by Joe Schuster
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 bark
ing, 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.
Nelson tilted his head to the side in a manner that suggested he was weighing the story that Edward Everett had told. It was, he knew, a fantastic story.
“In fact, he’s on his way here now,” Edward Everett said. He saw a red Prius moving between sunlight and shadow as it passed beneath the trees lining the street. No, not a Prius. That was Renee’s car in her new circumstances. The car approaching was a Maverick, like the one he drove when he sold flour. “I was just waiting to take him to the game. Him and his son. My grandson. He’s never been before but he’s going today. His first game.”
In the closet, the dog was stirring. Edward Everett could hear the hangers clanging as Grizzly got to his feet, rustling the coats.
He saw the Maverick slowing outside, the driver—someone who had been there countless times by then and so knew all of the neighbors, and they knew him—rolling down his window, waving at Mrs. Greiner, who was digging in her flower bed, waving at Ron Dubois next door, setting up a ladder to paint his fascia board. They knew his grandson, too, the boy waving from the passenger seat. I’m going to see my grandpa!
Your grandpa is such a lucky man!
Edward Everett stood up and moved toward the door. “I think I hear him coming up the steps.” Nelson leaned forward and they both looked toward the door, listening for footsteps on the stone stairs.
It could happen, Edward Everett thought. It could happen. My son is going to knock on the door. He’s going to knock on the door right now.
I’m so glad to see you, he would say when he opened the door. I’m so happy you’re finally here.
Epilogue
In November, Nelson’s widow sent back the cashier’s check he had given her. He was in the breakfast nook in his house in Heredia when his housekeeper, Lucia, brought the mail she had picked up from the post office the afternoon before, several weeks-old copies of The Sporting News, a calendar for the next year Meg had made using photographs of Grizzly—Grizzly sleeping on her canopied bed; Grizzly sunning himself on her porch; Grizzly on his hind legs, begging for a snack—a handful of bills and a plain white envelope with no return address that the Perabo City post office had forwarded to him in Costa Rica. Even before he opened it, he knew what it would contain, since it was the third time Cindy Nelson had returned the check. The other times she’d done so with no note, but this time there was one, two words, unsigned: “Please stop.”
He had tried to give the check to her the first time at Nelson’s wake, leaving an envelope in the wicker basket on the table with the guest book outside the parlor where Nelson’s body lay in a closed casket; three thousand dollars. On the memo line he’d had the bank teller type, “For your children.” Three days later, when he came home from the hardware store with Meg—back from buying closet organizers, wire racks for his kitchen cupboards, mulch for his neglected flower beds, all to “stage his house” for sale, Meg said—the envelope lay on his back deck.
“Oh, a fan letter,” Meg said, stepping over it, carrying in a bag.
“Not quite,” Edward Everett said, bending to pick it up.
After he told her what it was, Meg said, “I can’t believe you would do that for her, after what her husband put you through.”
I don’t see it that way, Edward Everett thought, but he only shook his head and mailed the check the next day to Nelson’s widow again, in care of her brother at the Lakeport Police Department. Four days later, it came back again, this time in the mail, with no return address. When he sent it a third time—a week before he got on a plane for Costa Rica—and it didn’t come back, he thought maybe she had finally accepted it, forgiven him, seen it as a chance to do a small thing for her son and daughter who had lost their father. But then, almost two months after that, it found him again.
When no one came to the door—when the son Edward Everett had never met didn’t pull to the curb in a 1973 Maverick; didn’t, on his way up the front walk, wave to Ron Dubois touching up the paint on the fascia board under his gutters; didn’t knock on the door in the distinctive manner Edward Everett might have recognized had his son ever been there—Nelson stood up from the couch. Edward Everett shut his eyes in a way he would always think of as cowardly, and waited for the gunshot, wondering, would he hear it first? What he did hear was the front door creaking open and then clicking shut, gently, as if whoever closed it wanted to be certain he did not damage the door or the frame. As he sat, quaking, thinking, It’s over, telling himself to call someone, from outside came what sounded like a single, quick hammer blow driving a nail, and then someone shouted, “Oh, my God.” He pushed himself out of the chair but his legs were so weak he fell back again. By the time he managed to get outside, Ron Dubois was sprinting from his yard into Edward Everett’s faster than he would have thought someone sixty pounds overweight could move, yanking his paint-spattered T-shirt over his head. “For God’s sake, Ed, call 911,” he shouted.
Then Ron was kneeling on the lawn and laying his shirt delicately over Nelson’s face, blood pooling on the grass. When Ron glanced up, he said, “Don’t look.”
Although Meg told him he shouldn’t, he went to the wake. The lot was so full he had to park on the street, and at first he thought it was for Nelson, that some of his former teammates had come, but it wasn’t. A man who had operated
an Italian restaurant for thirty-seven years had also died and his wake was in a large double parlor, the room shoulder to shoulder with people talking in muted tones, every once in a while someone laughing. Nelson was in an anteroom near the back, and when Edward Everett arrived, there were only four people there, Nelson’s wife and her brother, and an older man and woman he imagined were Nelson’s parents. He stopped to sign the guest book and lay his envelope in the basket, where there was only one other card. As he stepped into the parlor, Nelson’s widow looked toward the doorway with expectation but then her eyes narrowed and she said something quietly to her brother. Everyone there turned in his direction as Earl approached him. “You really shouldn’t be here,” he said to Edward Everett, cupping a hand beneath his elbow to guide him back out.
To think that any of the team would come was absurd, he realized later. Nelson had been right; the team closed up like a vacuum after you left, especially if you were a lunatic who couldn’t let go when the game told you to. They had all scattered by then anyway, left town disappointed when they lost the final, Quad Cities the one celebrating the meaningless championship in the middle of the infield in that sorry, sorry ballpark.
Of course they wouldn’t come to the wake, because they all hated Nelson, although most would soon learn they were more kin to him than they might have thought—maybe not enough kin to shoot themselves but enough that the release note they received would gnaw at them for a long time. Some would call Edward Everett as he had called Hoppel. “What if,” some would ask. “What if I learned to switch-hit?” “What if I worked on my slider?” What if, what if? He told them, “No; you’re a different person now.” When they pushed further, he said gently, “Be grateful for the life you have rather than regret the one you don’t.”
In the breakfast nook in his small house in Heredia, he took the check he had tried to give to Nelson’s widow and put it on the refrigerator with a magnet, alongside the photo that Meg had sent him, one that she had Photoshopped, the one of his son about to ride off on his bicycle. She had added him to the image and unless he studied it closely he really did seem to be there, as if he were the person his son was looking toward for approval: You’ll be fine; I’ll be here when you ride back. He would keep sending the check to Nelson’s widow until she stopped returning it. Since it was a cashier’s check, he would have no way of knowing whether she cashed it or just tore it up. Either way, he had given her the money.
