More Than Words: Stories of Hope (10 page)

She shook her head, unable to speak.

“Good. Don’t, please, Laura. Charlie’s been slammed to the floor enough, and a couple of hours ago you’d have been the first one to point that out, remember? Now I finally see the light, understand where you were coming from, and you do a one-eighty on me? I don’t get it.”

Laura tried to smile. “Maybe this pessimist is just coming late to the party?”

“Maybe. Shame this particular party is already over,” Jake said, leaning down to kiss her.

Laura watched as her husband left the family room. She couldn’t have been more surprised if Jake had set his own hair on fire. Jake, turning into the pessimist? No! That wasn’t the division of labor they’d decided on. Sure, they’d never discussed it, but that’s how it had shaken out—Jake the cheerleader, Laura the worrier. How dare he try to change the ground rules now?

“Except it’s just what he said—
I’m
changing the ground rules, too,” she muttered to herself. “Man, talk about lousy
timing.” She headed back to the family room with another can of soda, hoping Jake would be in bed and asleep by the time she went upstairs, because she was too chicken to see him right now. “Cluck,” she said quietly as she collapsed onto the couch and picked up the TV remote. “Cluck, cluck, cluck…”

Oh yeah. Life was just one big carnival….

B
y ten o’clock the next morning Laura, Charlie and Sarah were munching junk food in the cafeteria of the local hospital. It was too late for breakfast, too early for lunch, but Charlie hadn’t been allowed to eat before his blood was drawn, so they all took what they could find. Laura had a slice of lemon meringue pie that had probably been on the shelf since the Kennedy administration. She’d never had to chew meringue before…

Laura was the proverbial bundle of nerves, which upset her because she liked to think she had gotten beyond that. And she had to stay cool, look relaxed, because the kids took their emotional cues from her, and she couldn’t let them know she was nervous.

But waiting for Charlie’s blood test results was pretty much like waiting for that last thread to snap and the two-ton safe hanging three stories above your head to fall. Your chances of moving, getting out of the way, were pretty good. But there was always the possibility you’d get your foot caught in a crack in the sidewalk and couldn’t jump fast enough or far enough.

She stabbed at the slice of pie one more time and the entire wedge of lemon pulled away from the crust and hung on her fork. She’d always said that the best diet aid would be eating all your meals in a hospital cafeteria.

She wished Jake could have been here with them. He’d be laughing and telling jokes with the kids, making the time pass quickly instead of the way every second, every minute was dragging now. And he was going out of town on business again, leaving her to deal with everything on her own. She’d like to go out of town. Hell, she’d like to go to the supermarket alone. When was their last vacation? Too long ago, if she couldn’t even remember it.

“I could have stayed home with Brenda, but she has an orthodontist appointment,” Sarah whined, not for the first time.

“I know, honey,” Laura said with all the sympathy she could muster as she leaned over and kissed her daughter’s curls. “And I would have left you with any number of total strangers if I wasn’t afraid they’d bring you back, so let’s just make the best of it, okay? We’ll be home by two.”

“Here, Sarah,” Charlie said, handing over his Game Boy. “You can play with this if you promise to do it over there where I don’t have to watch. Oh, and don’t erase my scores.”

“Thanks, Charlie,” Sarah said, grabbing the toy before her brother could change his mind and retreating to an empty table some distance away.

Laura looked at her son, amazed. “I thought you said you’d never let her play with that.”

Charlie shrugged. “She was being a pain in the neck so I figured I’d shut her up,” he told her with the infinite wisdom of a fourteen-year-old. “Dad says life is full of compromises.”

Laura smiled across the table at her son. “Oh, he did, did he? And when was that?”

Charlie slid his arms forward on the tabletop, resting his chin on the worn Formica. He’d learned, over the years, how to make himself comfortable anywhere, especially during long waits in hospitals. “Last night. Compromises and trade-offs, he said. I can’t play on a team with kids my own age and I can’t play with younger kids who are more my size because those are the rules, so maybe I should think about writing about baseball, being the team statistician or maybe taking photographs of baseball. Whatever.”

“But you still want to play?”

“Yeah, well, sure.” Charlie made a face. “But it’s not going
to happen, Mom. I’m not good enough. It’s not just the kidney. I’m just not good enough. Not tall enough, not fast enough, not strong enough. It’s like Coach said—if I tried to block second base on a double play, I’d be buried alive under the guy sliding into the bag.”

“Then nobody should be allowed to slide,” Laura said, sifting through this information and mentally purchasing a baseball rule book online. A rule book and a highlighting pen.

