“You have to follow through! Swing through the ball, don’t hack at it like you’re pitching onto the green!”
Paul leaned on his tennis racket and darkened the green tennis concrete with his sweat. It was July and Maryland’s humidity was unbearable, even at seven in the morning. They’d been hitting for an hour and Paul’s Great Uncle Matthew hadn’t moved more than a step in either direction. Paul had been running all over the court. Their volleys never lasted more than a shot or two before Paul couldn’t reach the ball or he sent it far out of bounds.
“Don’t lean on it or you’ll break it! Get back to the baseline and try to hit one inside the line this time. But follow through!”
“I’m tired! How aren’t you dying out here?” Paul yelled. He stood up, wiped his face with his shirt, and walked slowly back to his court.
“I’ve been dying for years. Try playing in Florida. This would be gorgeous weather down there.”
Paul couldn’t imagine a climate drippier and more uncomfortable than mid-Atlantic July. Despite his complaining and the heat, he didn’t hate playing with his great uncle as much as he thought he would. Matty, as he instructed Paul to call him, was wittier than any of his friends at school. And he was good at tennis. Really good.
Paul had only been playing tennis with Matty for a few weeks. He had a crush on a girl a year ahead of him at school. Tanya Biswick played second singles for their high school team as a freshman and was gearing up for the first singles slot as a sophomore. Paul thought all the bus time to away games might give his personality a shot at winning her over. First, he needed to learn to play well enough to at least make doubles.
His father had suggested he play with his great uncle and laughed at his incredulity at the suggestion. He even bet Paul a year of mowing their lawn that he wouldn’t win a single game all summer. It was a bet Paul was regretting now that he’d been trounced for weeks by a man seven times his age. Great Uncle Matthew had been a college tennis player. He never went pro but he and his wife, Rebecca, both played competitively in tournaments throughout their lives, and he once held a NTRP rating of 6.5. Paul hadn’t even known what that meant back when he took the bet.
“Why’d you move back here if you liked Florida so much?”
“Move back here? I never lived in this godawful state in my life. Straight from Oregon to Florida when I retired, and I intended to die down there. But my daughter decided she needed me closer. Don’t ever let them take your car keys, kiddo. It’s all downhill from there.”
Paul didn’t know how to respond to that, not being able to drive yet in the first place. He gripped his racket, raised it and bent his knees. Matty sent a soft shot to his forehand. It was slow enough that he could consciously think to himself, follow through even if you send it over the fence. He hit the ball with exaggerated slowness and was thrilled to see it clear the net by just a foot and land happily in bounds. Matty slapped it back and Paul didn’t even try to return. He was shocked the ball went where he told it to. For once, Matty didn’t deride him for missing the second shot.
“Nice one,” he shouted. “Now fetch it, boy. We can’t either of us drive home. We’re stuck until they pick us up.”
Paul and Matty played twice a week. Matty also played with his wife, Paul’s Great Aunt Rebecca, twice a week. “My daughter won’t let me sign up for any more activities than that. I’ll let you work on your Aunt Beth for me.”
Paul never did try to coerce his Aunt Beth into giving him more lessons with Matty. Even though he never managed to make Matty move more than a step, Matty’s breath was short and rapid by the end of their sessions. Paul knew that they were draining for him but that he loved them too. There was a twinkle in his eye and a bite in his wit that Paul assumed old people lost when they crossed forty or so.
For his part, Paul grew to love the sessions too. Once he got over the fact that an octogenarian was making him look silly on the tennis court, it became a kind of challenge. Somehow, Matty managed to hit the ball such that Paul was only able to hit it back at him. If he was able to hit it back at all.
At first, Paul was thrilled to return three shots before sending one wild. Then four. Before the end of the summer he was able to volley easily, as long as Matty didn’t get bored and trip him up with spin or a deadly lob.
They kept up their training through the fall, even though Paul played JV soccer. They played on the weekends, although Auth Beth wouldn’t let Matty play two days in a row. On the off day, Paul had to play alone in the outdoor racquetball courts at the park.
Paul didn’t just make the varsity tennis team at spring tryouts. He made first doubles. He played with a junior, Bill Rates, surprising him with how comfortable Paul was returning just about any shot that came to him. If anything, it was Paul who was surprised when his opponent didn’t manage to return his own shots. He cringed with every hit that he knew Matty would have ripped back at him.
“You’re a brick wall,” Bill said. “I’ll take you in my backcourt any day. Just don’t let them take you up to singles. I don’t want to play with Chad.”
Chad Strizies was another junior. He was next up in the pecking list and was the better of the second doubles. He also had a habit of losing his cool and throwing his racket when he lost more than two points in a row.
Tanya took notice of Paul too. The men’s and women’s varsity teams shared an eight-court arena for practice and, for a tune-up before their first match, played against each other. Tanya dispatched the men’s first singles player, a haughty senior named Easton Ellis, in straight sets. He made a show of laughing it off and then left practice. Tanya walked the courts to see the other games.
