More Than Words: Stories of Hope (9 page)

Laura felt as old as time as she watched Charlie and five other boys walk away from the group gathered around Billig, pick up their bats and gloves from the bench and slowly head back up the hill.
Oh, God
. She hadn’t wished this on him, had she? She was heartbroken for Charlie, but was she also relieved that he wouldn’t have to compete physically with boys twice his size? Would that make her an unnatural mother?

Charlie reached them, dragging the barrel of his aluminum bat along the ground. He didn’t stop, he just kept walking, his steps plodding, his head down. “Let’s go. I’m done.”

Jake grabbed his son’s arm. “Whoa, wait a second, son. What happened? What did he say?”

“Later, Jake, please,” Laura pleaded. Charlie wasn’t crying. He wouldn’t cry, not in front of the other kids, but he was on
the brink. The best thing to do would be to get him out of here before the dam broke. “Let’s go get some ice cream. Take Charlie to the car. I’ll round up Sarah and be right behind you.”

Charlie looked up at his mother. “Mom? Coach said I should come back when I grow some more.” Then he dropped the bat he was so proud of and the mitt he’d worked a good pocket into with linseed oil every night for the past month, and ran for the parking lot.

“Why, that no good son of a—”

“Jake. Jake—
stop
. It won’t change anything if you hit him.”

“Oh yeah? It would make me feel a whole hell of a lot better.”

“I know,” Laura said in sympathy, because she’d like to pop the tactless guy herself. “But that won’t help Charlie, will it? Just let it go.”

“Let it go. That’s your answer for everything, isn’t it? You know what, Laura? I’m tired of letting it go. Here,” he said, taking the car keys from his pocket and tossing them at her. “Take the kids for ice cream. I’m going to walk home.”

Laura couldn’t keep her own anger and hurt out of her voice. “And just how does that help Charlie?”

“I don’t know, Laura, I honestly don’t. But I can’t face that kid right now.”

“Because he’s disappointed? Or because you are? Because you helped set him up for this fall?” She quickly put a hand on his arm. “Oh, Jake, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that…”

“Don’t wait up,” Jake said, glaring at her for a moment before he turned and walked away.

Laura looked toward the parking lot and could see that Charlie was already in the backseat of the car, watching as his father strode off. So now she’d have to go to Charlie, tell him how sorry she was that he didn’t make the team, that maybe next year would be better, even though she knew that wasn’t true…and then explain to her son how much his father loved him.

Because that was how it had to be, how she and Jake had learned to operate. They tried their best to present a strong, united front, but when one couldn’t do it anymore and fell down, the other had to pick up the ball. They’d been taking turns like this for years. Tonight was her turn to pick up the ball.

She signaled to Sarah to follow her and began the slow walk to the car, hoping her daughter didn’t climb into the backseat beside Charlie and say something typically nine-year-old, like, “Hooray! Now I can go play with Brenda!”

Yeah. Life was just one long carnival…

“Excuse me! You forgot these.”

Laura stopped and turned around to see a petite, blond woman she’d noticed at a few of the other practices. She was holding up Charlie’s bat and glove. “Thank you,” Laura said, taking the equipment. “I don’t know where my head is tonight.”

“If it’s anywhere near where mine is, you’re plotting to go
home and stick pins in a Billig doll. I’m thinking a bad knee first, then on to his gallbladder, maybe a migraine.”

Laura smiled at the woman. “Only if I get to stick in the pin that gives him a raging case of hemorrhoids.” She tucked Charlie’s mitt under her arm and held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Laura Finnegan. You’re Bobby’s mother, right?”

“When he acknowledges me, yeah, I am. I have this tendency to cheer a little too loud, you understand, and fourteen-year-old boys don’t like that.” She extended her own hand. “Jayne Ann Maitz. Bobby also got cut, but I’m guessing you know that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—” Laura stopped, shook her head. “I was so wrapped up in watching Charlie that I didn’t even notice who else was cut. How’s Bobby taking it?”

Jayne Ann shrugged. “He’s used to it. This is his third year in a row. I think Billig figures he’s going to give up, not come back, but he doesn’t know my Bobby. He’s afraid of him, but he doesn’t know him.”

“Afraid of him? I don’t understand.”

