The Might Have Been (43 page)

“It’s Sunday.”

“Sunday,” Nelson said in a way that suggested the word was one he was trying out for the first time. “Sun. Day.”

“You should use that,” Edward Everett said, nodding at the bill in Nelson’s hand.

“I’m no charity case,” he said. “Besides, a twenty ain’t going to fix much, Skip.” He held out the bill but when Edward Everett didn’t take it, he let it flutter to the floor.

“Look, Nels—Ross, sit down. I’ll get you something to eat. I have to get going.”

“Ball game?” Nelson said. “Season’s still going on?”

“Last game,” Edward Everett said. “We’re—”
Tied with Quad Cities
, he was going to say but caught himself. If he were Nelson, he wouldn’t want to know anything about that. He finished his sentence, “—wrapping things up.”

“The guys miss me, Skip?” Nelson said. “I know how it is. It’s like I was never there. I seen it when I was one of the guys that stuck. The hole closes up behind you.
Shoomp
. Like a fucking vacuum.”

“No, Nelson—Ross.”

“Don’t lie to me, Skip. It’s like a fucking vacuum.”

“I’m going to get you some food,” he said. “If you just eat—”

“It’s feed a cold, starve a fever,” Nelson said. “This ain’t a cold, Skip.”

“Look, I’ll get you something,” he said; he went out to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He had no idea what Nelson would want. “What are you in the mood for?” he called, as if he were entertaining an ordinary guest, a friend who had just dropped by for a visit.

Nelson didn’t respond. Edward Everett took a loaf of bread and three wrapped slices of cheese out of the refrigerator. He could at least make him a sandwich; something was better than nothing.

From the living room, he could hear Grizzly growling in a low, menacing way and he went to check on him. Nelson was standing on the couch, rocking side to side on the cushions to keep his balance. It reminded Edward Everett of a child bouncing on a bed. Grizzly was crouched low, his hindquarters up, his teeth bared.

“Get him the fuck away from me,” Nelson said, slapping at his sweatshirt pocket. When he brought his hand back up, he was holding a gun.

Edward Everett dropped the bread and cheese. “What the fuck, Nelson?”

Grizzly lunged toward the couch, trying to leap onto it, but fell short. Startled, Nelson tumbled over the back of it, slamming against a box of the game log cards Edward Everett had brought up from the
basement weeks earlier, the box tearing open, cards skittering across the floor. Again Grizzly leaped for the couch, and made it that time, barking furiously, Nelson scrambling to his feet, slipping on the loose cards, pointing the gun in the direction of the dog, his hand shaking. Edward Everett eyed the front door and then the kitchen behind him: which was the easier way out? If he ran, would Nelson shoot him?

“Ross,” he said in a voice he hoped was calming, but he could hear a tremor in it.

“Do something about the fucking dog,” Nelson shouted, still pointing the gun toward Grizzly, who was barking and leaping toward him. “I hate dogs.”

“Let me get him.” Edward Everett took a tentative step toward the couch. “Just getting the dog,” he said, holding up his hand at an angle: a foolish gesture, he realized, as if that would shield him if Nelson pulled the trigger. He snatched at Grizzly’s collar but the dog twisted, snapping at him, biting the base of his right thumb, drawing blood and getting away. The second time he reached for the dog’s collar, he managed to snag it, picking him up, Grizzly flailing the air with his paws, his teeth flashing. He held him at arm’s length, barely keeping his fingers laced through the collar, managed to open the door to the closet near the front door, hurled the dog in and slammed the door. On the other side, Grizzly flung himself against the door, the hangers on which Edward Everett had hung his coats clanging.

Nelson was pale, leaning over, his free hand braced on the back of the couch, breathing shallowly, while Grizzly barked wildly. Maybe Nelson would hyperventilate, pass out, Edward Everett thought, but he sucked in a breath, let it out and straightened.

“Fuck, Skip. I’m fucking going to shoot that fucking dog.”

“Grizzly,” Edward Everett bellowed, so loudly that Nelson startled. The dog did stop barking but then another noise began in the closet: the dog’s nails clicking against the hardwood floor, every once in a while something knocking against the wall. It was his head, Edward Everett knew, Grizzly in the throes of a seizure.

“Ross,” he said. “Let’s just put the gun away. We can talk. Long as you want.”

“Skip,” Nelson said, leaning against the back of the sofa, the gun resting on a cushion. “I’m fucked.”

