The ball left Jayden's hands before the sun had finished climbing over the roof of the house across the street. It spun in the early light, struck the rim with a metallic ring, and dropped through the net with a soft swish that made him smile. He caught the rebound on one bounce and dribbled back to the edge of the driveway, where the concrete met the sidewalk in a thin gray seam. Maple Ridge was still quiet. Somewhere a sprinkler clicked on. A car door shut two streets over. But on the Carters' driveway, it was just Jayden, the ball, and the hoop.
The hoop had been there longer than some of his memories. His father had put it up the summer Jayden turned nine, bolting the base to the driveway with anchors that went deep into the concrete. Sergeant Aaron Carter had done everything like a Marine, even the small jobs. He had leveled the base with a spirit level, checked it three times, tightened each bolt in a star pattern, and then stood back with his hands on his hips and declared it the finest basketball hoop in the state of North Carolina. Jayden had believed him completely. He still did.
That was seven years ago. Aaron had been gone for three.
Jayden dribbled left, crossed over, and pulled up from just inside the free-throw line he had painted himself with white chalk that washed away every few rainstorms and had to be drawn again. He liked drawing it. It was a small ritual, the chalk dust on his fingers, the careful straight line. His mother said it was the one chore he never complained about. The ball hit the backboard and fell in. Two in a row. He chased it down and started again.
He remembered the way his father had taught him to shoot. Elbow in, knees bent, follow through like you were reaching into a cookie jar on a high shelf. Aaron had said that line a hundred times, and Jayden had rolled his eyes a hundred times, and now he said it to himself every morning without thinking. Elbow in. Knees bent. Cookie jar. The ball went up and came down clean.
Varsity tryouts were three weeks away, and Jayden had been running the same loop in his head for days. Coach Bennett had told him last spring he had the quickest first step of any sophomore he had coached in ten years. But there were only so many spots. So he was out here at six-forty in the morning, putting up shots before school, because the mornings were the only time the day belonged entirely to him.
His mother was already awake. He could hear the coffeemaker gurgling through the open kitchen window, and a minute later Denise Carter appeared in the doorway in her scrubs, her hair pulled back, a travel mug in her hand. She worked the day shift at the hospital, which meant she left at seven and didn't get home until the evening, and the mornings were their overlap, the twenty minutes when they were both in the house at the same time and awake.
"You're up early," she said, though she said it every morning he was out here, which was most mornings.
"Tryouts," Jayden said, as if that explained everything. It did.
She watched him shoot for a moment, leaning against the doorframe. "Your father used to do the same thing," she said. "Up before everybody. He said the morning was the only honest part of the day."
Jayden caught the ball and tucked it under his arm. "Did he really say that?"
"He said a lot of things that sounded better at six in the morning." She smiled, but there was something underneath it, the thing that was always underneath it when they talked about Aaron. Three years, and it still rose up at odd moments, like a bruise you forgot about until you pressed it. "Don't be late for school. And Jayden — keep it down a little? Mrs. Abernathy next door works nights."
"I will," he said. He always tried to keep it down. The ball on concrete was the ball on concrete, though. There was only so much a person could do.
She left for work at seven on the dot, waving from the car, and Jayden went back to his shooting. He worked through his routine the way his father had taught him: ten free throws, ten from each elbow, ten from the corners, then dribbling drills up and down the driveway until his legs burned. By the time he finished, the sun was fully up and the street had woken. A delivery truck rumbled past. Somebody's dog barked. The hoop stood over him, the net swaying a little in the breeze, and Jayden stood at the top of the driveway looking at it the way you look at something that has been holding you up without you noticing.
The base of the pole was starting to rust a little where the paint had chipped. He made a mental note to sand it and repaint it that weekend, the same deep green it had always been. His father had picked the color. Forest green, like the uniforms, Aaron had said, except not really, but close enough that it made him feel at home. Jayden had never asked what he meant. Now he thought about it more than he wanted to admit.
He took one last shot from deep, from the spot near the sidewalk where the driveway met the street. The ball arced high, hung for a moment against the blue sky, and dropped straight through. Nothing but net. Jayden grinned, grabbed his bag from the porch, and headed inside to get ready for school, the screen door banging shut behind him the way it always did.
He did not notice the man standing at the window of the house across the street, watching.