Playing for the Save (Men of Spring Baseball Book 3)

by Rachelle Ayala

  Exclamations came from the three therapists, and Jamie’s mother gave her a concerned look.

  “Apparently, he feels his case for custody is stronger because he recently married a woman who lives nearby,” Ryan continued.

  “No wonder he knew when to pop in,” Jamie’s mother exclaimed. “I swear he had a sixth sense.”

  “Right, and I’m changing my locks tomorrow morning,” Jamie said. “I don’t feel safe knowing he could come in at any moment and possibly kidnap Ben and Drew.”

  “Or hurt you,” Frances said. “Even though he married another woman, it doesn’t mean he’s going to let you off the hook. As far as he’s concerned, you’re still someone he has to control.”

  “I can’t believe he would actually want custody of Drew,” Eileen, the speech therapist, said. “He’s never come to any of the meetings, and from what I can tell, Drew never has anything to say about him.”

  “He hasn’t had Drew over for visitation for an entire year,” Ryan said, writing out reasons why Andrew shouldn’t get custody. “That’s a point against him.”

  “Ben told me that Andrew swung a baseball bat at Drew a year ago,” Jamie said, while Ryan wrote ‘Physical Abuse’ on the chart. “When I asked Drew about it, he shut down and withdrew inward, wrapping himself up in his weighted blanket and hiding in the closet.”

  “That’s his way of calming himself,” Dianne, the behavior analyst, said. “It shows that mention of Andrew and the baseball bat incident is highly troubling for him.”

  “Exactly,” Ryan concurred. “That night when Drew banged his head against the wall was the anniversary of the day one year ago when it happened. It’s freaky how he knew.”

  “Children with autism are very aware of numbers and dates,” Frances added. “It’s not surprising that the anniversary of a traumatic experience could cause flashbacks and emotional distress.”

  “I’ve noticed withdrawal when I mention his father,” Amber, the counselor, said. “I’ll have to carefully probe him and gather evidence of this abuse and any other incidents that we don’t know about. Ben should also have therapy for witnessing the abuse.”

  “Perhaps he could shed light on other incidents,” Frances remarked.

  “Shouldn’t we be careful not to cause flashbacks?” Marcia asked. “I wonder if they both have some post-traumatic stress disorder over Andrew’s treatment of them.”

  Brock squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. He was a survivor of severe physical abuse from his father. “They will need therapy for what they’ve experienced. But also for any ideas and thoughts he might have planted in their minds, like it is okay to use physical violence to gain power over another person, and the way he disrespects those he abuses. They may be both frightened, but at the same time in awe of his perceived power.”

  “Good point.” Ryan wrote ‘Therapy for both boys’ on another piece of paper.

  “What about for you, Jamie?” Frances asked. “Have you spoken to Dr. Sparks yet?”

  “No, I have an appointment,” Jamie said.

  “Put it on her to-do list,” Jamie’s mother said. She jumped up and wrote, ‘Change Locks,’ ‘See Therapist,’ and then said, “You also need a new lawyer. I don’t trust the one you have. He’s always telling you how lucky you are that Andrew pays alimony and child support.”

  Jamie agreed and the group came up with an action plan for her. She was to pursue a restraining order on Andrew based on his physical violence, get therapy for both boys, get a new lawyer, go to court requesting supervised visitation for the boys, and finally, get counseling for herself.

  “What about Ryan?” she asked after noting down all her action items. “We have to do something about Andrew’s baseless accusations that he abused Drew and Ben.”

  “He’ll need a lawyer, unfortunately,” Frances said. “It’s purely a defensive move, but these days, everyone flings abuse on everyone else, and it can get very nasty and dirty.”

  “I feel dirty from the accusations,” Ryan said. “How can I clear my name?”

  “You can sue him for defamation of character,” Frances said. “Meanwhile, Jamie should bring criminal charges for the slap and pushing around. She should call the police and report it.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that.” Jamie was taken aback, and her heart stuttered at the implications. “If Andrew loses his job, how will I pay for everything Drew needs? I’ve thought about working from home, but there’s nothing I can do that can pay the bills, at least immediately.”

