Solo by Hope Solo (best free ereader .TXT) 📕

When I didn’t respond, she said again, “You can do this.”

Bri had lost her father on Father’s Day of 2004, just weeks before the Athens Olympics. She stared intently at me, as though passing her strength and experience through the air between us. I kept my eyes on her. “You can, Hope,” Bri said. “You can do this.” Then she got up and walked out of the room, like a woman on a mission.

Greg came in and stood awkwardly in the middle of the scene. I was in shock. Aly was on the phone. Cat was packing my bag. Marci was rubbing my leg. Other girls huddled on the bed or leaned against a wall. Greg walked over and patted me on the shoulder. “Take care, kiddo,” he said. And then he walked out.

Aly and Cat arranged for a taxi to the airport. As we were leaving my room, Bri returned. She slipped a letter into my hand. “You can do this Hope,” she said, again. “You’re strong.”

II.

At the airport, Aly and Cat checked me in, helped me get into the security line and hugged me good-bye. And then I was alone, sitting in a chair at my gate. For years, I had always called my dad before I flew, a ritual to ward off my fear of flying. I couldn’t call him now. I was alone with my terrors, old and new.

Memories of my dad rushed at me. Dad holding me up to the basketball hoop in the driveway of the smiley-face house. Dad weeping as he proclaimed his innocence to me in front of REI. Dad reaching out to hug me near a damp Seattle soccer field. Showing me his tent in the woods. Pointing out the sights of Seattle from the top of the Space Needle. Sitting high in the stands in his purple University of Washington sweatshirt. Laughing as he tried to figure out a computer keyboard.

There was so much I still didn’t know about him. So much more laughter to share. I put my head on my knees and sobbed.

After a few moments, I realized someone was standing near me. I looked up and saw an unfamiliar man with a kind expression, who said, “It’s your father, isn’t it?”

I nodded, wiping my eyes with my sleeve.

“Only a daughter cries like that for her father.”

On the plane I pulled my hood over my head and opened Bri’s letter.

She wrote from the heart, describing exactly how I felt. She knew because she had felt the same way—with her heart and soul ripped apart. “It will take time,” she wrote, “and, to be honest, it will never go away completely.” She encouraged me to hold on to my dad’s spirit to help me get through these dark days, to carry him inside me and let myself cry when I needed to.

“You can do this, yes you can,” she wrote. “Do it for both of you.”

She closed by letting me know that she was there for me.

I flew west. I remembered that Sunday would be Father’s Day.

III.

My father had been sleeping on the couch in the apartment of his friend, Beverly, who also lived at Hilltop. He hadn’t felt right, and she had checked on him early in the morning. “I’m fine,” he told her and went back to sleep. An hour later, he was dead; the cause of death was coronary artery disease.

Everyone in his life knew about his upcoming trip to New York. He bragged that he would see Baby Hope play at Giants Stadium, on the same field where Eli Manning played. He couldn’t wait to travel with his two youngest children and show us his childhood landmarks. To take us on a carriage ride through Central Park and visit Yankee Stadium, where as a kid he had seen Mickey Mantle play. “I’m going to take them back to where it all started for me,” he told his friend Mark.

He was happy. He couldn’t wait for our trip. He had bought a suit for the journey and was already all packed, weeks in advance. The pain and craziness of his life had ceased. He was content, surrounding himself with family and good vibes.

One of the last things my father and I had done was paint my house, just a few weeks earlier. My little cabin in the woods was a dark brown, and I wanted to freshen it up. I picked out a cream color and a plum color for the trim. And then we had a painting party: me, Adrian, my dad, and my mother. I remember him working so hard to paint my shutters, though he was using primer that didn’t cover well and he got frustrated as it slipped off and left streaks. He joked that we had given him an impossible job. He and Adrian painted the carport, each working on a different side, competing to see who could do a better job. My dad sat in a rocking chair with a long-handled roller, slapping paint on the wall and joking that two city boys like he and Adrian weren’t used to such hard labor and needed a pay raise: meanwhile, my mother and I were doing all the hard work. But we were laughing all the time. The music was blasting. The weather was great. My dad’s chatter never stopped.

Terry called that day. She was thinking about stopping by. “Dad’s here,” I told her. For almost seven years I’d done my best to keep them apart. She never came by.

That night we all went out to dinner: my mom, my dad, Adrian’s parents, Adrian, and I. Like a normal family.

When I landed at Sea-Tac Airport, Adrian was waiting. He had been the second person I called. He loved my father, and even when things were difficult between us, he had been my dad’s favorite. “Don’t be upset about Adrian,” Dad would tell me. “You two are in love. You just