Charlie sat back in the chair, sliding down on the base of his spine, and grinned rather condescendingly at his mother. “Mom, baseball players
slide
. It’s part of the game, for crying out loud. I can’t ask the other kids not to play the game the way it’s supposed to be played.”

“No, you can’t,” Laura agreed, the wheels turning in her head again. “But maybe there’s a way for a team to play by different rules, rules that make more sense for the kids…”

With inimitable eloquence, Charlie said, “Huh?”

Laura mentally slapped herself. Jake had warned her not to say anything, not to do anything that got Charlie all excited, just so he could be knocked down again. “Oh, nothing, honey, I was just thinking out loud. Women do that, you know. Hey, there’s Duane. You remember him, don’t you? Duane Johnson. He was your roommate here for a few days last year.”

Charlie swiveled around as Duane and his mother entered
the cafeteria. “Oh, yeah, sure. Duane. Wow, he’s walking a lot better, isn’t he?”

As the boy came closer, Laura could see the braces sticking out from beneath the cuffs of his slacks. “He is. No more crutches. Isn’t that wonderful? Why don’t you go say hi?”

As Charlie got to his feet, Laura waved to Cherise Johnson, motioning for her to come sit at the table with her. “Hi,” she said as the other woman sat down. “We haven’t seen you guys in a while. Duane looks great.”

Cherise smiled widely. “He does, doesn’t he? This last surgery really has worked a miracle. Charlie looks good.”

For a few minutes, the two women caught up on their children’s’ medical histories, because that was what the mothers of kids like Charlie and Duane did. Sometimes, when things were really bad, that became their only topic of conversation, something that had always scared Laura.

So she did her usual “he’s been fine since the transplant, knock wood,” then actually did knock wood by tapping the seat of her chair, and Cherise did a little bragging about twelve-year-old Duane’s progress with his guitar lessons and his expertise at model plane construction.

“Does Charlie have any hobbies?” Cherise asked.

“If you can count computer games, I guess so,” Laura said, smiling. “Oh, and he loves baseball. My husband actually carved
out some bases in the backyard. We like to make sure Charlie gets exercise, gets outside in the fresh air, you know?”

“Yeah, I hear you, girl. That’s always been the tough part with Duane. You know, that old thing—an object at rest tends to stay at rest? He’s starting to put on a few too many pounds, and that has to stop.”

Laura spoke before she thought, or before she could think to keep her mouth shut. “Does Duane like baseball?”

Cherise frowned. “Baseball? Duane? I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I think he tries to stay away from things that might make him upset because he can’t do them very well. When did Charlie start playing?”

“He started on a rubber-ball team back before he got sick, but now he can’t seem to make the hardball team. While the other kids were growing bigger and stronger and playing ball, Charlie was stuck attached to a machine three days a week and too sick to do much of anything for most of the rest of them.”

“I’m still hearing you. For a lot of years, Duane was either waiting for an operation or recovering from an operation. We’ve had several minor miracles, but not without a fight. Baseball, you said? Tell me more.”

Laura felt the excitement she’d experienced at Riley’s with Jayne Ann coming back to her. “Another mom and I started thinking last night—why shouldn’t kids who want to play on a team be allowed to play, you know? We could make up our
own teams—oh, and our own rules, as my son just pointed out to me. All we need are the kids. And a field. And some coaches.” Laura wrinkled her nose. “And some uniform shirts and caps from a sponsor, and some bats and balls and mitts, and—well, we were just brainstorming.”

Cherise looked over at her son, and then back at Laura. “Brainstorming, huh? But you’re really serious, aren’t you? Who all could be on the team? I mean, Duane’s two or three years younger than Charlie. Could he be on the team?”

Laura’s enthusiasm ratcheted up another notch and she leaned her elbows on the table. She hadn’t been this excited, this hopeful, in a long, long time. “Sure, why not? Everyone’s welcome. I mean, that’s the whole idea, Cherise—getting the kids to play baseball. Giving them a team, making them feel part of a larger whole, allowing them to recognize their abilities and not just dwell on what they can’t do. And the moms and dads, too. Getting them together, giving them something hopeful, you know? Something to cheer about. Not like a support group where we all sit around and dwell on what’s wrong in our lives and try to comfort each other, but a reason to feel
happy
and
hopeful.
A reason to
cheer…”
She swiped at her stinging eyes. “Sorry, Cherise. It seems I care more about this than I realized.”

Cherise grinned. “I thought you were coming over the table for me for a minute there, sweetie. But you know what? I like it.
I like it a lot, and I know my husband will like it, too. Bert’s always trying to get Duane up and off his butt. Now, tell me again what we need, because I think I can help on one thing at least.”

“Really? Because I have to be honest, a friend and I just started talking about this last night. I mean, it’s mostly a dream right now.”