  “I’ll help you,” Ryan said.

  “No, you shouldn’t,” Jamie insisted. “I can’t put this on you. That wasn’t why I wanted you in my life.”

  “If I’m in your life, I get to help.” Ryan moved closer to her.

  “The boys are still Andrew’s children. They’re his responsibility.” Jamie shook her head, biting her lip. She’d never be able to completely cut ties with Andrew because of sharing them. “I agree to everything except having a warrant for his arrest. As long as I get the restraining order, I’ll be safe.”

  “No, you won’t be,” Frances said sharply. “As soon as you take steps to assert your independence or self-determination, you’re putting yourself at a greater risk of retaliation and punishment from your abuser. It’s a necessary step, because we don’t want you under his thumb, appeasing him and especially him having unsupervised access to the kids. You’ll need more than a restraining order.”

  “Then what? Armed guards?” Jamie threw up her hands. “I just don’t like us demonizing Andrew. Yes, he’s a jerk and he’s not the best, but he’s been responsible.”

  “He’s been controlling and lording it over you,” Frances said.

  “Actually, Jamie’s right,” her mother said, standing up. “Andrew may not be the best, but he’s reliable and he always pays the bills. A restraining order is overkill and will piss him off. Let’s get the kids in therapy and get the supervised visitation. I’ll volunteer to be one of the supervisors.”

  “I’ll also volunteer,” Marcia said.

  Amber, Dianne, and Eileen murmured agreement, that they’d do it on their off hours and share the burden.

  “So, what are you saying?” Ryan waved at the bullet points. “That you don’t want to get the restraining order?”

  “I think that’s for the best,” Jamie’s mother said. “We don’t want to provoke him further.”

  Frances sighed loudly and shook her head firmly. “An abuser abuses because that’s what he does, not because he’s provoked. Look, this guy has Jamie as a virtual prisoner. She’s not allowed to date other men. Not allowed to have a life of her own. Her home is subject to inspection, and he barges in whenever he pleases. Meanwhile, he has this whole secret life he’s living and answers to no one.”

  “I just want him to leave me alone,” Jamie said. “And I don’t want him fired from his job or arrested or anything.”

  “What about his custody case?” Frances asked. “Shouldn’t you hit back with everything you’ve got to make sure he doesn’t win there?”

  “He won’t win,” Jamie said. “He’s never shown the least bit of interest in Drew.”

  “He could still persuade Ben to go live with him,” Ryan said. “Offer him privileges like baseball camp, boating trips, and other fun things Ben feels he’s missing out on.”

  “Now that he’s married, he has a stronger case,” Brock pointed out. “Not that I think he deserves it, but the court might consider that he has a two-parent household.”

  “Then we’ll have a two-parent household, too,” Ryan cut in. He put his arm around Jamie and gazed into her eyes. “I hadn’t wanted to ask like this, because I was waiting for our dinner date, but will you marry me?”

  “What?” Jamie blinked, as the words careened in her mind. “Marry you? It’s too much too soon.”

  No one else said a word, and the tension in the room tightened like a vise.

  Ryan’s Adam’s apple bobbled as he swallowed and removed his hand from
her shoulder. “I don’t know how much time you need. I thought it was the right time.”

  Tears swam in Jamie’s eyes at hurting him in front of everyone. She pressed her lips and put her hand on his arm. “I really appreciate you jumping to my rescue. But I don’t want to ruin what we have between us by making rash decisions. We have the rest of our lives, and this time, I want to do everything right. I want to be sure, and I need time, especially with everything going on.”

  “Right.” Ryan lowered his gaze to the ground and walked away from the dining room.

  Jamie made a move to go after him, but his mother held her back. “Let him go. He has to learn that time means different things to different people. He also has to read your cues better. This isn’t a made for TV drama. This is your life.”