“Bobby has a seizure disorder,” Jayne Ann told her as both mothers proceeded toward the parking lot. Bobby had run ahead, and Laura saw that Charlie had rolled down the window in the backseat and the two boys were talking. “We’ve got the seizures pretty well under control, but we still have our…well, we still have our moments. Unfortunately, two years ago Billig
witnessed one of those moments. Bobby hasn’t had a chance since then.”

Laura rested the bat on her shoulder as she and Bobby’s mother stopped just at the edge of the parking lot. “Did you ever hear the monologue where Bill Cosby goes on and on about the problems with having kids, raising kids, and says he doesn’t know what happened—all he and his wife wanted was to have some kids to send to college? And that was years before his only son was murdered. Life doesn’t always work out the way we think it’s supposed to, does it?”

“No. Not even close. And definitely not the way my ex thought it was supposed to. He took a hike a year after Bobby had his first seizure. Just couldn’t take it that his son wasn’t perfect, so whatever was wrong with Bobby had to have come from my side of the family. He’s got a new wife and three perfect kids now. Maybe, while you’re at it, you could give him a dose of hemorrhoids, too? I’d even pay you.”

“You saw my husband stomp off, right?” Laura asked, smiling weakly as she came to Jake’s defense. “He’s not ashamed of Charlie. He just remembered that when we married I promised to love and honor him—possibly even obey him from time to time if I’m in the mood—but did not agree to bail him out of jail after an assault-and-battery charge.”

“Well, damn, you should think about putting that in the marriage contract,” Jayne Ann said, grinning. “I would have
loved to see Billig go down on his skinny, sanctimonious backside. I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen in your house tonight, but there’s going to be a lot of crying and throwing things and feeling sorry for ourselves going on in ours. And that’s just me. Bobby will be worse.”

“Yeah, sounds like we’ll be running the same program at our house. Look, Jayne Ann, if we can’t change what’s going to happen, maybe we can at least delay the inevitable. How about we all go for ice cream?”

“Sounds like a plan to me. Ripley’s? I’ll follow you in my van.”

“Okay, good,” Laura said, looking back toward the ball field one last time as the kids who’d made the team began their practice session. “Jayne Ann? How about the other kids who were cut? Why did he cut them?”

“Well, let’s see. There were six, and we’re two of those six. The other four kids? Marvin Bailey couldn’t hit a barn door with a cannon. Someday his father is going to figure out that the poor kid plays a mean game of chess, but that’s it. As for the other three, two of them are about as good in the field as Marvin is with the bat—which leaves Bruce Lee Pak.”

“Bruce Lee was cut? I thought he was fairly good, not that I know much about baseball. Why him?”

“Bruce Lee’s just a little slow, God love him. Not a lot, but just enough that his reactions are not always as fast as they should be. Billig could have cut him a little slack—let kids like
Charlie and Bobby and Bruce Lee warm the bench and come in when the score is already out of reach, or something. That’s all they want, to be part of the team. Marvin Bailey was relieved to be cut, and the other two are only thirteen, and can try again next year. But our kids? Next year they’d have to move up again, to the fifteen- and sixteen-year-old bracket, and we already know that’s not going to work. Sorry, I got on my soapbox there for a minute. Why do you ask?”

“Nothing. No reason.” Laura hefted the bat a time or two. “But…don’t you think a kid should be able to play baseball if a kid wants to play baseball?”

“Well, it is America’s pastime,” Jayne Ann said. “But America likes winners, remember?”

Laura knew she was close to tears, which she hated, because that meant a loss of control, and she needed to be in control, Charlie needed her to be in control. “Charlie
is
a winner. Your Bobby is a winner. The fact that they’re still both
here
makes them winners, damn it! So is Bruce, because he won’t stop trying. This is wrong, Jayne Ann, just plain wrong.”

“Hey, hand me the petition and I’ll sign it. Baseball for all kids! Then what? We work on that world peace thing?”

“I don’t know,” Laura said, feeling her blood pump through her veins. She was making sense, she knew she was—baseball is for
all
kids. “But there has to be something, doesn’t there? Something we can do? I mean, hell, these are our
kids
. We’ve
climbed other mountains for them. They’ve climbed a lot of mountains. Are we really going to just…just take our bats and mitts and go home?”

“I think I really like you, Laura Finnegan.” Jayne Ann flipped a fistful of keys in her palm. “Let’s talk about this some more over butter brickle, okay?”