“If you can’t dream, what’s left?” Cherise said, spreading her arms, and suddenly Laura did want to “come over the table” and hug the woman. “So, if you can figure out a way to get enough people together to do it, we can loan you a couple of acres Bert’s dad owns about five miles out of town. You know, our own field of dreams?”

“A field of dreams,” Laura repeated, looking over at the kids in time to see Charlie helping Duane to steady himself on his feet before they headed toward their mothers. Sarah was bringing up the rear, still madly pushing buttons on the Game Boy. “And a team of heroes.”

“Right. All we’re missing is Kevin Costner, and while I have to tell you that’s a damn pity, I think we can manage without him.” Cherise hugged her son against her side and planted an embarrassing kiss on his chubby cheek. “Hey, hero, how’d you like to play baseball with Charlie?”

Laura bit her lip and looked at her son. It was too late to back down now, wasn’t it? She’d opened her big mouth and stuck her foot right in it.

“You mean in our backyard, Mom?”

“Well, sure, to start,” Laura said, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. “But maybe, if we can get enough kids together to make up a team, we could play on a real field.”

“What kind of kids?” Charlie asked, looking at his mother as if she’d suddenly grown another head. “Kids like me, you mean? Kids like Bobby, and Bruce Lee, and Duane here? That kind of kids?”

Oh no. Was Charlie going to reject the idea out of hand? They’d tried so hard to impress on him that he was as normal as the next kid, that his problems were over and he could go on with his life, and now here she was, classing him with kids with different problems from his, but problems that clearly weren’t ever going to go completely away.

“A bad idea, Charlie?” she asked him as he sat down beside her.

“Heck no, Mom, it’s a great idea. I could play
and
coach, don’t you think? I mean, I know the game, right? But we’d need more than one team. You need two teams to play baseball, or else it’s just practice. I bet Jacob Cohen would want to play. You remember him, Mom, right? He used to ride the special bus with me when nobody wanted me riding the regular bus that year.”

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t think I remember Jacob.”

“Sure you do, Mom,” Sarah piped up. “He’s the kid with, like, only one and a half arms. How could you forget that?”

Laura closed her eyes in embarrassment. Children were so unfailingly blunt. “Thank you, Sarah,” she said, hoping Cherise didn’t think she was raising rude, insensitive children. “I do think I remember Jacob now.”

“He’d be fine, Mom,” Charlie said. “There was this guy, Jim Abbott, who was a lot like Jacob. He only had one hand, but he pitched in the big leagues for the Angels and the Yankees, even pitched a no-hitter one year. That’s
big
, Mom. He only batted twenty-three times because he mostly played in the American League and didn’t have to bat, but he got
two
hits. That’s better than a lot of pitchers with two hands. Oh, and he got a gold medal in the Olympics. Not that Coach Billig ever would have let Jim Abbott play on one of
his
teams.”

“How do you know all of this?” Laura asked. Her son’s ability to remember baseball statistics still amazed her. Especially when he couldn’t seem to remember where they kept the clothes hamper.

“Grandpa got me his rookie card for Christmas last year. Hey, Duane, do you collect baseball cards?”

Duane shook his head. “Hockey cards. Me and Dad love the Flyers.”

“Dad and I,” Cherise said singsong, rolling her eyes. “Duane loves the idea of being on ice skates,” she explained to Laura.

“They move so fast, up and down the ice. It looks like they’re flying.” Duane’s huge brown eyes were filled with dreams. “Hey, maybe if we can play baseball in the summer, we can play ice hockey in the winter.”

“Oh, Mrs. Finnegan, just look what you have started,” Cherise said, laughing. She turned to her son. “One bite of the apple at a time, hotshot, all right? Why don’t you and Charlie take my notebook and pen and go over there and write down some names. You know, kids you think might want to play baseball.”

“Do we have to have girls on the team?” Duane asked warily.

“Do we have to have boys with braces on their legs on the team?” his mother shot back just as quickly, raising her eyebrows at her son.

Duane rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay. Everybody plays. Even
girls.
”

Laura watched, her chin in her hand, as the three children returned to the table across the room, and then she looked at Cherise. “What have we started here? We don’t have a clue what we’re doing, but those kids think we do. Plus, my husband is going to
kill
me because he made me promise I wouldn’t get Charlie’s hopes up about this until and unless I knew we could do it.”

“Sweetie, that horse left the barn awhile ago,” Cherise said, pulling a second small notebook from her enormous purse, then extracting a second pen and pushing both pen and notebook across the table to Laura. “Now, let’s make a list. Oh,
and how many kids are on a baseball team? We should know that, right?”