Paul didn’t realise Tanya was watching his game against the women’s first doubles until he returned a particularly nasty dropshot sent by Maggie Philtzer. He didn’t think it was a great return. He sent it straight back at her and leapt back into ready position for what he assumed would be a bullet right back at him. She mistimed her swing and sent the ball low into the net. Tanya whooped. Paul turned and caught her clapping against the face of her racket in appreciation.
By all accounts, Paul had a stellar season. He and Bill won the conference doubles championship. They were the only men’s team players to achieve any real success that year. Plus, Paul had a new partner to play with on the weekend day Matty couldn’t join him: Tanya. They were both dropped off and picked up by parents, so there wasn’t time for anything but tennis. Still, Paul was thrilled. She was better than him, by a lot, though he made her work for her points.
“Where’d you get this good?” she asked him after their first private match. “I thought I knew everyone who played tennis at school.”
Paul shrugged and tried to play it cool. “I just play with some family members. I didn’t think it was all that crazy.”
Tanya gave him a look that told him he hadn’t said the right thing. He scrambled. “I really like it, though. Tennis. I want to get better.”
Tanya appraised him from across the net. “Yeah, we’re going to play more often.”
They agreed to keep playing into the summer after the season ended. He was planning on eventually asking her out maybe. One day.
Paul would have chalked up the year as a complete success if he had won a single stinking point against Matty. But playing Matty was like hitting against the concrete racquetball wall behind the tennis courts in the park. The ball always came back and usually at an impossible angle to return.
Matty always stood in the area of the court that he would have scolded Paul for standing in. He easily reached any lob Paul sent that might have a chance at landing inbounds and only had to take a single step forward to return a drop shot. When Paul put a lob up that was out of reach, Matty didn’t even bother to watch it land out of bounds. He just stuck a finger up, indicating that he knew it was out, before taking a new tennis ball from his pocket.
Matty’s wife died in the middle of Paul’s junior year of high school. It happened suddenly, between tennis sessions. Paul came home from school one day and his father sat him down to tell him that he wouldn’t be able to play tennis with his great uncle for a few weeks and he should send his condolences.
“Wait? Has she been sick?” he asked. He played tennis with Matty twice a week and couldn’t believe something so serious wouldn’t have come up. At the very least, he would have complained about not being able to play with his wife.
“No,” his father said. “They think it was a stroke in her sleep. She didn’t suffer but it still surprised us all. Your mother’s going to her funeral this weekend.”
Paul sucked air through his teeth. He had an away tournament that weekend. The first, really important one he would play in. There were nationally ranked kids playing. He’d finally be able to test his mettle against junior players outside the limiting pool of his little peninsula. Paul knew he didn’t have a chance against the top ranked players. There was talk of at least one kid going pro in the next few months. He thought it would give him a better idea of the level of tennis he might play in college.
“You’re playing,” Matty told him on the phone.
“But I can’t—”
“Can’t shman’t. Becky and I have been to a lot of funerals in the last few decades. Comes with the territory of getting old. You know what she said at every single one?” Matty paused and Paul found himself shaking his head, no, like a toddler who didn’t understand yet that the person over the phone couldn’t see them. “She said, every time, ‘look how awful they look. Promise me that when I go, you’ll go out and hit some balls to remember me. Don’t come stare at me all trussed up like a turkey for the oven.’”
“Then you should be the one going out to play.”
“You know as well as I do that I can’t. For starters, Beth would have my head. She’s already got the whole thing planned. You’d think it was a wedding. You can at least do your great auntie the honor of hitting a few balls. And hit some of them right, will you?”
Paul’s father shrugged his shoulders when Paul told him what Matty said. “I’m not going either. Your mother wasn’t close to her aunt but you should at least sign the card.”
Paul felt weird loading up into the van to go play in the tournament, knowing that his great uncle was dressing up to attend a funeral. He and Tanya were the only two players from their school going. He knew it was a big deal for his school to send even two kids to the tournament but the lack of teammates left him feeling lonely.
He never did ask Tanya out. She was already committed to playing in college the next year and managed to place third in the tournament. Paul was nervous. His play wasn’t spectacular and he didn’t even finish in the top half. He played well against better opponents, however. He extended points longer than he should have been able to and won the attention of several Division III coaches.
Matty was thrilled to hear about the tournament. When Paul asked about the funeral, Matty acted like he didn’t hear him. “Tell me again about the set you won back after getting your serve broken. That was good. Once you get your serve up to par against some of these top guys, you’re going to be really something.” Those kind words assuaged more guilt than Paul understood. All he knew was when he hung up the phone, he felt like he’d won the whole thing.
The games with Matty grew more intense after Great Aunt Rebecca’s funeral. Aunt Beth wouldn’t let her father play with Paul any more frequently than before. While she was taking her mother’s sudden death in her stride it made her more cognisant of her father’s mortality. Matty made up for the low quantity of tennis with the ferocity of the games.
Paul realised that for much of their time together, Matty had been taking it easy on him. His shots weren’t hit any harder but they were precise. If Paul stood slightly out of position, he would find himself diving after unreachable balls or watching a shot go sailing over his head to kiss the baseline. They stopped jabbering. They communicated with angry grunts and little appreciative claps against their rackets. Paul learned how to be delicate and exact as well as forceful. He got better. He still never won a point against his great uncle.
