The solar has simply set over the Palos Verdes hills, and the tennis courtroom lights are buzzing to life. I’m having fun with time with my husband, Steve, standing between clear strains on the deep blue courts made bluer by the factitious glow. It feels acquainted and self-contained, the 2 of us alone in our little rectangle-shaped world. I nearly imagine that every part’s going to be OK, regardless of the telephone name we simply had.
I watch Steve toss the ball excessive over his head in a straight line, putting “the trophy pose” — the one you see on all of the trophies, with one arm reaching for the sky and the opposite holding the racket cocked again. And with the grace of a dancer and the drive of a quarterback, he whips his racket over his head to attach with the ball in an ideal serve.
“Just like that,” he says, smiling. “Did you see how my racket scratched my back?”
I’m somewhat breathless watching — and never simply because the temperature has dropped. I want I may serve “just like that.” However largely, I’m admiring my superb husband.
“Yeah, just like that. You make it sound so easy,” I tease.
The serve, I’ve realized, is a very powerful shot in tennis as a result of it’s the one one you management. Every part else is only a response. It’s arduous to good, and nonetheless new to tennis myself, I’m afraid I’ll by no means get it.
“Remember, if the toss isn’t good, don’t even try to hit it,” he says. Which is stable recommendation for courting too, now that I give it some thought. Steve’s and my on-line profiles couldn’t have been extra dissimilar. I used to be recovering from an excruciating divorce, however I signed up on the recommendation of my author buddies (“It’s great character material!”). My profile was only a photograph of my eye and a passage from a novel — one thing about how a pair reads their books: One dog-ears and underlines; the opposite retains their studying materials pristine. Steve posted a simple photograph with a whole description of who he was and who he needed to fulfill. Fortunate for me, he’s into literature.
We married 10 years later through the COVID pandemic on Catalina Island. We kayaked to our seashore “venue” with our laptop computer, rings and champagne rolled up in waterproof luggage. We traded life vests and bathing fits for wedding ceremony apparel behind a rock and related to shaky cell service so household and buddies may take part. Then we paddled again, racing to return the kayaks earlier than sunset. That’s what life with Steve is like. There’s no such factor as “can’t.” If I dream it, he will get it completed right down to the final element.
From tennis to residence repairs, I’m tempted to name in an skilled, however Steve’s credo is: If one other human can do it, I can too. From the telephone name we’d simply had, I used to be changing into conscious that this distinction between us was about to be examined. Having reverse courting profiles or studying types may be very totally different from conflicting stances on lifesaving medical remedy. Steve’s PSA popped outdoors the traditional vary throughout a routine lab check and his urologist really useful an MRI. Steve didn’t look ahead to the follow-up to study his destiny. He disappeared into his workplace, looking Google and selecting by means of the newest medical journals.
He even hung out studying to learn his personal MRI the identical manner he realized to play tennis: YouTube.
“Let’s see your toss,” Steve says, as one more of my serves crashes into the web. It’s getting colder and darker. “Try starting with both your arms straight,” he says. “Ajla Tomljanović does that.”
I doubt I can do something just like the “Break Point” star, however I attempt. I need to get this serve quick. Endurance isn’t one among my virtues. Additionally, we have to get residence, and, based on the urologist, we have to get began on remedy.
My intuition is to belief docs to know greater than I do. If they are saying biopsy, I ask when. Steve rejected the usual biopsy in favor of his personal plan, so he’ll want a referral, which is able to take time. Perhaps an excessive amount of time. The MRI indicated a big tumor that has unfold outdoors of his prostate. But right here we’re out on a tennis courtroom, worrying about whether or not a small fuzzy ball is touchdown in a painted field.
I watch Steve fish round within the basket of balls. “Look at my arm as I toss,” he says. I can’t, as a result of my eyes are swimming. The considered life with out this man is unimaginable. Prostate most cancers isn’t a dying sentence nowadays, but it surely’s additionally not one thing you set off. As I watch him strike the trophy pose once more, I shake my head to drive away ideas of his athletic physique deteriorating earlier than my eyes. I do know that the unintended effects of hormone remedy, horrifyingly referred to “chemical castration,” may be everlasting.
It makes me need to freeze this second. Through the name with the physician, Steve used the pronoun “we” so much — as in “We have prostate cancer” and “We want an MRI-guided biopsy.” His eyes met mine greater than as soon as, reassuring me that we’re nonetheless a workforce — similar to we’re on complicated video shoots for our enterprise, parenting a blended household and wrangling our 120-pound canine for a shower.
All these years later, the books on my nightstand are highlighted, annotated and dog-eared. Steve’s bookmarks largely level to YouTube channels. However we’re each consulting consultants in our personal methods.
He misreads my face and says, “Try to remember that tennis is play! Just relax and don’t think.”
How can I clarify to this star athlete that for me, play was by no means about competitors or ability? It was at all times about creativeness. That’s my superpower. I notice that if I hold utilizing it to think about the worst, it would make the tough time forward a lot tougher. As an alternative, because the courts round us go darkish one after the other, I take his hand and conjure up a picture of the 2 of us, many years from now, standing on one other blue tennis courtroom in some unique locale, lifting a large United States Tennis Assn. seniors combined doubles trophy — collectively.