“No you’re not,” he said, keeping his eye on the gun.

With his free hand, Nelson fumbled in his sweatshirt pocket and came out with a folded wad of paper: something with a pale blue cover sheet. A legal document. Nelson tried unfolding it with one hand but became frustrated and thrust it at Edward Everett, who took it, his own hand shaking so much the paper rattled. Unfolding it, he saw it was an order of protection, prohibiting Nelson from coming within fifty yards of the petitioner, Cynthia Nelson, as well as Jacob Nelson and Sarah Nelson, minor children.

“I don’t know what this means, Skip,” Nelson said. He was crying and he reached up to wipe his eyes with the wrist of his hand that held the gun. What kind of weapon was it? Edward Everett wondered. Not a revolver; a gun that loaded with a clip in the handle. He knew nothing about guns except what he had seen in movies and on television, but he thought:
Guns like that have a safety
. He squinted at it, trying to find it, but had no idea where it would be or what it would look like on or off.

“Oh, fuck, Skip,” Nelson said, pointing the gun in Edward Everett’s direction. “Don’t even think of trying to get this away from me.”

“I wasn’t,” Edward Everett said. His head was suddenly light. He wanted to sit down and, without thinking of how Nelson would respond, he staggered back until his knees felt one of the upholstered chairs he had in his living room, and he sat.

“Order of protection,” Nelson said. He moved unsteadily around the couch until he was on the other side and sank into it, sitting, dangling the gun between his knees. “I would never hurt Cindy or … My God. My kids. Why would she say something like that?”

Because you’re crazy
, Edward Everett thought.
Because you’re in my house with a gun
. He said nothing, pretending to study the document. He could comprehend nothing on the page now, not even individual letters; they were squiggles, circles and slashes.

“Fuck, Skip. I really screwed things up,” Nelson said.

“I don’t know, Nelson,” he said, talking quietly. “What did you do?”

“I went to her dad’s house. He said, ‘She doesn’t want to see you.’ ‘Like hell,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t want to see you. You need to leave.’ Then he fucking closed the door.”

“What did you do then?”

“I didn’t fucking leave, that’s what I did. I stayed on their fucking porch and he called the cops. They came and took me away and next day, order of protection.” He moved abruptly toward Edward Everett, making him flinch, snatched the document out of his hand and ripped it into two pieces, then ripped it again, until it was too thick for him to tear easily and he flung the pieces around the room. “I wish I’d had the gun then. I’d’ve fucking shot him, right there on his fucking porch.”

“I don’t think you would do that, Ross,” Edward Everett said. “I don’t think you’re the kind of person who could shoot someone.”

“You think so?” Nelson said. He raised the gun and eyed along the barrel, squinting. “If he was here, I would so pull the fucking trigger.”

“We can fix this, Ross,” Edward Everett said.

“I’d say we’re pretty far past the fixing stage.”

Was he going to shoot them both or just himself? Edward Everett wondered. Maybe someone would come by. Meg.
Surprise! I missed you, honey
. Or maybe Vincent, who wanted to pay more of the money he owed for his girlfriend’s root canal.
I’m a good person
, Edward Everett thought.
The kind of person who lends a thousand dollars to someone and doesn’t pester him to pay it back
. He thought,
It’s entirely possible that Vincent will choose this moment to come by
. When he knocked, Nelson would say,
Don’t
.

If I don’t answer, he’ll know something is wrong
.

Okay, but no funny business
, Nelson would say.

At the door, Edward Everett would find a word that Vincent would understand but Nelson wouldn’t. Vincent would leave and call the police. But, Edward Everett realized, that was only something that happened in movies so that someone could save the day at the last instant.

“Let’s talk about how to fix this,” Edward Everett said.

“Just shut up for a minute, Skip. I have a headache.” He rubbed his temples.

It must be past ten o’clock
, Edward Everett thought. Meg would not be on her way here but at her house, having a cup of coffee, no idea of what was happening to him. Vincent and Dominici would be at St. Aloysius, the rest of the team coming in, the players jittery with the idea of winning a professional title, none knowing the decision that the organization had made already; you stay, you go. The ones going didn’t know yet that the game wasn’t interested in them anymore, that they had only filled a role, shadows in the background for players like Sandford, and like Webber should have become. They all hated Nelson, he thought, but they were more like him than they realized.

