Free Tilt by Alan Cumyn

have set off the airbag.
    â€œLily, don’t tell such lies!”
    â€œIt’s not a lie. He’s coming! He’s coming!” She made an angry song of it and twisted in her seat in time with the words.
    â€œI don’t care what your principal calls you. Don’t lie, young lady! You know the difference between truth and lies.”
    â€œHe’s coming! I saw him!”
    â€œIf you can’t show me that you have at least one foot in this reality there’s no way I will ever let you go to that special school. Do you understand?”
    Stan didn’t hear Lily’s reply. He was distracted by something — someone— sitting on the front porch. Stan had to concentrate to glide the car up the narrow driveway. All he saw, at first, was a flash of gray.
    Then he parked and they could all look at the strangely bearded man sitting on the steps as if he’d forgotten his keys.
    â€œDaddy!” Lily squealed, and she was out of the car and squirming in his arms.

10
    It wasn’t Stan’s father. Couldn’t be. For one thing, Stan’s father was taller than this mopey man. He was tall and angular and athletic. Stan’s father used to skate right past all defenders — two, three quick strides — and cut around the net with his long reach and tuck the puck inside the post before anyone even knew what had happened.
    Stan’s father could whip a baseball the length of the driveway and curve it so wickedly you had to watch the spin on the seams to have any chance of knowing what the ball might do. And if you missed it you’d have to run all the way through the backyard and under the hedge and into the Farquardsons’ garden to get it.
    Stan’s father could pick up a kid and twirl him like a helicopter blade so fast you were almost flying.
    This man — this imposter — had to straighten himself up just to avoid looking Stan in the eye. He had soft shoulders and a paunch and weak eyes, saggy in the corners. Not the dark, glinting ping-pong champion beamers that Stan remembered.
    He looked like a man who’d abandoned his kids years ago.
    â€œRon,” Stan’s mother said.
    â€œIsabelle,” Ron said.
    They stood on the little walkway in front of the house. Lily was still draped all over him. He pressed her thick hair to his neck as if hanging on to a cliff-face vine.
    All right, his father would do that. But this man — Ron — was crumbling in the corners. He looked like all the other middle-aged men Stan’s mother had dated in the past few years.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” Stan’s mother asked.
    Ron buried his pudgy hand in Lily’s hair and mumbled something about bus fare.
    â€œWhat’s bus fare got to do with anything?”
    â€œThere was a special on. I saw a flyer for it and so I thought I’d come.”
    Ron still hadn’t looked Stan square in the eye. Stan might as well have been a fence post. It was up to his father to say something.
    Up to Ron, who wasn’t up to much.
    â€œThat wasn’t our agreement,” Stan’s mother said. “You can’t come here and disrupt everything just because there’s a special on.”
    â€œI’m special,” Lily blurted. “I’m going to go to a special school!”
    â€œPlease get down, Lily,” her mother said.
    â€œWhy can’t we just have a visit?” Ron pleaded.
    â€œThey tested me and I’m extraordinary,” Lily said, not getting down. Ron gripped her tighter.
    This man made Gary look good.
    â€œI just hopped on a bus. That’s all —”
    â€œYou just owe us four years, three months’ worth of child support!” Stan’s mother turned her icy gaze on Lily. “Lily.”
    Lily hugged the man — Ron — all the harder. Stan imagined taking out the side of his knee with a sweeping kick. He’d collapse like a broken tent pole.
    â€œLook, I’m not