Edward's Eyes (2 page)

It was dusk and the water
was flat and shining. Albert Groom and I were watching the daily summer baseball game in the front yard. Albert's dog, Weezer, lurked in the outfield.

“Weezer thinks he's an outfielder,” said Albert softly.

“He is,” I said. “He gets to the ball faster than Wayne.”

“That's because Wayne is too busy picking his nose,” commented Albert.

“Don't you want to play?” Albert asked me.

“I like to watch,” I said. “And these are all Edward's friends.”

“Too young for you?” asked Albert, smiling.

“No. I just like to watch,” I said. “Like you.”

“Well, I would play right now if my legs would make it around the bases,” said Albert.

“I watch,” I said.

“We'll watch then,” said Albert.

 

Albert's voice was musical, as if he might begin singing. His dark skin was almost blue black in the late light. Edward called Albert African-American. Albert called himself black. He had played baseball years ago. And his father, Trick, before him, had played in the Negro League. Every time there was a game in our front yard Albert was there on our porch, watching intently, as if it were a championship. His hand rested on his wooden cane.

Edward's friends were playing: Wayne, Billy Bob, Mavis, who was the best catcher, Lulu and Mary Brigid and Lukie and Morris and Ted and Brendan and Caitlin and Joe.

Edward walked to the plate. One out. Lukie
and Mary Brigid on base. Edward was the best hitter.

“Edward says he can see the ball coming,” I said. “He can see the path it's going to take, like a train on a track.”

It was true. Edward, in his entire eight years, had never once struck out.

“Those eyes,” said Albert admiringly, his voice so soft. “Those wonderful eyes,” he repeated in a whisper.

There was a crack sound of ball on wood. Edward hit a pop-up.

“Infield fly rule!” he cried happily, looking at me as if he had invented it himself.

Mavis dropped her blankie and came up to bat.

“Batter, batter, batter,” yelled Mary Brigid.

The sun went down. Weezer howled in the outfield, wishing for a long hit.

Mavis grounded out. She picked up her blankie. Everyone went home for dinner.

“See you tomorrow,” said Albert. He walked down the steps and went out to get Weezer, who would wait all night under the moon if Albert didn't take him home.

“Bonsoir, Albert Groom,” called Edward. “Bonsoir!”

The game was over.

“Did you live by the sea
when you were little?”

I woke up, hearing Edward's voice through my open window. When I looked out I could see Edward and Albert sitting on the porch.

“I was born by the sea,” said Albert.

“How old are you?” asked Edward.

Edward always asked Albert personal questions. He asked him anything and all things. He loved Albert. And Albert always told Edward the truth.

“Sixty-eight,” said Albert.

“Is that old?” asked Edward.

“Not to my father,” said Albert.

Albert's father, Trick, was ninety years old. He spent time walking around town, carrying a bag of pretzels and taking notes about everything he saw.

In the distance I saw Sola and Wren swimming, only their heads showing. They looked like sea otters. Albert's dog, Weezer, was swimming, too. Weezer came out of the water and started up the grass lawn to the house.

“Run!” called Albert.

Albert and Edward pushed back their chairs, and I heard the slam of the screen door.

Downstairs, Albert and Edward stood at the door, looking out. Maeve was playing music in the kitchen. James Taylor sang while she danced. I knew she was dancing even though I couldn't see her. Maeve always danced.

“I've seen fire and I've seen rain….”

“But I always thought that I'd see you again,” Albert sang with James Taylor. He smiled when he saw me on the stairs.

“Morning, Jake.”

“Morning.”

Light came through the screen, making crisscrosses on Albert's face.

“Is it safe to go out now?” whispered Edward.

Albert shrugged.

“We'll see,” he said, pushing open the screen door.

I could still hear Maeve, in the kitchen, singing along with James Taylor.

 

Weezer, closer than they think, shakes seawater all over Albert and Edward.

“Weezer! Dumb old boy!” shouts Albert.

Edward's laughter mixes with my mother's music. Always, always, when Maeve sings I hear Edward's laughter. For the rest of my life.

Always.

“But I always thought that I'd see you again.”

“Summer!” called Jack.
He came up the hill with a box.

Sola and Wren hurried out of the water. Will left his window seat in the living room to come out to the porch.

“Books,” Will whispered. He grinned.

Summer always smelled like heat, the ocean, and the spines of old books.

Jack set the large box of books on the porch.

“My favorite!” I said, picking up a copy of
Treasure Island
.

“You read that last year,” said Will, digging through the box.

“I'll read it again,” I said. “I'll read it next year, too.”

“I know,” said Will, smiling.

Albert Groom sat on the steps, waiting for the next baseball game to begin.

