J. T.’s rotund wife, Doris, looked like Mrs. Claus with her permanent smile. Their son was four years old and wanted to wander around everywhere. They made a cute family and were kind enough to chaperone Cory as various people came up to congratulate him on the game or simply take his picture on their phone or shake his hand.
“We don’t get celebrities around here much,” J. T. said.
“Who are you talking about? Did Brad Pitt show up?” Cory often said stuff like this when people called him a celebrity.
“Hey—hometown hero.”
Cory gave him a knowing look just as a trio of teenage girls came up to him, laughing as if it was a dare and asking him to pose for a picture.
Yeah, I’m a hometown something, but not sure I’d call it a hero. More like hometown screwup.
A tall, lean figure in a floaty floral dress and stylish cowboy boots drifted by over toward the street. Cory couldn’t help noticing the striking brunette, then smiled broadly when he saw it was Emma. No more jeans and a Bulldogs jersey. Her hair was loose and flowing, and she looked nothing and everything like the girl he’d fallen in love with years ago.
“Hey—excuse me for a moment,” Cory said to J. T. as he walked over to a concession stand and purchased a couple cans of soda.
He greeted Emma with a smile and a complimentary drink. “So, this is your ‘thing’?”
Emma waved her hands in a You got me manner. She also looked a bit embarrassed to be caught. He let her choose between a Diet Coke and a Sprite.
“Not very hospitable of you, Emma Johnson, to let a poor stranded fool miss the Wild West Chili Festival.”
“Fool, yes. Stranded? Never.”
The sounds of the crowd around cocooned them like a warm blanket. They shared a glance—yes, it was a glance, and they shared it—and remained silent for a moment.
“Have you had your Wild West Chili yet?” Cory asked.
“Not yet,” Emma said. “They haven’t told me just how wild the chili really is.”
He pointed to a nearby park bench and then sat down. He was going to feel like a real moron if Emma didn’t sit next to him. Thankfully, she didn’t resist. She sat—keeping a healthy distance, of course.
“You must be missing life in the fast lane,” Emma said.
A couple passed by, holding hands, walking behind their two little girls. Cory nodded to her question.
“Well, yes and no. I mean, beating the Jets was definitely a new kind of rush for me.”
The look on her face said more than she could have actually articulated. Perhaps he should’ve used a different word than rush, but it was too late.
“You were right about Tyler,” Emma said. “He needed to be pushed. I just get too … I don’t know …”
“You’re a great mom.”
Emma didn’t respond. Cory didn’t want to sit there second-guessing himself, worrying about what he should or shouldn’t say.
“Tyler’s the best,” he added.
“Yes, he is.”
The tone was still there in her voice. He knew she was just being a protective mother. He didn’t blame her. He’d probably be the same, considering everything.
“You’re doing an awesome job.”
He knew how the compliment might have sounded. Just another nice sweet toss by Mr. Charming. But Cory meant it and knew he couldn’t do anything to prove he meant it. Emma looked uncomfortable, not at all swept up into the whirlwind of Cory Brand.
“Thanks,” she said in a subdued tone.
A scampering of feet disrupted the silence between them. Tyler and Carlos showed up out of nowhere, all nervous smiles and sugar-induced energy. Tyler tried to play it cool as he got Cory’s attention.
“Hey, uh, Coach.”
“We found your rookie card,” Carlos blurted out.
“Yeah, and uh, would you mind signing it?”
Cory took the card and the Sharpie from Tyler. For a second he glanced at the front.
“Remember this guy?” Cory asked Emma as he showed her the picture of the cocky twenty-three-year-old kid in his first year as a Grizzly.
“I’ve tried to forget about him,” Emma said with a teasing smile.
Cory signed the back of the card as he had a thousand others before. “Didn’t know you two collected baseball cards.”
“Oh, yeah, all the time,” Carlos said.
Cory handed Tyler the card. When the kid read it, his face lit up like a sparkler.
“You know,” Cory told them, “I got some good ones out at the barn.”
Both of the boys looked hooked. Cory still found himself thinking about those cards, tucked away in the box.
“Got a ’93 Derek Jeter in there, a ’73 all-star Carlton Fisk, worth a bit of dough, some older—”
“I’ve got a Jeter and Fisk too,” Tyler shouted.
“Ah, we gotta get together and compare.”
“That would be awesome.”
Cory had an idea. “Maybe when we leave here, we can all go to the barn and take a look.”
Tyler gave his mother the same look he had in the truck not long ago. This time she gave a nod and a smile.
“Okay. Sure.”
Tyler and Carlos looked almost as thrilled as Cory felt. Tyler put his arm around Emma and then showed her the card Cory had just signed. He hadn’t expected Emma to read it, not so soon. She looked down at it, then gave him a nervous glance.
Cory had signed the card Proud of you—Coach Cory.
