Roy had expected Shy to be gangly and clumsy, but she was rather good. Of course the Latin teacher git Streko offered no words of encouragement whatsoever.

Roy had wasted the entire morning searching the bookshelves in the library for a poem he’d read long ago, something about “a new planet.” The poem was by Byron, or Keats, or Shelley. He’d texted Peaches, but she’d yelled at him grumpily, via text, that he was the one who’d read English at Oxford. Then she’d found it for him anyway. It took her about ten seconds to google it. The poem was by Keats.

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken

Now that Roy had it, he had no idea what to do with it. He’d written a paragraph comparing Isabel and Bettina to the women in The Handmaid’s Tale, and then deleted it. He’d read and reread the previous paragraphs he’d written, and then deleted them too. He’d written the bulk of the story—he was in the homestretch. But why this absurd plot and not some other? Why these characters? Why these sentences? Why these words?

Because, he’d told himself. It’s what you do. If Shy could suffer the indignities of high school and Wendy could take a crowded subway to run a magazine in Manhattan every day, then he could stop asking so many stupid questions and just get on with it. But instead of getting on with it, he’d come to the match.

“Go, girl! Pick up your feet!”

Roy stood up. Shy had scored again with her impossible serve. It looked like she was holding the racket completely wrong and the ball was going to hit the floor, but miraculously it landed on the table, just barely in.

“Come on, black and white!” he yelled again, delighted that he’d made the effort to come and cheer her on. Shy’s smarmy Latin teacher refused to even look at him, even though he was the loudest person in the gym.

The girls took a water break. Shy jogged in place as she sipped from a bottle of Poland Spring. She flashed Roy a smile and he winked at her. His other daughters had played field hockey and tennis, but he’d never watched them. Perhaps that’s why they hated him.

The girls in his book could be sporty, he thought as he sat down again. And table tennis would work perfectly on Mars, if they could fit the table in a spacecraft. The girls would request one and be super excited when it came. Ceran would be hopeless, but the girls would play constantly. That’s how they’d keep fit during their pregnancies.

Beep, beep!