O
nce upon a time, Laura and Jake Finnegan refused to go to bed angry. Once upon a time, their arguments didn’t go much deeper than who forgot to record a check in the checkbook. But somewhere along the way the arguments stopped, because the problems they’d had back then didn’t mean a whole hell of a lot when compared with the possibility of losing their son.

Also along the way, they’d lost the power to communicate on one very important emotional level. Maybe Laura was trying to hide her fears from Jake so as not to worry him; maybe Jake was trying to keep a positive attitude. Or maybe they were both so afraid that if they let themselves go, let themselves feel too much, the resulting explosion would flatten them all.

So when Jake came wandering home just before ten o’clock that night, Laura greeted him from the couch with a quick whisper as she pointed to the television set. “Two minutes left, and I’m still not sure why he killed her.”

Jake wearily sank down into the worn-out cushions beside her. “Probably because she forgot she had his keys and locked the front door so he had to come in through the garage, which she did forget to lock. But that’s just a wild guess.”

“Uh-huh,” Laura said, only vaguely listening. Moments later she slapped a hand down hard on his leg. “I
knew
it! She didn’t know he was the one—he only
thought
she knew. If he had just let it alone, not killed her, he would have gotten away with the whole thing.” She hit the mute button and looked at Jake. “Do you want something to eat? There’s still plenty of roast beef. I could make you a cold sandwich?”

“Would you mind?” Jake asked as she handed the remote to him, because she knew she only ever had the thing on loan—remotes were the property of men. Women couldn’t be trusted not to turn on some shopping network or, worse, Martha Stewart, and then, next thing the poor guy knew, he was sitting on flowered slipcovers.

Laura got to her feet and smiled down at him. “So you built up an appetite on your walk?” She’d keep it light, because otherwise she’d have to ask him where he’d been for the past three hours.

“I stopped down the street to talk to Gary about the transmission of that old car he bought, and he’s set up a TV in his garage, so I stayed to have a friendly beer and watch the game with him. The Phillies won, by the way, and if Gary puts one more dime into that transmission, Julia has threatened to have him committed. And I’m sorry, Laura, sorry I left you to deal with all the fallout. I just…I don’t know. I just couldn’t take it tonight.”

She sat down once more and laid her head on his shoulder. “I know. And Charlie’s fine, honest. He cried a little, and I’m afraid his Jim Thome bobblehead doll bit the big one, but he’ll be all right.”

“His Thome bobblehead? Damn. That thing could be worth something some day.” Jake dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Might have put Charlie through one full day of college. Okay, come on. Let’s make the sandwiches together. You’re hungry, too, aren’t you?”

And so they paved over another bump in the road, all mention of the way Jake had left her at the ball field shelved, supposedly forgotten. But both knew it was just a temporary fix, and the pothole would open up again some other time, and be even bigger, large enough to fall in and trap them both.

“I met someone tonight,” Laura said as she watched Jake slice the beef.

Jake grinned at her. “Really? Is he going to sweep you up and take you away from all this? Don’t believe him, Laura. Men
are animals. We all make the same empty promises, but we’re really only trying to get in your pants.”

“Funny,” Laura said, leaning against the kitchen counter. “And it was a woman…is a woman. Jayne Ann Maitz. Her son is Bobby, one of the kids Billig cut.”

The knife hovered over the hunk of rump roast. “He cut Bobby Maitz? That kid’s got a good arm. Damn. Why’d he cut him?”

“Epilepsy,” Laura said, her jaw tight. “I guess he didn’t want to take the chance Bobby might have a seizure on the field. Jayne Ann said he cuts him every year.”

Jake finished slathering slices of bread with mayonnaise, nodding his head. “Laura, Gary made a good point tonight. As a lawyer, he says he can understand why kids like Charlie and Bobby can’t make the team. You know. Insurance. Liability. Whatever.” He handed one sandwich to Laura, waggling his eyebrows at her with pure devilishness. “But he’s still willing to toilet-paper Billig’s house with me if I’m game.”

Laura tried not to laugh. “Really? Tell me, just how many friendly beers did you two boys have?”

“Two each, and they were small bottles. Come on, you want to watch the early news?”

“Not especially, no,” Laura said, following him back to the family room. “But I would like to talk to you about something.”

“You backed my beautiful seven-year-old four-door into a telephone pole?”

“Jake, be serious,” Laura said as she sat down on the couch, bending one leg beneath her and balancing the paper plate in her lap. “You said something just now—about insurance. And what else? Liability? What did you mean?”