A voice in the background announced a tug-of-war tournament starting in ten minutes. Carlos and Tyler instantly forgot about the baseball cards and the barn and screamed about entering the contest. They ran off and left Cory and Emma alone again.
Before the silence could get awkward, Cory raised his can of soda. “To the best day I’ve had in a long time.”
They clicked cans, and Emma finally seemed to be easing up around him. She took a sip and said, “I’m glad you found our ‘thing’ tonight.”
“Here you go.”
The young kid with the freckles and the bright blue eyes hands him a Sharpie. Cory’s been here before, but he was the kid asking for an autograph.
For a moment he looks at the card with his face on it. Normally he just whips through a long line full of fans with these cards without even thinking twice about it.
He stops for a moment and thinks of Clay.
It’s been too long, and he’s been too far away.
Someone tells him to hurry up while someone else urges the boy aside.
Cory signs the card and then gives the kid a signed shirt. “Take it easy,” he says.
“Thanks.”
For a moment Cory wonders which town he’s at. Then he wonders if it really matters.
He’s been long gone.
And he’s just another face on a card with a name and a number.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Knuckleball
Cory hadn’t even thought of the baseball cards when he was in the barn the other day. He’d just wanted to find the old baseball machine and hit as many balls as he could. Tyler and Carlos watched as he dug around and moved boxes and furniture.
One box caught his attention. It held what looked like the contents of a desk, papers and newspaper clippings and documents and photos all lumped together. Cory wondered if Clay even knew this stuff was out here, this pile of random memories from their youth.
Maybe he’s trying to forget about our miserable childhood, just like me.
Cory pulled out a picture of a tall, fit guy leaning on his bat and dressed in an AA baseball uniform.
“Who’s that?” Carlos asked.
“My dad.”
“Your dad played ball?” Tyler sounded surprised.
> “He was a great player, but he never got past AA.”
Just another disappointment in a disappointing life. Cory didn’t know that young guy in the picture. He’d just known the bitter man who needed someone to take out his anger on.
There was a box marked Baseball Stuff that Cory pulled out of the corner. He knew he’d find his cards inside this box. But five minutes later, they were still nowhere to be found. Inside he’d pulled out trophies and certificates and all these mementos from his childhood. Tyler and Cory were impressed, but Cory wasn’t interested in any of that stuff.
He wanted those cards.
“They can’t be gone.”
A helpless feeling raced through him. Anger at not finding them and not being able to figure out where they were. He pulled out another box and then another, tossing the contents aside as he scavenged through box after box.
No way they’re not here.
Suddenly there was nothing he wanted more in this world than those cards.
They weren’t just cards. They were maybe one of the only things about his past that he had ever loved and ever owned. Maybe the one thing that solely belonged to him and his brother and no one else.
His heart raced, and he wiped sweat from his forehead as he moved another box, trying to figure out where the cards might be. He forgot about the boys behind him. He forgot about Emma and Karen and Clay, who were in the house. He forgot about everything except the cards that he suddenly believed had been taken from him.
Cory turned and walked back out of the storage area, looking at the line of boxes he’d already gone through.
“What’s wrong?” Carlos asked.
They wouldn’t get it; of course they couldn’t in a million years understand. They collected baseball cards for fun. Cory had collected them to keep some kind of morsel of hope alive in the midst of a really miserable childhood.
For a moment, he saw the picture again of Michael Brand.
You wretched piece of work.
That’s when it clicked. Cory cursed and couldn’t care less that he was doing it in front of the boys.
“He must have sold them all,” Cory said in disgust. “Of course he did.”
It was one last see-you-later-Cory from his father.
One last kick in the stomach from the old man.
Cory blasted a box with his foot and sent it flying. He swore again, lashing out at the man who had stolen his childhood.
Emma and Karen had been sitting on the porch, taking in the stillness of the countryside and enjoying glasses of iced tea. Emma had always felt welcome at the Brand house. Clay and Karen were among the only ones in Okmulgee who knew the truth about Tyler, and they’d always tried to make the two of them feel like family.
“Have you decided if you’re going to tell him?”
It was as if Karen sometimes could read her mind, although the question was an obvious one and had been ever since Cory had stepped foot into town.
“I don’t know.” Emma sighed and took a sip from the glass. “I’m hoping I don’t have to.”
“At some point he should probably know.”
“I know. I’m just waiting … until he’s about forty years old.”
Karen laughed and started to say something about Carlos when she suddenly stopped. “What was that?”
They heard a crashing sound. Then shouting.
“Is it the boys?” Karen asked, standing up.
Emma stood next to her and suddenly knew.
The brief firefly of hope had suddenly been extinguished.
“It’s Cory,” she said.
The two women left the porch and headed to the barn to see what was happening.
“I’ll handle it,” Karen said. “You let me go in there first, okay?”