“How to Pitch,”
said Edward happily, holding up a book.

He handed the book to Albert.

“Ah,” said Albert. He opened the book.

“The knuckleball,” he said softly, so softly that everyone looked at him. “One of life's mysteries. Think of it, the pitcher flips it toward home plate; it has no spin and you can't hit it. I've always thought of the knuckleball as a kind of Zen experience,” he said.

Jack smiled and sat back.

“We live on a sphere which is spinning 1,000 miles per hour, in a galaxy which is spinning,” said Albert. “Our bodies are made of molecules whose electrons are all spinning and orbiting. And with all this, and a small flip of the fingers and wrist, a round ball is thrown with zero spin.”

He looked up suddenly.

“A mystery.”

“A mystery,” repeated Edward, staring at Albert.

 

Every summer Jack and Maeve took time off from the bookstore, hiring college students who read the summer away, room by room, from history to architecture to bee-keeping.

“They fall in love,” said Jack, “with Chekhov and Shakespeare and Margaret Wise Brown.”

“And with each other,” said Maeve, music following her as she came out of the house. “In the heat. Jack doesn't believe in air-conditioning,” she told Albert.

“It's unromantic,” said Jack, making Albert smile.

“Oh?” Maeve commented, her eyebrows raised. “Sweat is romantic?”

Jack and Maeve looked at each other and we'd roll our eyes and smirk, somehow knowing that they had fallen in love between the rows
of books, too. Probably sweating, the two of them.

“Have you ever been in love?” Edward asked Albert.

“Edward, that's private,” said Maeve.

Albert smiled. “That's all right, Maeve.”

“Many times,” he said to Edward. “Sometimes, on the baseball field, I'd look over into the stands and a girl would be looking back at me. Sometimes, it was as if we were the only ones there, no one else around. Until a fly ball came, of course,” he added.

“That is very romantic, Albert,” said Maeve.

“So you never got married?” I asked.

“I was married to baseball,” said Albert.

“Me, too,” said Edward.

Everyone laughed.

Will found two more books at the bottom of the box.

“This is better than Christmas,” he said.

I picked up a book on the animals of Africa.

“Better than birthdays,” I said. “Better than most anything.”

And it was, rummaging around boxes of books, squirreling away books in our rooms, treasures waiting to be discovered and traded, read and reread.

In the summer Maeve tossed a flowered tablecloth over the television set, serving teas in the afternoons with little cucumber and watercress sandwiches with the crusts cut off, bowls of chocolates and jelly beans, mostly red, and cookies. There were black and green olives, and salads with strange names like endive and radicchio with raspberry and walnut dressing, and for all of us, cakes that were Maeve's trademark. She was not a good cook, Maeve, but she made tea cakes with chocolate and marshmallow and almond cream icing topped with candied decorations. I don't think they were baked. Wren once said that they had to harden out of boredom, standing around in the summer heat. They were sweet,
though, so sweet that we had to eat them with glasses of ice water lined up in a row to wash away the sugar. Even Sola, the true sweet eater of the family, couldn't eat more than one. After one “coma cake,” as Sola called it, she would stagger to the porch hammock strung between two white pillars.

“Don't touch me,” she'd warn us, her arms over her eyes. “Don't even speak to me. And do not swing the hammock. I'll be sick.”

The rest of us, by that time, were so energized by sugar that we went outside to run around violently in the heat, sometimes playing soccer. Before the sun went down Maeve would come out to hit us baseballs with the fungo bat. We chased baseballs until by dusk we lay in exhausted heaps.

Out over the water there was an orange full moon above, a watery one below. Edward put his head on my shoulder, and the air was still. Then, one by one by one, the lightning bugs came out.

“Are you asleep, Edward?” I whispered.

“Yes, I am,” said Edward, making me laugh.

Sometimes Maeve and Jack would lead us off to bed. But most times, if there wasn't rain coming, they would toss blankets over us and we'd sleep outside, Edward's head on my shoulder, his sweet-smelling breath soft on my neck.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Wren, Will and Edward were behind the barn, Wren hunkered down behind a home plate bag, Will sitting to the side reading aloud, Edward pitching.

Will looked at me for a moment as he read.

“The ball should be held as shown…clenching the ball with your bent fingers….”

He got up and went over, showing a picture to Edward.

Edward nodded.

“I'm learning to throw a new pitch,” said Edward. “I'm going to surprise Albert Groom on his birthday.”

I smiled. Edward often used Albert's whole name. It was as if Edward liked to say it. Albert Groom.

“What pitch?” I asked. Edward tried all things. Even a new pitch.

“You'll see,” said Edward. “Ready?” he called to Wren.

