Best New Fiction: Just the Kid Who Throws the Ball by Linda M. Bayley

Just the Kid Who Throws the Ball

by Linda M. Bayley

It’s moments like this that Aldous is glad he didn’t get custody of Athena in the divorce. Look at her: gone from bundle of joy to bitch, just like her mother, in only sixteen years. He doesn’t know how Sandy and her new boyfriend handle her, but at least he only has to deal with her on bowling days.

“I’m not feeling well,” Athena says. “I don’t want to go in there.” Aldous can barely hear her pushing the words through that big-lipped pout.

“Your body is fine,” Aldous tells her. “It’s your head you need to screw on straight.”

“It’s just one tournament. Not even an important one.”

“It’s important enough! Make this team and you go to the Provincials!”

“So?”

“You better get hungry, Athena. I’m training you to be a champion here.”

“What if I don’t want to be a champion?” She turns the radio on and starts fiddling with the dial. Static. Rock. Static. Country. Static.

He slaps the radio off. “You were born to be a champion, Athena. That’s why we’re teaching you math, music, languages. Bowling. To be a champion.”

“I’d rather have friends,” she mutters. She’s clutching her stomach like maybe she really isn’t feeling well. But it doesn’t matter. She’s bowling today, whether she likes it or not. Champions know about mind over body.

“You don’t need friends. You have me. We’re a team.”

“This isn’t a team, Dad. This is me, by myself, bowling.”

Aldous’s face heats up, even though it’s getting colder inside the car. They’ve been sitting in this parking lot for fifteen minutes with the heat off and it’s snowing. The tournament starts in less than an hour.

Athena fidgets with her mittens. Aldous tells her, “Put those on. You can’t bowl with frozen fingers.”

She shoves the mittens into her pockets.

“You think this is a team, Dad? You think you telling me what to do and me bowling makes us a team?”

Aldous grips the steering wheel so tight he feels a twinge in the old scar on his thumb. Just this once, he’d like to hit this child. That smirk on her face, just like her mother’s. But he’d never hit her. Never.

“You think this isn’t a team? You don’t see me driving you to practice three times a week? You don’t see me studying all the other players? You don’t see me giving up all my free time to coach you?” He takes a deep breath, tries to control the shake in his voice. “No. I am the heart of this team. I am this team.” He takes her chin and turns her head to face him. “You’re just the kid who throws the ball.”

She pushes his hand away from her face, crying now. “If it’s so easy to throw the ball, Dad, why don’t you do it?”

He gets out of the car then, locks the door, slams it shut. His hip aches after being so long wedged in that seat, the hip that keeps him from bending over, from stretching out his leg, from balancing himself while he watches a ball hurtle towards the pins.

She rolls down her window. “This is just you living through me!”

Aldous hoists Athena’s 8-pound ball out of the trunk and calls back, “Don’t forget your shoes!” Then he starts walking. She can’t stay in that car forever; she’ll get cold, come into the bowling alley, and do as she’s told.

The building is pulsating with the cheers and chants of the kids already packed inside when Aldous walks through the door. All these kids from the other alleys around town, throwing practice balls, making strikes, pumping their fists in the air, passing on their luck with high fives. Athena doesn’t have their attitude, but none of them has her skill.

When the first game of the tournament starts, Aldous puts his coat back on and heads for the door, leaving Athena’s ruby red Brunswick on the rack. She’ll come in; he’ll make her come in. They’re going to have to pause to let her catch up, but they won’t mind. She’s the champion. She’s the star bowler, the best in the city.

But Athena’s not in the car. Her mittens are on the ever-whitening asphalt beside the passenger door, and footprints lead away from Aldous and the alley, across the street, and to a bus stop. Her bowling shoes are still on the back seat.

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Linda M. Bayley is a writer living on the Canadian Shield. Her work has recently appeared in voidspace zine, Five Minutes, BULL, Short Circuit, FlashFlood Journal, Underbelly Press, Stanchion, Does It Have Pockets, Roi Fainéant, Frazzled Lit, Trash Cat Lit, and Tiny Sparks Everywhere, the National Flash Fiction Day 2024 Anthology. She is a two-time Genrepunk Awards nominee. Find her on Twitter and Bluesky @lmbayley