“Look, I really appreciate that Clay and Cory have worked through some stuff this last year, and your family is doing better. But I’m just not there.”
“Emma …” Karen started.
“Karen. People don’t change.”
The woman who was the closest thing Emma had to a sister gave her a sad smile and an unwavering stare. “Emma, I love you. But the only person not changing here is you.”
He’s finally given up trying to be the captain of this boat.
He’s finally let someone else take control of the wheel.
The future isn’t the focus. He’s not worried about how far he’ll get or how fast he’ll get there. He’s fixed on these deep waters around him and the furious storms that will surely be coming.
The sun beats down on Cory, and he finds himself thankful. In this moment. In this now. To know that God has shined down on him and that there is still a reason to look up, to get up, to be UP.
Each breath and each beat, no longer stretched out and left broken.
He is here on these waters, and he’s not about to jump overboard. He’s staring straight ahead, ready for whatever’s going to come at him.
Ready for wherever the captain is going to take him.
Chapter Forty-four
Complete Game
This day was all about starting over. It was the opening day of the baseball season. Even though it was only AA ball, it was still something. Cory had a job. He had a game he could still play. He was sober and in a good place and this day was another landmark in his recovery.
Maybe they’ll show up. Maybe.
He was on the field, giving an interview, being asked the same questions he had been asked for the last eight months.
“One day at a time is all I can tell you,” Cory said. “I’m in Tulsa now, so I’m focusing on doing a good job here.”
These weren’t trivial clichés thrown out there just so he’d be heard saying the right thing on ESPN. He meant these words. He wasn’t thinking about how well he might do and whether or not a team like the Grizzlies or any other major team would invite him back to the show. This was where he was for now, and he had to make it count. Thinking about the future only made the present even more difficult.
As he was sharing his thoughts on the opening game, he saw Clay and the kids walking onto the field toward him.
“Excuse me, I’ve got some very special guests here.”
He rushed toward them and greeted each kid with a hug.
“Hey, guys,” Cory said. “It’s so good to see all of you.”
Carlos and Wick and Stanton and Kendricks—all of the Bulldogs were there. All except one very important Bulldog.
Cory hugged Clay and Karen.
“Good to see you,” his brother said.
“How are you?” Karen asked.
“They couldn’t make it, huh?”
“You know how it is,” Clay said.
“Yeah.”
Cory had to live with the reality of how it was every day. He had tried a few times to reach out to Emma, but she hadn’t returned his calls or emails. He understood. It had taken him ten years just to go back home, and that had been because of a forced publicity stunt.
The kids talked Cory’s ears off, and he welcomed it. The only thing that would have been better would be to have Emma and Tyler joining in the conversation.
“Did you say anything about the Bulldogs to that reporter?” Carlos asked.
“Don’t be stupid,” Stanton said.
“We get that station in Okmulgee,” Wick announced to nobody in particular.
“Do you get a player’s discount in the gift shop?” Kendricks asked.
The constant barrage of questions and comments made Cory laugh. He looked at Clay with an amused glance.
I miss these guys. I miss all of you.
It was his second at bat, and Cory stepped up to the plate, feeling the pressure.
For a moment, as he got into his stance, he could feel his father looking down at him. Waiting impatiently. Waiting to throw the ball and make Cory pay. Watching to make sure he did everything right. Waiting and watching and willing to hurt Cory if he had to.
The buzzing intensified, and soon Cory had to step back out of the box and collect himself. He held the bat as he looked at the pitcher.
It’s not Dad. It’s just some kid fresh out of college.
He stood back at the plate and focused.
Cory knew he no longer needed to bat off all the hurtful objects coming his way.
He wasn’t batting to protect himself and his little brother. He wasn’t batting for his life.
I’m here to do the thing God gifted me to do.
The pitcher released the fastball, and Cory knew he had all of it. The bat blasted the ball high and long to the heavens themselves.
It cleared the fence easily.
God gives some people certain abilities, Cory, and He sure gave you one. To hit home runs.
This, indeed, was a beautiful and glorious home run.
Cory could hear the cheers and knew they sounded different. He was no longer running for them. He smiled and felt satisfaction, but this—this job and this game and these people and this stadium—did not define him. He wasn’t doing it for them. And he was no longer running away from the memory of a man who was no longer alive.
Cory Brand, the starting left fielder for the Tulsa Mustangs, rounded the bases and heard the cheers from the Bulldogs.
His old team.
Coach Cory was making some strides and doing okay. Slowly but surely.
A day at a time.
Cory’s car was the last one left in the empty lot. As he walked toward it after leaving the locker room, he couldn’t help thinking of that moron who had knocked over his adopted nephew and then found his brother waiting for him.
A lot had changed in that span of time. A lot.