Wren grinned.

“It's only a Wiffle ball, Edward. You're not going to hurt me.”

Edward threw a slow-looking, loopy pitch.

Wren caught it and stood.

“That's very odd, Edward,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“No spin,” she said. “No spin at all. And it dipped.”

Edward smiled.

“It says here in this book,” said Will, “that Annabelle Lefty Lee once threw a perfect game when she played in the women's league. She threw a knuckleball. It says here that if it works
batters can't hit it. If it doesn't even the pitcher doesn't know where it's going.”

“Risky,” said Edward. “I like that.”

“Not afraid of anything,” Wren said to me.

“It doesn't
look
very hard to hit,” I said. “It looks slow and easy.”

Edward looked at me.

“Come on, Jake.” He beckoned. “You try.”

I shook my head.

“I'm not a good hitter,” I said.

“Doesn't matter,” said Edward with a grin. “You won't hit this anyway. No one can. Come on,” he repeated.

I picked up the bat and stood in the batter's box.

“You're going to love this,” said Edward.

He threw the ball. It seemed to come slowly, and I cocked the bat and swung. And missed.

Will laughed.

“Doesn't look too hard to hit,” he said.

“Don't mock me,” I said. “Throw it again, Edward.”

He threw.

“Strike two,” he said as I swung and missed.

“Strike three.”

“Strike four.”

“Strike five.”

Wren and Will fell over laughing at me.

“Albert Groom is going to be very surprised,” said Edward.

 

It rained for a week, so there were no baseball games. But that didn't stop Edward. He practiced his new pitch every day, no umbrella. He begged Will, Wren and me to practice with him. And we did. Sola refused. He threw Wiffle balls at first, and then he went to a tennis ball. Finally, in the drizzle of late June, Wren's hair all curly from the humidity, we stood behind the barn, and Edward threw his first baseball knuckleball to Wren.

 

I stand behind the plate and watch. It is almost as if it happens in slow motion, this ball coming so slowly that we seem to wait forever for it. I can even see the stitching on the ball. And then it darts past Wren. Past me.

 

Will didn't say anything. Wren didn't say anything. I just looked at Edward and smiled. He smiled back.

“Right behind you, Annabelle Lefty Lee,” he said.

 

Finally the rain ended. Jack and Maeve joined Albert Groom and me on the porch to watch the game. The sky was overcast, clouds moving in over the water.

“Rain again, maybe,” said Jack.

“I hope not,” I said. “Edward has a surprise.”

Albert's hand rested on Weezer.

“What kind of surprise?” Albert asked.

“The best,” I said.

Albert turned to look at me.

“The best?” said Albert, smiling. “What can that be, Weezer?” Weezer thumped his tail against the porch floor. Mavis came with her blankie. Mary Brigid came wearing a dress.

“I have to go to a party after the game,” she complained.

“Very nice,” said Maeve.

“Sort of lends a formal quality,” said Albert Groom. Wayne, Billy Bob, Lukie, and Morris, Brendan and Caitlin came.

Weezer whined.

“All right,” said Albert. “Go out there.”

Weezer loped out to center field, turned and sat. Mavis and Joe laughed. The sun broke through, and Trick came up the side lawn.

“Have a seat, Trick,” said Jack.

“I will,” said Trick. “Weezer playing?”

“Very funny,” said Albert.

Trick winked at me.

“Play ball,” yelled Trick.

Edward smiled at him, then at Albert, and at me. He walked to the pitcher's mound.

I heard Albert take a breath. “Edward's
pitching
? He's not a pitcher.”

Wren came to sit on the steps, Will next to her. Even Sola came out on the porch and leaned against the wall.

The game began in sunlight.

 

Edward threw his first pitch.

“Hey!” called Mary Brigid. “What
was
that?”

Albert sat up straight and peered at Edward.

“Hey,” called Trick, imitating Mary Brigid, “that was a knuckleball!”

“When did this happen?” whispered Albert.

“All through the week of rain,” I told him. “He practiced every day.”

“A knuckleball is almost impossible to catch,” said Wren. “But I got pretty good at it. Even in the rain.”

Albert smiled at her.

“Good for you.”

Edward threw two more knuckleballs. Three strikes. Mary Brigid was out.

Wayne, Billy Bob and Mavis were out, too. And Mary Brigid again.

Finally Wayne, frustrated, threw his bat at the ball, surprisingly hitting it into the outfield. Weezer grabbed the ball and ran down to the water, prancing along the edges of the water.

Edward walked over to the porch.

“I learned to do it,” he told Albert, “but it's still a mystery.”

“Yes,” said Albert, beaming.

“Happy birthday, Albert Groom,” Edward said.