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I can’t.
“I’ve got to go.” I point to the kids. “They’re waiting for me.”
Little Asa breaks away from the line of children. He’s usually distracted but today he’s deadly serious. “Come to our footy club, Mr. Novac!”
He darts away, but I’m stuck.
I’m also torn.
Luke lands a hand on my shoulder one last time. “Maybe talk to Mitch about dropping in on one of his coaching sessions. Start small. No worry, no hurry.”
“Maybe.” That’s actually another no, and I guess Luke knows it. Those forehead furrows deepen. I allow a small concession. “I’ll mention it when I next see him.”
That turns out to be much sooner than I’m prepared for.
Mitch is my mentor today, and is waiting at the clearing when I get there with the children.
He isn’t alone.
Justin hovers in the background, clutching what looks like one of Rae’s sketchbooks. And that is who else waits in the clearing with his students.
“We were just leaving,” Rae promises. His voice lowers. “But I can hang around if…” He tips his head in Mitch’s direction, and I’m caught like I was in that river, pulled by opposing currents. One tugs me closer to Rae because he thinks I need defending. The other pulls me closer to the real truth, which floods out.
“No. It’s okay. You don’t need to stay. Mitch is a good guy.”
He is. Even now when he’s got his own work to do, he’s here to help me out. And he stopped the kids from taking headers I didn’t even know were risky, didn’t he? Which was the exact opposite of what my last coaches demanded from me. He even flashes a smile my way, although it’s wary, and that’s…
My fault.
I’ve hung back too often. Avoided him and Justin. Now I almost feel Luke’s hand on my shoulder again, and I do my best to live up to his image of me.
“Hey, Mitch. Good to see you.” I include Justin. “Both of you.”
That’s nothing exceptional, is it? It’s only a simple greeting, and the bare minimum of politeness. Mitch beams like I made his whole day brighter. “Good to see you too.” He’s so smiley, it’s contagious. His big voice booms. “Ready to play?”
And we do for this last session before the half-term break.
We play until lunch, or the kids and Mitch do at least. I’m not sure when I realise that I’ve taken on the role of session leader, but I stand back the way that Charles and Luke and Rowan have role-modelled for weeks. And like them, I observe before I make suggestions. Mitch is more of a man of action—of big moves and even bigger bursts of laughter—but he also keeps coming to me for input.
“Their concentration is amazing. I didn’t expect it from the really little ones,” he confesses. He also frowns. “Should he have that hammer?” He means Asa, who taps away just like I taught him. Mitch frowns even harder. “Adults with brain injuries sometimes need a lot of supervision. I kinda thought the kids would need an even closer eye kept on them, not less.”
“Oh, they still need watching.” It’s pretty much all I need to do now I’ve got a better handle on the individual trajectories that Charles says they can shoot for so much faster when they’re self-directed. “Asa knows what he’s doing.”
I say it within his earshot because I know how motivating a coach’s praise can feel, and Asa deserves some. He’s far from having ants in his pants now, so I go ahead and give him some more armour for his future in case he meets a coach like my last ones.
“I can see how hard he’s been listening to me. How closely he’s watched my demonstrations.” Yes, Asa watched while fiddling with all the nails in a container, but I didn’t need to watch him for long to see he was actually sorting and categorising, his hands busy while his brain was even busier learning. “I can trust him to ask for help if he needs it.” I sit in that storytelling chair Charles once called a throne, and for once it does feel like I rule here. “I’ll be right here if he needs me.”
We both watch Asa work as Mitch crouches beside me. “What’s he doing?” he asks quietly.
“Making his mark.”
He is, even if it takes him all morning to do it. By the end of the session, a child who was too wriggly to sit still is done. He’s also bursting with pride to show off what he’s created when Rowan arrives to collect the kids for their lunch.
Asa holds up one of those thin log slices that I chainsawed, clutching this one in front of his chest like a shield. “Look!” Thewide and shiny heads of those nails now spell out his name, and fuck me if my chest doesn’t puff almost as much as his.
I’m still chuffed when Rae passes through the clearing again with his students on his way back to the main school building for lunch. He smiles across the clearing and calls out, “Someone looks happy,” as a beam of sunlight crowns him with licks of flame in a reminder of the very first time I met him.
Back then, I mistook him for someone I once thought could fill my future. It isn’t Marc I see in that role these days. It hasn’t been in forever. Now Rae looks at me the same way Marc looks at Stefan, and fuck permanent being off my agenda.