Tonight he was the last one left simply because he had been talking with Clay and Karen on the field, along with signing balls for all the Bulldogs. The Mustangs had won by five runs. His two home runs were the talk of the game, and Cory had to admit it felt great. It was good to remember what winning felt like. What caring felt like. What contributing really meant.
“Excuse me, Cory Brand? This boy belong to you?”
Cory turned and saw one of the security guys for the stadium standing with Tyler.
“He sure does.”
Tyler rushed toward him as Cory tried to understand how he got there. For a second he was worried until he saw Emma standing behind the guard.
“Sorry we missed your game,” Tyler said when he reached him.
Cory had been waiting for this moment for a long time. He hadn’t known how badly until he thought it might never happen. He got down on one knee and pulled Tyler close to him.
“Come here, bud,” Cory said.
Time stopped as Cory held his long-lost son.
Thank You, Lord.
There were tears in his eyes, and he didn’t care whether anyone saw them. Cory looked Tyler in the eyes but couldn’t speak. There was too much to say. He didn’t even know where to start.
Emma slowly walked up to them. Cory smiled as he stood, wondering whether to hug her or not, then deciding a nice genuine smile would be enough.
“Hey, Emma,” he said. “Good to see you. Thanks for bringing him.”
She glowed, reminding him why he had fallen so hard for her. He had missed that beautiful smile. He had missed both of them a lot.
“You look good, Cory. Healthy.”
The words and the declarations and every big and little thing Cory wanted to say were all stored away, waiting for him to unload them. But Cory knew this wasn’t the time.
They were there,
and that was enough.
It beat hitting two home runs on opening day, and that in itself was pretty special.
“Hey, how about a tour?” Cory said.
Emma didn’t hesitate this time. She gave him a polite nod.
Of all the things she imagined might happen on this evening once she’d decided to bring Tyler to the game, this was not one of them.
The stadium lights were still on as they walked onto the soft grass of the field. Cory had grabbed sodas for all of them. Tyler gushed over every little thing. Cory looked like a proud father, talking about the stadium and pointing things out to him. It was a side of Cory Emma had never seen.
As they stood in the outfield, Cory asked Tyler if he wanted to play some ball. Tyler looked at her, and she gave him a nod.
She wasn’t going to deny Tyler this moment. Tyler and Cory.
She watched them throwing the ball back and forth. A simple image of a father and son playing catch.
Yet as Emma watched, the emotions seized up inside of her.
Years ago, the moment she had first known she loved Cory, she had secretly dreamed of this moment. When she discovered she was pregnant, and even after Cory left and Emma moved away from Okmulgee, she still had dreamed that one day this moment might arrive.
The father throwing the ball wasn’t just any ordinary baseball player. And the son catching it wasn’t just any ordinary kid.
She wiped her eyes as Tyler threw a long ball over Cory’s head, causing him to turn and spring and then snag it and fire it back to Tyler.
Tyler had to go back to grab it, but he did.
“Nice catch,” Cory shouted.
Tyler launched another long ball, making Cory sprint and dive and barely catch the ball.
“Whoa,” Tyler said.
Emma knew Cory was showing off for Tyler, and for her. It felt good. It had been years since she could remember Cory showing off for anybody except himself.
Careful, Em.
This scene was cute and special, but it didn’t change a decade of not-so-cute and not-so-special memories. She knew she had to tread very lightly on this ground.
“Time to go, Tyler.”
Tyler scooped up the ball but threw it again, obviously hoping not to have to leave yet.
Cory caught it and began to run toward them. “Time to go, slugger.”
As they headed off the field, Cory told them to wait a minute.
“What is it?” Tyler asked, still breathing heavily.
Cory grabbed the duffel he’d brought out onto the field from his car and came back a moment later carrying the wooden box with the metal latch.
“You can’t leave without your cards.”
Tyler beamed as Emma looked at the box in Cory’s hands.
Some things in this life didn’t need any explanation. And some apologies didn’t need any words.
“Whoa—these are really mine to keep?” Tyler asked.
“They’re all yours,” Cory said.
Before Tyler could take the box, he wrapped his arms around Cory.
The two of them stood holding each other while Emma watched and tried to fight off the tears.
Sometimes God made you wait for moments like this. And sometimes, when they came, you weren’t so sure what to do with them.
Sometimes, all you could do was thank God above.
That was exactly what Emma did.
They were ready to leave. When they would see Cory next, Emma didn’t know. She hadn’t woken up this morning expecting to bring Tyler to this game. She hadn’t expected the evening to be so … so magical and moving. But she still didn’t know what to make of everything or what might happen tomorrow or the day after that.
Like Cory, Emma knew she needed to take things a day at a time.
Cory and Emma stood next to her truck while Tyler waited inside. The stadium parking lot was empty.