He spoke around his first bite of sandwich. “Oh, this is good. I love cold roast beef sandwiches. Why would you want to know that?”

“I don’t know. Why not? I’m…I’m interested, that’s all. And it’s easier than finding a pagan priestess to put a curse on Billig, I guess.”

“There’s a story there that I don’t want to know, right?” Jake asked, taking a drink straight from the soda can he’d popped in the kitchen. “Okay, this is what Gary told me. The township owns the ball field, and if anyone’s hurt, coaches, players, spectators—bam! The township could get hit with a lawsuit. Same for the Summer League, of which Coach Billig has been president for the past two thousand years, give or take a century. So, having a kid like Charlie—and, yeah, a kid like Bobby—on one of the teams just ups the ante for them, I suppose.”

“But when we signed up Charlie—and there’s thirty-five bucks we’ll never see again, I suppose—we had to show proof of health insurance or else he couldn’t even go on the field. You’re saying that’s not enough?”

“Apparently not, at least not according to Gary. Both the league and the township are taking a risk every time those kids are on the field. Add a Charlie or a Bobby to the mix, and I guess it could all get pretty dicey. I still want to take the guy apart, but that’s because of what he said to Charlie. I mean, why didn’t he just tell him the truth up front? Tell us the truth? Why’d he have to make that crack about going home and growing, then come back and try again?”

“Maybe he didn’t want to give the boys a final no vote. Maybe he didn’t want to completely dash their hopes.” Laura shook her head. “Naw, never mind. It’s Billig. If he could say what he said, make jokes at Charlie’s expense, then he could have told the truth.”

Jake nodded his agreement as he concentrated on his sandwich and Laura weighed the pros and cons of telling him what she and Jayne Ann had discussed over hot-fudge sundaes at Ripley’s—butter brickle didn’t have enough calories for their “weighty” discussion.

“Um, Jake, honey?”

He pushed back a thick lock of sandy hair and grinned at her. “No, you can’t have my body. I’m in training.”

“In training for what?” God, how she loved this man. He tried so hard…even if tonight he was trying too hard in his attempt to skate over what had happened at the ball field.

“Olympic pogo-sticking,” he said, finishing off his sandwich in one large bite. “Oh, hell, go ahead. Ask your question. I can see you’re dying to ask me something. You’re wearing that earnest expression I’ve learned to fear.”

Laura adjusted her leg beneath her and leaned closer to her husband. “Are you and Gary saying that Charlie, or Bobby—kids with special circumstances, I guess I’m saying—that they’ll never be able to play ball on any township fields? Because of insurance and liability, I mean?”

Jake sat back, frowning. “I don’t know. I guess so, but even Gary couldn’t be sure. I remember seeing some news stories on towns putting a stop to sports teams because they didn’t want to get sued someday. Maybe Gary’s wrong. Maybe he was just throwing a possibility out there. You know, trying to make me feel better. Damn, it didn’t work.” Then he looked at her, and Laura attempted to put an “I’m only asking this in a clinical, objective way” look on her face. “Why did you ask?”

Okay. It was now or never. “Well, because Jayne Ann and I were talking tonight, and we were saying that every kid should be able to play baseball if he or she wants to play baseball and—”

“Bobby can come over here anytime, play in the backyard with us. I hope you told her that.”

Laura nodded, biting her lip for a moment. Maybe that was enough for tonight. Maybe she needed to think this thing
through, before she dumped it all in Jake’s lap, even got his hopes up in time for another fall.

Then again, he
was
listening, wasn’t he?

“That’s nice,” she said. “Of course he can. And Bruce Lee Pak, too, and anyone else who wants to play. But that’s not the point. Put aside the possible insurance problem for a minute, and let’s just think about the kids. Why shouldn’t the kids get to play on a real team, on a real field? Why can’t they play on the Harley Field?”

“Because Billig is more interested in filling the trophy case at the recreation hall than letting more kids play the game?” Jake sat up straighter. “What’s going on, hon? You’ve got that gleam in your eyes.”

Laura lowered her eyelids. “What gleam? There’s no gleam. You didn’t see a gleam.”

“Oh, brother,” Jake said, raking his fingers through his hair. “I should have been good. I should have gone for ice cream with everyone and just come home. Laura—there’s nothing we can do. I wish there were, but there isn’t.”

“And that’s it? You have a couple of beers with Gary the Attorney and it’s all over? We’re not going to fight this?”