Emma nodded. She wanted to think that Cory wouldn’t hurt the boys, but she didn’t know what he was capable of. Which was exactly why she hadn’t told Tyler the truth and was afraid she might never be able to.
Cory glared at the opened boxes. Nearby, Tyler and Carlos watched him, unsure of what he was doing or why he had suddenly become so enraged.
“It’s a wooden box—with a metal latch. All the valuable cards are in there.”
For a moment, Tyler looked like he knew what Cory was talking about.
“What?” Cory demanded. “You’ve seen it? It used to be in here.”
“No. I just thought—never mind.”
Cory looked again through the box that had contained the baseball stuff. Then he picked it up and flung it against the wall. It landed on its side, and the contents spilled out. He cursed again, kicking the side of the box.
He had been hoping to surprise the kids—to surprise Tyler—by showing off the box. But as usual, there was a hitch in his plans.
He could see his old man laughing, hear the mocking voice bouncing all around these walls.
You’re a failure just like me, Cory. Couldn’t handle it in the big bad world, so they sent you back home, and now you’re fussing like a baby because you can’t find your stupid cards.
Cory wasn’t going to accept no. There was just no way. He began tearing through another box and tossing out items when he heard a voice behind him.
“Take it easy, Cory.”
It was Karen. He shook his head. She had no idea what he was dealing with. He swore and told her he wanted to show them the cards.
“It’s all right, we’ll find—”
Cory interrupted her with another curse at his father. The old man. That wretched man who was now a thief as well.
Karen put her arms around Tyler and Carlos. “Boys, why don’t you go inside? We’ll let you know if we find them.”
Cory sat down and let out a sigh as the boys just stared at him.
When you grow up you’ll get it. You’ll understand that this world’s a miserable place and you gotta fight for what’s yours because the world keeps sucking you dry.
But the expressions on their faces startled him.
They were afraid.
Hey, I’m not the bad guy here, boys.
“Look—they don’t have to leave,” he told Karen. “I’m fine.”
“Right.”
Karen walked the boys out of the barn. Cory picked up where he’d left off. That wooden box had to be here somewhere. Surely Clay didn’t have it—Carlos would know and would have said something. No, it had to be tucked away in here somewhere.
Another box only had old clothes in it. He hurled it away, wiping his face of sweat and feeling like he could start clawing his flesh, he felt so angry.
“For crying out loud, what is your problem?”
Karen had come back, without the boys. He didn’t want to get into it with his sister-in-law.
“Cory—no one’s touched your precious stuff for years.”
“Dad did. He always messed everything up. He ruined absolutely everything.”
Karen walked a few steps and touched him on his arm. “Cory, stop.”
He jerked back, not wanting her to talk to him or touch him or even be two feet away from him. “Just stay out of this.”
While Karen looked like she could be Emma’s sister, she had always had more of an edge about her. In her glance and tone and the way she held herself. Cory sometimes wondered if that was what had attracted Clay to her, this cutting edge that sweet and amiable Clay just didn’t have.
“You can’t keep playing the victim,” Karen said. “Believe me … it doesn’t work.”
How dare she have the guts to say that to my face.
“What do you know about my life?” he hurled back at her. “Or anything for that matter? You’re a small-town, sheltered Sunday school teacher, so spare me the lecture, because until you’ve lived through something tougher than your sin
k backing up, I don’t want to hear it.”
If she weren’t a girl he’d probably reach over and punch her in the nose.
Cory gritted his teeth and stared at the mess all around him. He heard a shuffling and glanced up to see Emma.
She’d heard the whole conversation.
You’ll never change, Cory, not in a million years.
“Let’s go,” Emma said to Karen.
The two of them walked out of the barn, leaving Cory in a familiar place.
The kid standing in the barn all by himself after being chastised.
They don’t have a clue and never will.
The pretty, innocent face belongs to a pretty but not so innocent blonde, who smiles and waves at him like any fan leaving the stadium after Cory wins the game for the Grizzlies.
He gives her a farewell grin and watches her leave his hotel room.
It’s four in the morning, and he pours himself another drink and turns on ESPN to watch highlights of himself. Again.
The surreal part of this is that nothing’s surreal about this at all. This is his life. No fear and no shame and no feeling.
He drinks and feels the familiar restlessness. Coming back down is never fun.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Designated Hitter
“Come on—get in the car.” Clay had already asked him twice, and Cory was acting like a baby by refusing.
“I’m not gonna listen to ten minutes of lecturing, if that’s what you have in mind.”
Emma had already taken a bewildered Tyler home, and Karen had put Carlos to bed. Clay had shown up to see the aftereffects of another Cory Brand meltdown.
“I’m not going to say anything. What else can I say?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Cory got in the car, and Clay followed. He didn’t want to let Cory go walking into the night again, as he had when they’d left the police station. Clay had felt guilty about that but had known he needed to do something to try to get through to his brother.
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