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\f0\fs24 The kitchen clock read 5:47 when Ella came downstairs, her golf shoes already on her feet, bag propped against the wall by the garage door. She'd been awake since five, lying in bed listening to the mockingbirds outside her window, running through her swing in her mind the way her father had taught her to do. First weekend of summer. Thirty-six holes ahead of her. She could hardly stand it.\par
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Her mother was at the stove, sliding eggs onto a plate without being asked, because Elikapeka Hayes always knew what her daughters needed before they knew themselves.\par
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"Sit," her mother said.\par
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Ella sat, but only on the edge of the chair.\par
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She ate quickly, cleaned her plate, drank her orange juice in three swallows, and carried everything to the sink. It was 6:02. Their tee time was 7:24. Pompano Beach was twelve minutes away, maybe fifteen with the light on Sample Road. She wanted forty-five minutes on the range, minimum. That left them needing to leave the house no later than six-thirty, and even that was cutting it closer than she liked.\par
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She stood at the bottom of the stairs and listened. Upstairs, her sisters were still asleep. She could hear the particular silence of rooms full of sleeping people. And from the direction of the master bedroom she heard the low murmur of the television her father turned on every morning while he dressed, and she knew from long experience that the television was a bad sign. The television meant he was not rushing.\par
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She went back to the kitchen and sat down again, this time not even pretending to be relaxed.\par
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Her father came out of the master bedroom at 6:09 in his golf shirt and khaki shorts, his hair still damp, and went directly to the coffee maker. He poured a cup and leaned against the counter and looked out the window at the canal, where the first light was going silver and pink across the water. The sailboat in their dock shifted almost imperceptibly against its lines.\par
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"Morning," he said.\par
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"We need to leave before six-thirty," Ella said.\par
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"Morning, Ella."\par
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She exhaled through her nose. "Good morning. We need to leave before six-thirty."\par
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Her father smiled at his coffee cup, and that smile\u8212?patient, unhurried, the smile of a man who had been doing this for thirty years and believed there was very little in life that required actual rushing\u8212?made her want to tip the cup out of his hand.\par
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"Bobby's probably already there," she said.\par
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"Bobby can wait."\par
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"Bobby doesn't like to wait. Neither do I."\par
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"Then Bobby and you are well matched." He sipped his coffee. "Your mother made eggs?"\par
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"There's some in the pan. Dad. We need a good warm-up. I need a good warm-up. You can hit six balls and walk to the first tee, but I need time on the range."\par
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"You'll have time on the range."\par
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"Not if we leave at seven."\par
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"I didn't say we were leaving at seven."\par
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"You're on your first cup."\par
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He looked at her over the rim of the mug. "This is my second cup."\par
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She stood up from the table and walked to her golf bag and crouched down and unzipped the front pocket and took out her glove and put it on and took it back off again. She had no reason to do this. She did it anyway.\par
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Behind her she heard the scrape of a skillet, her mother serving her father his eggs, and then the soft sound of them exchanging some words she couldn't quite make out, and her mother's quiet laugh, and the terrible, leisurely normalcy of it all. It was 6:14.\par
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She went out the back door and stood beside the pool. The water was still and dark blue in the early light, and the neighbor's bougainvillea spilled over the fence in a great cascade of orange-pink that was almost violent in its color. She breathed in the morning air, which smelled like canal water and cut grass and the faint diesel memory of some boat that had gone out before dawn. She tried to think about her swing. She'd been working on keeping her right elbow closer to her body on the downswing, something her father had shown her three weeks ago at the range, and she'd had it and then she'd lost it and she wanted to find it again before she was standing over a shot on the first hole.\par
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The door opened behind her.\par
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"Five minutes," her father said.\par
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She turned. He was carrying his coffee cup. Still.\par
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"You're bringing that?"\par
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"I'm finishing it."\par
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"In the truck."\par
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"In the truck," he agreed, and something in his tone told her he'd been planning to leave at six-thirty all along and had simply declined to tell her, because he found her impatience amusing and saw no reason to relieve it prematurely. This was, she knew, a form of love. It did not feel like one.\par
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She picked up her bag and went through the house to the garage without waiting for him.\par
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They drove north on Federal Highway with the windows down, her father's coffee cup sitting in the holder between them, still half full. The morning was already warm the way South Florida mornings were in late May, the air thick and sweetly humid, and the palm trees along the road were motionless in the stillness before the sea breeze came up. Ella sat with her left knee bouncing and her arm out the window.\par
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"You need to stop rushing the range," her father said.\par
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"I don't rush the range."\par
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"You rush the range. You go too fast and you don't let the feelings settle. You hit twelve balls when you should hit eight."\par
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"Bobby hits fifty balls."\par
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"Bobby's habits are Bobby's business."\par
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She looked out the window. A sprinkler system was running in the parking lot of a strip mall, arching water across the empty asphalt for no apparent reason. "I just want to be ready," she said.\par
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"You're already ready. You've been ready since you woke up." He glanced at her. "Probably since last night."\par
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She didn't say anything.\par
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"How long have we been doing this?" he said.\par
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"Since I was six."\par
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"And have I ever not gotten you to the course in time for a proper warm-up?"\par
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She thought about it longer than he deserved to wait. "No."\par
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"Okay then."\par
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She let her knee stop bouncing. He reached over without looking and turned on the radio, and they drove the rest of the way with the windows down and the warm air coming in and a country station playing low enough that it was almost just texture rather than sound.\par
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The parking lot at Pompano Beach Golf Course was mostly empty when they pulled in, only a handful of cars clustered near the clubhouse entrance. Ella had her door open before the truck stopped rolling, which earned her a single patient look from her father that she ignored. She shouldered her bag and walked fast toward the entrance, her spikes clicking on the asphalt.\par
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Through the glass door she could see Bobby Carpenter already inside, sitting on the bench beside the pro shop counter with his arms folded, his own bag leaning against the wall beside him. He was wearing a Pompano Beach Golf hat and a green shirt, and when he saw her come through the door he made a show of checking his watch.\par
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"Six-forty-five," he said. "I've been here since six-forty."\par
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"Then you've had five minutes to contemplate your many swing flaws," Ella said, going directly to the counter.\par
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"My swing flaws." Bobby unfolded his arms and stood up. "You're the one who started blocking it right under pressure last month. What was that on sixteen at the district qualifier?"\par
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"That was the wind." She slid her father's credit card across the counter to the young man working the register. "Two, on the Pines. Hayes."\par
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"That was not the wind," Bobby said. "There was no wind."\par
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"There was some wind."\par
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"There was no wind, Ella."\par
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"Good morning to you too, Bobby," her father said, coming through the door behind her, carrying nothing, having left both his golf bag and his apparently now-finished coffee in the truck.\par
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Bobby grinned and shook Andy's hand. "Morning, Mr. Hayes. I've been telling Ella I've been here since six-forty."\par
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"I know," her father said. "She mentioned it."\par
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"I didn't mention it," Ella said, signing the receipt and taking the card back. "I acknowledged it. There's a difference." She picked up her scorecard from the counter and turned toward the door that led to the range. "We have nineteen minutes. I'm going to go use them."\par
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Her father looked at Bobby and Bobby looked at her father and some small communication passed between them that she caught only from the corner of her eye and chose to ignore entirely.\par
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She pushed through the door into the morning light, already thinking about her elbow.
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