her."
"Did he listen?" I said.
"He said you'd understand." She squeezed my arm. "You always do, honey."
She meant it kindly, and that was the worst part.
Maxine took the cocoa and said thank you, because she was raised to.
Then she asked me quietly, "Mom, do I have to play?"
"No."
"I want to play."
"Then play."
She scored thirty-one points, and the home crowd screamed for every one of them.
Blaine sat in the third row, behind the bench, with Leah and Kenzie.
He clapped when Maxine clapped.
I sat at the end of the front row with two bouquets in my lap and counted.
He had missed her dance recital when she was six, and her sixth-grade science fair, and the night she broke her wrist.
Every one of them had a reason, and every reason had a name, and it was always Leah's or Kenzie's.
I had accepted all twenty-three.
When the buzzer ended the game, the students rushed the court.
Maxine broke away from them and came to me and put her head on my shoulder, sweaty and shaking.
Across the gym Blaine was already moving toward us with his arms spread and his badge still on.
"Max! Maxie! Thirty-one, that's my girl!"
People turned to watch.
"You said you'd be on her left," I said.
He stopped a step away from me and lowered his voice.
"Winona, don't. It was one night. Kenzie's dad never came to anything, and she needed me."
"Maxine needed you."
"Maxine has you."
I looked at the badge on his chest.
I looked at the empty place on the floor where he should have stood.
"Blaine, take it off," I said.
"What?"
"Take off that badge."
He laughed and looked around for help, and there were thirty people close enough to hear.
So I stepped out.
I took Maxine's gym bag in one hand and her hand in the other, and we walked across the center circle and out through the front doors.
Nobody stopped us.
Blaine called my name twice, and then he stopped calling it.
In the parking lot Maxine sat in the passenger seat of my car and held her phone out to me without a word.
It showed a message Blaine had sent Leah that morning from the kitchen tablet we all shared.
"Told Winona and Max I'll be there for sure. She'll swallow it like always. Save me a badge."
Maxine had seen it at seven o'clock that morning.
She had worn her jersey out onto the court anyway.
"Mom," she said. "I wanted to see if he'd do it."
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