The work with Matty prepared him for an incredible senior year. He was undefeated in the conference and played in bigger, more prestigious tournaments. He was invited to visit several college campuses and practice with their teams.
No one on the school team could compete with him and with Tanya at college dominating her conference, Matty was Paul’s only regular competition. He took their games more seriously than any schoolwork or even his school’s practices.
“Quit hitting it right back at me,” Matty shouted at him. He’d been yelling this to Paul for a year now and Paul suppressed a frustrated shout. Didn’t Matty know that he never tried to hit the ball back at him? He stalked back to the baseline to wait for the next rally.
Matty hit a shot to his backhand, making Paul run for it. Paul liked to have a moment to gather his feet before hitting a backhand and Matty always hit it just far enough away that he had to hit it on the run. It was a tough shot and bound to go right back to Matty if he hit it as he normally would. Instead of hitting a forceful, off-balance backhand, Paul lobbed the ball with a slice. It was a split-second, uncharacteristic shot and it caught them both off guard.
Paul saw Matty’s eyes go wide. There was a carnivorous glint to them. Matty grimaced and stuck his tongue out between his teeth. Instead of taking a short step back or sticking his finger up, indicating the ball was destined to fall out of bounds, Matty pivoted and ran to the baseline.
For the first two steps, Matty ran gracefully, like a man half his age. And then his arthritic knees caught up with him. He stumbled and fell.
“Just give me a minute,” Matty said. Paul hovered over him, worrying like a bee around a plastic flower. Matty tried to pick up his racket and dropped it. “Oh hell. It’s the wrist.” He paused and made a face like a toddler taking cough medicine. “You’d better call Beth.”
Beth arrived like she’d been waiting for something like this to happen. Paul hadn’t even helped Matty off the court before he heard her screeching brakes. She didn’t admonish Paul directly but her eyes said this would be the last of their tennis matches. She rushed Matty to the hospital, leaving Paul alone on the court to slam angry balls against the unyielding concrete racquetball wall.
Aunt Beth made it clear that Matty needed his rest. She banned everyone from the hospital. Paul thought it was odd that Matty was in the hospital for more than a few hours for his wrist and should have guessed there was something else wrong.
He found out later that there were irregularities in Matty’s bloodwork. Matty was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died two days later. It seemed impossible to Paul that Matty’s old but fit body hid a ticking bomb that whole time. He wondered if Matty had never gone to the hospital whether he would have just dropped dead suddenly or if the diagnosis itself was like frost wilting a late autumn flower. He didn’t consider Matty’s thoughts on funerals. He had the rest of his life to play tennis and only one chance to say goodbye to the great uncle who changed his life with the sport.
Paul waited in line to view the open casket and grew fidgety as he approached the front. He’d never seen a dead body before and hated that the first one he was going to see was going to be someone he cared so much about. He took out his anxiety on the people around him. There weren’t enough of them, in his opinion. Not even the entire extended family in the area was there but then again, he himself hadn’t gone to his Great Aunt Rebecca’s funeral. Still, it irked Paul that more people weren’t paying their respects. He stepped up to the casket and looked in.
Matty didn’t look like Matty. He looked like a waxen facsimile. His cheeks were too plump and covered in gaudy makeup, like a freshman at prom. Paul didn’t understand why someone would do that. Matty’s cheeks never had all that much color in the first place. Paul looked around, expecting someone, Matty even, to leap out and explain that it was all a joke. He swallowed. His father cleared his throat behind him, so Matty placed a hand on the casket and moved on.
There were snacks after the service. Aunt Beth made her rounds and even, reluctantly it seemed to Paul, spoke with Paul and his father.
“It was so kind of you to play with him like you did,” she said. She looked around for the next person she needed to greet and didn’t once meet Paul’s eyes. “He loved that sport. Tried to get me to take it up but you know how it is with kids and what their parents want them to do. Such a shame about the accident. Not that anyone blames you, of course. But still, I doubt he wanted his last few waking moments to be spent sweating on some court. Honestly, trying to keep up with a high schooler at his age. Almost serves him right.”
Aunt Beth shook her head and flitted away. Paul’s father didn’t realise anything was wrong and patted him on the shoulder before leaving to find a cup of coffee. Paul stood frozen. Until his Aunt Beth verbalised it, he hadn’t realised the anchor of guilt he felt about Matty’s death. A part of him believed that if he hadn’t been playing that day, if he hadn’t hit that particular shot, that Matty might still be alive.
Something else about Aunt Beth’s statement bothered him. She believed Matty’s tennis prowess waned in his old age. That he was a shadow of his former self desperately holding onto the memory of a racket that had long been snatched from his hands by arthritis. She didn’t know that Paul had never even scored a point, let alone beaten Matty. She didn’t know that last, fateful shot, the one that might have killed him, the best shot Paul had ever hit, landed uselessly out of bounds. He thought about telling her that he could think of no way Matty would have rather gone but on a tennis court. In the end, he decided not to. That last moment while they waited for her to arrive, that moment was his. Matty, an old man sprawled on the tennis court, unaware of his doom, grinned up at Paul and said, “You almost had me.”