  This was strange. What Frances said didn’t quite fit what had just happened. Yes, this was her life, but it was also his, and why would she compare it to a TV show?

  “Jamie.” Her mother rubbed her back. “He’s a good man. Maybe you should believe that this time you’ve finally found home base.”

  The problem with her mother was that she believed it over and over again with all of the different men she brought home. None had lasted, and in the end, she was still alone.

  “What is home base anyway?” Jamie said. “I’ve got so much on my plate, I don’t think I can find it. It’s not fair for Ryan to take on this broken-down fixer-upper when he could have the brand new model home he deserves.”

  Marcia got out of her chair and joined Jamie’s mother and Drew’s therapists in a group hug with Jamie.

  “They say those who are freeing themselves from the influence of an abuser should not enter into another relationship immediately.” Marcia was first to give advice.

  “You do deserve Ryan, but you’re right to move slower,” Amber said. “Take your time. You can’t truly know a person without time.”

  “He’s a wonderful man,” Eileen said. “But he’s recovering from a major injury. He might not even know himself right now.”

  Dianne patted her. “What does your heart tell you? Let your heart be your true north.”

  The murmuring voices comforted Jamie and made her feel like she belonged. These people had circled their wagons around her and her kids. But then, Ryan had led the charge.

  And right now, he was outside the circle, feeling rejected.

  Whether she would marry him now or later, he was the one her heart remained true to. He needed to be here among her friends and those who cared for her. She needed him.

  Jamie disengaged from the hug. “Ryan is my true north. I have to go find him.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Ryan walked briskly down the street. The heat of the day lingered beyond the dark horizon, while spindly trees with thorny leaves designed to conserve moisture crouched limply in the windless night, silent witnesses to his shame and degradation.

  He’d called the meeting thinking he was in charge, that he was the general in the crusade to protect Jamie and her boys. He’d been so confident of himself, foolishly believing Jamie looked up to him—that she had deep feelings for him—that he belonged—with her—with them.

  He’d done what any man would do when his family was threatened. He’d lined up allies, formulated a plan, and inserted himself as the point man.

  Except he’d built up a house of cards, and he wasn’t the man she needed nor the one she’d honor with her heart. She didn’t want him to protect her, to care for her children, or to solve her problems.

  She didn’t want him. Despite how careful he’d been, she’d detected his weakness. She’d sensed his strangeness, his emptiness, his loneliness.

  No one knew what it was like to be the strange one, to be the one without senses, to be always confused and never in sync. To forever look for the exit sign and to never find it. To be trapped in an out-of-tune melody, a backwards rhyme, tormented by a damaged puzzle, where the pieces not only did not fit, but when forced together, they made no sense.

  Bottom line. He didn’t fit in, and he never would—not even in a family with an autistic child, because he was some kind of in-between monster—neither here nor there.

  Like the monster oak tree he’d plowed into—now scarred on one side and ready to fall down. He hadn’t meant to hurt the tree, hadn’t meant to gouge out so much of the trunk, but there it was, neither standing nor falling, marred but not broken.

  Ryan leaned his forehead against the rough trunk of the tree. It had been planted by settlers from the East who’d come to the desert but brought their lawns and trees with them. Starved during drought years, and soaked in the recent deluge, it hadn’t finished dropping its old leaves before new buds poked their baby faces to the sun, restless with a withering hope, which would soon crinkle and dry in the hot furnace blasts of desert heat.

  A quiet footstep behind him raised the small hairs on the back of his neck. He whirled around and hissed at the sight of Jamie—breathless and brow furrowed.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “It isn’t you.”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me,” he said, ducking from that empty stare of hers—so disconnected from the way she’d portrayed herself, as caring and concerned, worried about him.

  That was his misinterpretation. His wishful thinking. As if a man as empty of feelings as he could live in an unreal world, created by his yearning to be normal.