The game had told Edward Everett the same thing thirty years ago, had tried to throw him out, but he’d come back and come back and come back and was on the edge of reward for his tenacity.
I don’t deserve this
, he thought.
I deserve Costa Rica and the four years’ pay for three years’ work and the cheap real estate that could make it a good place to retire
.

“Skip,” Nelson said, his voice quiet, almost a little boy’s voice—the boy that Nelson would have been when Edward Everett first came to Perabo City. Back then, Nelson had been, what? Ten, a child with a soprano voice that was still several years from changing, a boy nursing an inkling that, yes, maybe, yes, he could do something with a baseball other boys couldn’t. But not enough. Most of them could never do enough.

“Skip,” Nelson said again. “I can’t lose my family.” He was playing with a small switch on the gun, flicking it one way and then the other: the safety, Edward Everett realized. One way, the other, one way, the other, clicking it, clicking it. Which was on and which was off?

“I know how you feel,” he said, his eyes on the switch Nelson was flicking.

“Yeah, Skip?” One way, the other, one way, the other. “I had a boy. Like your boy,” he said, not certain what he would say next.

“I didn’t know, Skip.” One way, the other. One way, the other.

“But his mother—she took him away.” He shook his head. “Before
I had a chance to meet him.” In the closet, Grizzly was quieter, his seizure nearly over. Soon, he would fully come out of it, start barking and lunging at the door. It would set Nelson off again. How long until then? One minute? Five? “See, I know what you’re going through.”

“What do you mean, Skip?” One way. The other.

Edward Everett told him about Julie, about Montreal and getting hurt, about asking her to marry him, about the woman, Estelle. He remembered her name when he hadn’t in a long time. Herron. Two “r’s,” not like the bird. About Julie finding him with Estelle and leaving him there, his not knowing about the boy until he got the first photograph and then the next and the next. “I spent years looking for that boy,” he said, telling him about the towns and the phone calls, but telling it so quickly, he had no idea if his story made sense. He paused, listening for signs of Grizzly’s waking, wondering if that was the moment it would all come crashing down, the dog fully aware and barking, Nelson hysterical again. He had stopped flicking the lever, Edward Everett realized. Was it on or off?

“So, you see,” he said. “I’ve been where you are.”

Nelson sat up, the gun still dangling between his knees. “You’re nothing like me.”

“What?” Edward Everett said.

“I never cheated on my family,” Nelson said.

Edward Everett was confused. This was not what he intended. They were brothers, of a sort. “We’re brothers, of a sort,” he said.

“You did a terrible thing,” Nelson said. “We’re not brothers.”

“No, wait,” Edward Everett said, frantic, the story he thought would lull Nelson only making things worse. “We worked things out.”

“You worked things out?” Nelson asked, leaning forward, cocking his head.

“I found him,” Edward Everett said cautiously, having the sense of being a man creeping across a frozen pond, the ice groaning and popping with each step, no going back, the only choice to keep on toward the far bank. “Just this summer. It was the craziest thing. I looked up his name in the phone book and called and it was him.”

Hi, this is a billion-to-one shot, but is your mother named Julie?

Dad? Oh, my God! Dad! Wait until I tell Mom
.

“I found him,” Edward Everett said. “I screwed up, I admit it, worse than anything, worse than you, but I found him and worked things out.”

“That’s a helluva tale,” Nelson said, but in a way that Edward Everett couldn’t read: did he believe him or did he not believe him?

“We’ve become close,” Edward Everett said, closing his eyes, straining to conjure what occurred next in the story he was telling. “Everything’s fine. He became a pediatrician. He saved so many lives. Maybe he helped your kids.” The images came to him as clearly as the photographs of the boy-stranger he had carried around for so long: himself and the boy-stranger-now-man-son drinking beer, watching a ball game, Edward Everett saying,
Look where the second baseman is playing. Here’s what’s going to happen
. His son saying,
You really know a lot about this
. A picnic they went on, Edward Everett and the boy-now-man. As he told the story, the park where they picnicked grew around him, becoming as vivid as if he had been there: near their table, a rusted barbecue grill caked with ash that drifted over them in a breeze, specks settling onto their sandwiches. The heat of the sun warming his back. Then a new boy appeared. The boy-now-man’s own son. Edward Everett’s grandson.
His name is Edward. I had no idea that was your name when he was born but it came to me the first time I held him. “You’re Edward.” It must have been in the stars
. Mustard spotting his chin, the boy smiled up at Edward Everett, the man from whom he’d gotten his name.