Free The Mourning Hours by Paula Treick Deboard Page B

Johnny’s matches, she sat in a corner of the gymnasium with the other kids from Lincoln High. The girls took turns braiding each other’s hair or passing around homework to be copied; they snapped gum and sucked lollipops and leaned close, heads together, for a whispered conversation that ended in a bout of hysterical laughter. Stacy carried a thick binder that was completely covered with doodles. Stacy and Johnny. I love Johnny H. Stacy Lynne Hammarstrom. It made me feel funny, to see her trying on our name for size.
    She always crossed the bleachers to say hello to us, to chat about how Johnny was doing or how Johnny was feeling or who Johnny was up against. She had become a wrestling expert overnight. “See that one there, in the green sweatshirt? That’s Crowley, he’s in the 160s, too. That’s Johnny’s toughest opponent of the day,” she would say, bent into our airspace. From her necklace dangled the gold heart locket that Johnny had bought her for Christmas, with the money he’d saved from doing his chores and other odd jobs around our farm.
    When Johnny was on the mat, Stacy was a ball of nerves. She whispered, over and over, “Get him, Johnny, pin him, Johnny” like a breathless rosary. Once, when the tension became too much, she grabbed my hand and squeezed it until tears pooled in the corners of my eyes. Even when I tried to wriggle free, she hung on, not noticing.
    Johnny qualified for regionals at the end of February, and Stacy made the drive to Wausau with us. Wrapped in a navy peacoat over her Ships sweatshirt, she perched in the middle of the backseat between Emilie and me and insisted that she was perfectly comfortable, even though her long legs were wedged against the front seat. Mom turned on the radio and hummed along to the Top 40. Mostly we watched the frozen Wisconsin countryside pass in a dull blur through our windows.
    “You know what?” Stacy confessed into my ear at one point. “I have this theory. If I’m watching Johnny’s match, then he’ll win. If I don’t watch, he’ll lose. Like it’s all up to me. Is that crazy, or what?”
    I looked up to see Dad glancing at Stacy in the rearview mirror. I could tell from the rigid way that Mom was holding her neck that she was listening, too.
    We were joining Johnny on the second day of regionals; to move on to state, he would have to wrestle his way through a thirty-two-man bracket. Coach Zajac spotted us in the gym immediately and waved us over.
    “How’s he doing?” Dad asked, extending his hand for a shake.
    “Three wins. First guy, he pinned in only twenty seconds. He ran into a tough guy in the second round, kid who kept shoving him around, and the ref wasn’t calling it. So Johnny roughed him up a bit.”
    “Oh, yeah?” Dad asked.
    “Got him in an arm bar, twisted it too far, and all of a sudden the kid’s screaming.” Coach shook his head, a smile playing on his lips. “Your kid doesn’t take crap from anyone, that’s for sure. Come on, let’s say hi to some folks.”
    Coach walked Dad around the gymnasium, introducing him to scouts and WIAA officials and reporters who had come all the way from Milwaukee. Stacy and Emilie found friends to sit with, and Mom, with a spirit of abandon, ordered us greasy slices of cheese pizza and bottles of Coca-Cola from the snack stand in the foyer. When we took our seats in the bleachers later, my stomach was protesting.
    Johnny, prepping for his matches, kept to himself. He seemed to lurk in one corner of the gym or another, his face mostly hidden by the hood of his sweatshirt. We watched him pin his opponent from Sturgeon Bay easily, securing his place in the final. Someone behind us said, “Watch out for that one. He nearly broke a kid’s arm last night.” I turned around, trying to identify the speaker, but no face stood out of the crowd.
    Then Johnny wandered over to us, the straps of his singlet hanging down, a few ribs and curly golden chest hairs visible. Sweat shone on