“Laura, I don’t get it. You should be doing flips here. No more pipe dreams for me—or disappointments for Charlie. You were right, I was wrong. Baseball just isn’t in the cards for him, not since he got sick. And you know what? I’m tired of
beating my head against stone walls. I’m tired of watching the legs kicked out from under our son. No matter what, Charlie’s different now. We’re different now, and we’ve all got the scars to prove it. We just can’t beat the system. I get that now—finally, I get it.”

She got to her feet. “Oh yeah? Well, you know what? If you can’t beat the system, Jake Finnegan, then maybe it’s time for a new system. Charlie is going to play baseball. This year. On a real field. I mean it, he will.”

Jake also stood up. “Terrific—just as I see reason, you take a lap around the bend. Okay. Fine. Go swirl your cape and perform a miracle. But I have to go upstairs to apologize to Charlie. He’s still awake, right?”

Laura rubbed at the back of her neck, where the muscles had gone all tight. “I’m sure he’s been waiting up for you. Like I said, he had a rough time for a while, threw his bat and mitt in the garbage, but he’s over it now. Oh, and remind him that even though there’s no school—some teacher in-service thing—we still have his checkup and blood work at the hospital tomorrow. I want to leave by nine o’clock for the blood work so they have it back by the time we see the doctor.”

“Another long day at the zoo, huh?” Jake put his arms around her. “I’m sorry I can’t go along, hon. But this is just routine, right?”

Laura snuggled against his chest, wrapped her arms around
him. “Just routine. His tests will be fine, everything will be fine. And some fine day we might even be able to think of it that way, without our stomachs being tied in knots until we hear the results.”

“I know,” Jake said, giving her a squeeze, then gently pushing her away from him as he looked down into her face. “How do you think Charlie feels about it? About the tests, waiting for the results?”

“I never really asked him,” Laura said as she picked up the paper plates and handed Jake his empty soda can. “Isn’t that strange? I’ve never asked. He just
does
, doesn’t he? But he’s got to be tired of it all. He just wants to be fourteen, you know?” She blinked rapidly as tears once more stung behind her eyes. “Oh, damn it, Jake, we do so well, we’ve
been
doing so well. Why does the world think it has to keep raining on our parade?”

“The world rains on everybody, Laura. We just have to figure out a way to get a bigger umbrella than a lot of other people need, that’s all. Look, I’m sure you and Jayne what’s-her-face had a great time tonight, trashing Billig and dreaming up some scheme to get the kids onto the team, but—”

“It’s Jayne Ann,” Laura told him, wiping away her tears, “and we weren’t just dreaming. We’re going to do it, Jake. We’re going to find a way. You weren’t here tonight when Charlie finally had his meltdown, but I was.”

She watched as Jake’s face seemed to close in on itself, his
features shuttered. “So it’s my fault? Is that it, Laura? I couldn’t take it, so I took a hike, left you to do all the dirty work?”

“No, I…
yes.
Yes, Jake, you did. What was Charlie supposed to think when he saw that, huh? I can tell you what he did think. He thought you were disappointed in him because he didn’t make the team. While you were off having your pity party, your son was here thinking he’s not good enough for you.”

Jake pressed his palms against his head as if he was in real physical pain. “Oh, Christ. That’s not—it wasn’t like that. I just—what did you tell him?”

Laura shrugged, wishing she hadn’t said anything, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. “I…I told him you were really angry with Coach Billig and needed to take a walk to cool off, which is what grown-ups should do rather than yell or hit or—I told him you love him.”

He scrubbed at his eyes. “I shouldn’t have taken off like that, and you shouldn’t have had to deal with Charlie on your own.”

“It’s okay, Jake. We pick up the slack for each other all the time. But I know how you can make it up to me. Maybe speak to Gary about ways around this liability thing he talked about.”

Jake shook his head. “No, Laura, I can’t do that. That’s one decision I came to tonight on my walk home. I’m through fighting this. Charlie has his physical limits now, that’s just the way it is, and we all have to acknowledge that, face it and move
on—all that touchy-feely crap. I never want that kid to think I’m not proud of him, but I’m done helping set him up, giving him hope, when I know in my heart he’s just going to get shot down. I’m hurting now, I admit it, but I can’t be hurting half as bad as Charlie is. Now I’m going upstairs to talk to him. You haven’t told him about this idea of yours, have you?”