“Thanks for coming, Emma.”
She gave an unsure shrug, not knowing what else to say.
“I know there’s nothing I can do to make up for what I’ve done, and what I haven’t done. For what I put you through. And Tyler. I have to say, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Emma. I hope you can forgive me.”
Emma could see Tyler’s face watching them from inside the truck. She tried with everything she had inside to control her emotions.
She’d waited a long time to hear those words.
“Yeah,” she said weakly. “Okay.”
“I’m not asking for anything,” Cory said. “But I love this family. I believe in this family. And I’ll be a part of it—as much or as little as you want me to be.”
This was a Cory Brand she had never seen. There had been the cocky Cory and the angry Cory and the distraught Cory, but never this one.
This was the man she always hoped and believed Cory Brand would become.
Emma nodded and then turned to get into her truck. She still didn’t know what to say to him about expectations and tomorrow. She would figure that out when tomorrow came.
As she climbed inside and shut the door, Tyler watched her carefully. She couldn’t help tearing up as she started up the truck.
All she could do was look down at her lap and try to control the emotions inside.
I don’t know what to do because God knows I still love that broken and bruised man walking away from us.
She gripped the wheel as she waited for a moment. Tyler shifted in the seat next to her.
“Nothing good happens when you hang back, Mom.”
She looked at the face of this beautiful and sweet soul. The two of them had been through a lot. He didn’t know it, but they had.
Emma sighed and smiled and then hugged her son.
Cory walked toward the players’ parking lot, feeling full and empty at the same time. The restless feeling was beginning to swirl around again in his head and his gut. He knew he might have to call J. T. and talk with him or even meet with him. This night had been full of peaks and valleys.
The old me never wanted those peaks to go away.
He prayed for guidance and peace as he walked, closing his eyes for just a second.
Then he heard footsteps coming toward him and his name being shouted out.
By Emma.
That sweet and pretty girl he’d fallen in love with in high school hadn’t changed much. She’d just grown into a beautiful woman and mother, and he hadn’t been there to watch the change. He’d missed every good and glorious part about it.
But Emma was there now.
She walked toward him and then embraced Cory for the first time in ten years. Their last embrace had been cold and had signified good-bye. This one signified hope.
Cory stepped back for a second to make sure it was really her, to look at her face.
Those eyes looked at him once again without any walls or barriers between them.
Cory might have been a fool and might still be a fool, but he knew this woman still loved him. Anybody could see that.
He wanted to say that everything was going to be okay and that he was going to take things slowly and that he would never ever leave their family’s life again if they would allow him back into it.
He tried to show this all with a smile and a nod.
Emma knew. She knew him a lot better than he knew himself.
Cory looked toward the truck and saw Tyler’s gawking face of disbelief in the window. It made him laugh while Emma stood back and seemed to regain her composure.
She cleared her voice. “You hungry?”
He needed to wrap his mind and heart and soul around what was happening here.
Please, God, don’t let me wake up in the roach motel, watching ESPN and staring at the Devil’s fridge.
Cory smiled
at Emma and regained his composure as well. “Always.”
Tyler was out of the truck and had reached the two of them.
Only two fans were left in the stadium parking lot of the Tulsa Mustangs after their home game, but Cory Brand definitely did not feel alone anymore.
When the night is over and Emma and Tyler are gone, Cory doesn’t collapse back into his own little world he’s made for himself. He doesn’t panic or have a pity party at being left again.
This time, Cory simply says a prayer of thanks to God who forgives. To God who answers prayers. To God who has mercy, just like the woman who’s allowing him back into her life.
It used to be that emotions like this terrified him because ultimately they would let him down. Cory no longer believes that. He no longer fears the silence and the shadows. He’s no longer afraid of the void inside of him, one that will never truly be filled until the day he steps before his heavenly Father.
Cory thanks God for one of the best nights of his life. He believes there can be more of them, God willing.
But right now he remains in the moment and remains thankful for this day.
Chapter Forty-five
Home Run
These pieces of you, imperfectly sewn and patched all over, blur by like a blinding pitch.
That image woke Cory up at three in the morning. He’d been able to go back to sleep for a while, but the picture had stayed with him as he drove back home to Okmulgee for an important occasion.
It was there as he passed his sweet home-away-from-home and spotted the sign outside the motel that said Cory Brand Stays Here. The old Cory Brand would have stopped and told them to stop using his name; now he found it oddly amusing.
The image had been there as he spotted Hank’s Tavern, where his father used to drink and where Cory had found himself at a crossroads of his life.
It was especially there as he drove past the Little League field.
Now that his moment had arrived, it felt like he’d been building up to it for the past thirty-four years. Cory stood in the large church sanctuary before a crowd of familiar and loving faces.
Home Run: A Novel Page 23