  “I’m not sorry for you, but I want you to come with me.” She slipped her fingers between his and clasped his hand. “I wish we could stretch time and let this thing between us grow solid and deep, not like the sprouts that shoot up after a rainstorm and then die because their roots weren’t deep enough.”

  “True, but in the desert, wildflowers bloom fast, and they do all their living in a few short days.”

  “Like the short days while Andrew was away,” Jamie said. “I went kind of crazy knowing he wasn’t around, and I’m sorry if I made you think there was more I could give. Maybe with more time, we could have grown deeper roots.”

  “We had all the time we needed, or at least I needed.” Ryan caught himself from presuming her point of view. “I don’t see time like other people. Everything, past, present, future is jumbled in one giant ball of time, like it’s all happening right now.”

  “To me, it’s a line, a trail going backward and forward.” Jamie led him down the sidewalk and took a turn toward the elementary school. She stopped in front of a play structure. “I can still see myself playing in the sandbox, going to kindergarten. I see the balls and the jump ropes, the lines of children, the teachers and my little friends. But that is all in the misty distant past.”

  “I see you, the grown woman, and that little girl here with me right now,” Ryan said. “I’m everything I’ve ever been and will be, and it’s all here in the present. It’s ‘every me’ who wants ‘every you.’ The baby, the boy, the teen, the young man. Everything I am wants to fit in with everything you are.”

  “But you can’t force the fit,” Jamie said, wincing. “I don’t mean to be cruel. I just can’t let you contort your life around the broken pieces of mine. You have a future, a great one. You’re going to win the World Series. After that, you can coach or be a TV commentator, even buy a team. You’ll outgrow me.”

  He cupped her face and tilted it up toward him. “That’s where you’re wrong. I will grow with you and fit my pieces into your puzzle. I will adapt like a vine twined around the trunk of a stubborn oak tree and support it when it’s hollowed out.”

  “Then I’m just the hollowed out oak tree who thinks I’m so strong.” She leaned toward him. “Is that what you’re saying? Out of strength comes weakness and out of weakness comes strength?”

  “Strength and weakness are two sides of the same coin. As long as we’re together, we can hold each other up.”

  “I wish it were so simple.” She pulled away from him and strode down the sidewalk at a faster pace as if she could race away from him.

  “It is simple
.” He lengthened his stride, easily keeping himself next to her. “You came looking for me. It means you want me more than anything you’ve ever wanted. You’re afraid it won’t last, because you see time as a long thin line, straight from past to future, no detours, no kinks. But if you bunch it all together like a ball of yarn, then all that matters is that I’m here with you right now. Now, now, now, and now.”

  She spun around and walked backwards before coming to a stop, letting him bump into her. “That is the most profound thing I’ve ever heard. I get that all my pasts are here with me, in fact, that’s what’s bogging me down, but you’re saying all my futures are also with me?”

  “Yes, all of you, past, present, and future, are here in the now. What you are now was your past, and what you will be is determined by what you do now.” He pulled her close and lowered his forehead so it rested against the top of her head. “I want my now to include your now.”

  She reached for him, her lips warm and sweet, and he kissed her, slowly, persuasively, as if time had stopped, and there was only Jamie in the here and now, stretching to eternity.

  Her lips parted, and a low hum sighed from her throat as she tipped up on her toes and let her body caress his. After he’d kissed her thoroughly, she shuddered with a drawn out moan and pulled back leisurely to prolong the moment.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Your ‘now’ includes mine. I accept you, Ryan, but no rush, okay?”

  “Despite your name,” he blurted, because with him, thoughts and associations jumped all over the map and sometimes, he couldn’t help but make the link.

  “That’s Andrew’s surname, and I can’t wait to get rid of it.” She lowered her gaze and held his hands. “Don’t misunderstand me. I need time to know what’s one hundred percent right. I owe it to my sons, to you, and to me. I need to know you—all of you, and sometimes, I feel as if I’m an open book, but you’re closed up like a locked diary. I’ve been so wrapped up in my problems and my crazy life that I’ve never really taken care of you.”