Charlie lived for baseball. He also lived because he’d had a kidney transplant six months ago. He was healthy now, after years of not being so healthy, but a kidney transplant wasn’t a magic bullet. It didn’t make everything all right again, turn back the clock so Charlie could start over and be on an equal footing with the world.
He was small because children without kidney function don’t grow, and Charlie had a lot of catching up to do. He was fourteen, but he looked ten. He’d begun to grow now, sure, but he was already fourteen, and he was running out of “growing time.” Soon Sarah would be taller than her older brother. He was smart, eager, and had more guts than almost anyone else on the planet…but he could not stand toe to toe, physically, with other boys his age, especially other boys his age trying out for the local summer baseball team.
But that was the way the deal worked; teams were divided into age groups. Not ability groups. Not common-sense groups. Age groups. So what if two of the kids already topped six feet and her kid still hadn’t hit five feet? So what if Charlie could stand behind the wide-body catcher and disappear?
What had Coach Billig said the first time he saw Charlie? As if Laura would ever forget: “Second base, huh? Does the kid want to play second base, or be it?”
And then he’d laughed at his own joke. The bastard.
No, Laura wasn’t holding out much hope that Charlie would make the team.
But not Jake. Not the optimist. He thought it was great that Charlie walked nearly every time he was up at bat during practices because the pitchers couldn’t locate his small strike zone. He thought Billig would see the advantage there, put Charlie in when the bases were loaded and assure the team of a run. Jake would take any crumb, cling to any hope, so that his boy could be on the team. Good old Jake, always the cheerleader, the optimist who never saw the blow coming until he was flat on his back with another disappointment.
It was enough to make Laura hide out in the shower so nobody would hear her when she cried. Or cursed. Why could she watch, dry-eyed and resolute, as Charlie was put through painful tests, then fall apart now, when he was healthy again, just because some thoughtless moron decided it would be fun to get a laugh at her son’s expense?
The world was upside down…she was upside down…
“Laura, are you going to finish that, or what?” Jake asked, and Laura realized she’d been holding a forkful of salad halfway between her plate and her mouth, probably for a full minute or more.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, putting down the fork, her appetite gone. “Just let me rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, and I’ll be ready to go. Sarah, finish your broccoli. What time is practice? Six?”
“I’ll take care of the dishes, hon.” Jake was already on his way to the sink with his plate, pausing only to rub Charlie’s mop of dark red curls. “And it’s five-thirty, Laura, not six, so we’ve really got to move. Women,” he added in that special husband voice men acquire the moment they say I do. “Right, Slugger?”
“Right, Dad,” Charlie said, shoveling one last bite of mashed potatoes into his mouth, then following his father to the sink. “I have to be early, maybe get in a little more batting practice before the last tryout. I think you’re right, Dad. If I just step up a little in the box, I can…”
Laura tuned them both out and left them to rinse the dishes as she ran upstairs to change her sneakers. Maybe, if she was extremely lucky, she’d trip on the stairs, sprain her ankle and not have to go to the ball field at all. But that would be chickening out, and Charlie never chickened out, so neither could she.
In ten minutes they were in Jake’s car, heading for the Harley Memorial Playground, named after a young boy who had lost his battle with leukemia twenty years earlier, a young boy who had loved baseball. You’d think people would take a hint and remember that, Laura always thought when she sat on the grassy hill during practice, watching Charlie do his best to impress Coach Billig.
“I don’t need this, Mom,” Charlie complained once they arrived at the field. He was dancing in place as Laura strapped the homemade protector around his waist and let the Velcro secure it. Charlie’s new kidney was in the front of his body, not shielded by his skeletal structure, and a fastball to the gut could be real trouble. Laura tried to be upbeat, but there was a part of her that still wanted Charlie protected at all times…even if he did look as if he was hiding a pillow under his T-shirt.
“Humor me,” Laura said, as she always did, then resisted the urge to grab her son close, beg him to duck if he saw a ball coming his way.
Once Charlie had his bat and glove and was running down the grassy slope to the ball field, and Sarah had found a playmate to run up and down the hill with her, Laura turned on Jake. She’d planned to be tactful, but plans like that rarely worked out. Not when they’d been left to simmer too long. “You have to stop building him up for a fall, Jake. Billig doesn’t want him. He wants to win. That’s all he cares about, winning. Not the kids. Not our kid.”
Jake smiled at her, that dumb, melting smile that still had the power to weaken her knees. “I pulled Billig aside and talked to him, Laura, after last night’s practice, after you and Sarah left for the mall. I explained to him about Charlie, why he’s shorter than the other kids, and maybe not quite as fast. But I told him what Charlie lacks in size, he makes up for in heart, in determination, and he’ll get better as the season moves on. Billig understood, he really did.”
“Oh, Jake.” Laura rolled her eyes. “I don’t know who’s going to be more disappointed tonight, Charlie, or you.”
Jake wasn’t smiling now. “Why do you always have to be such a damn pessimist, Laura?”
“I don’t know, Jake. Why do you always have to be such a damn optimist? Charlie’s different. He’s ours, we love him, but he can’t compete with other kids his age, not on the ball field. It’s just not possible.” She lowered her eyes for a moment, and then said what she didn’t want to say. “He could get hurt.”
“Ah! And now we have it, don’t we? Charlie could get hurt. Laura, we can’t wrap the kid in cotton wool. We didn’t work this hard to get him well and then only allow him to live half a life. It’s not fair, damn it!”
Quick tears stung behind Laura’s eyes, and she just as quickly blinked them away. “I wish it had never happened, too, Jake. I wish he were still our perfect little boy. But he’s not. He’s special. That doesn’t mean we can’t be proud of him.”
“I am proud of him, Laura. He’s my son. I couldn’t have done what he did, fight the way he fought. And I’m not going to let him down now, you understand? He’s going to play baseball, and if this is the only team in town, this is damn well where he’s going to play baseball.” He shoved his fists into his pants pockets. “I’m going to go get a soda. You want one?”
Laura shook her head and watched as Jake walked away, putting a little space between them, which was probably a good thing. It was all so hard for Jake, and always had been. His own son, and Jake couldn’t help him, couldn’t stop bad things from happening to him. Laura couldn’t either, but at least she was the one who’d stayed with Charlie at the hospital, had performed dialysis on him three times a week. Jake hadn’t had that hands-on involvement in his care, so he’d stepped into the role of cheerleader, always doing something to take Charlie’s mind off the pain, the problems, the fears.
And all the while screaming silently inside, angry with the world and God and himself, because he couldn’t do more to help his son. Jake just wanted them to be a normal family again. He wanted to forget the scary years, and she didn’t blame him. But if every family taking care of a chronically ill or disabled child needed an optimist, it probably also needed a pessimist, someone who worried, someone who planned ahead, someone who kept them all grounded.
Or at least that’s what she’d read in one of those ridiculous self-help books that are so great in theory but not always so terrific in practice.
She’d read so many books, tried so many things, and couldn�
��t beat out of her head the worst thing she’d read…that the majority of parents who have a seriously ill or impaired child are divorced; the deck is stacked against them.
Laura and Jake had, she believed, pretty much avoided the more obvious pitfalls while Charlie was so sick. They’d been too busy fighting the problem, solving the problem. But now? Now that Charlie was okay? Now they had to learn to live with something that was so much better—so very much better—but was still not the life or the dreams they’d had before Charlie got sick.
And it wasn’t easy.
“I figured you really did want one,” Jake said, holding out a soda for her, and then bending to kiss her cheek. “Sorry, I was being a jerk.”
“I love you, too,” Laura said, going up on tiptoe to return his kiss. “And I will think positive on this. I promise.”
“No, you won’t,” Jake teased, ruffling her dark copper curls just as he’d done earlier to Charlie. “You worry better than anyone I know, and you’re really good at it. But just ease off this one time, okay? Charlie’s going to get some bumps and bruises, but he’ll be fine. He’ll prove himself.”
“Does that mean I have your permission to close my eyes when he comes up to bat and Richie the Giant Killer tries to—what did you call it last night?—back him up with his curveball?” Laura asked, smiling.
“Permission granted…you wuss.” Jake hugged her close against his side. “Uh-oh, here comes Billig, and he’s carrying a piece of paper.” He dropped his arm to his side. “What the hell? He’s going to make the cuts before practice? How can he do that? He has to give Charlie another chance to—damn it!”
Laura felt as old as time as she watched Charlie and five other boys walk away from the group gathered around Billig, pick up their bats and gloves from the bench and slowly head back up the hill. Oh, God. She hadn’t wished this on him, had she? She was heartbroken for Charlie, but was she also relieved that he wouldn’t have to compete physically with boys twice his size? Would that make her an unnatural mother?
Charlie reached them, dragging the barrel of his aluminum bat along the ground. He didn’t stop, he just kept walking, his steps plodding, his head down. “Let’s go. I’m done.”
Jake grabbed his son’s arm. “Whoa, wait a second, son. What happened? What did he say?”
“Later, Jake, please,” Laura pleaded. Charlie wasn’t crying. He wouldn’t cry, not in front of the other kids, but he was on the brink. The best thing to do would be to get him out of here before the dam broke. “Let’s go get some ice cream. Take Charlie to the car. I’ll round up Sarah and be right behind you.”
Charlie looked up at his mother. “Mom? Coach said I should come back when I grow some more.” Then he dropped the bat he was so proud of and the mitt he’d worked a good pocket into with linseed oil every night for the past month, and ran for the parking lot.
“Why, that no good son of a—”
“Jake. Jake—stop. It won’t change anything if you hit him.”
“Oh yeah? It would make me feel a whole hell of a lot better.”
“I know,” Laura said in sympathy, because she’d like to pop the tactless guy herself. “But that won’t help Charlie, will it? Just let it go.”
“Let it go. That’s your answer for everything, isn’t it? You know what, Laura? I’m tired of letting it go. Here,” he said, taking the car keys from his pocket and tossing them at her. “Take the kids for ice cream. I’m going to walk home.”
Laura couldn’t keep her own anger and hurt out of her voice. “And just how does that help Charlie?”
“I don’t know, Laura, I honestly don’t. But I can’t face that kid right now.”
“Because he’s disappointed? Or because you are? Because you helped set him up for this fall?” She quickly put a hand on his arm. “Oh, Jake, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that…”
“Don’t wait up,” Jake said, glaring at her for a moment before he turned and walked away.
Laura looked toward the parking lot and could see that Charlie was already in the backseat of the car, watching as his father strode off. So now she’d have to go to Charlie, tell him how sorry she was that he didn’t make the team, that maybe next year would be better, even though she knew that wasn’t true…and then explain to her son how much his father loved him.
Because that was how it had to be, how she and Jake had learned to operate. They tried their best to present a strong, united front, but when one couldn’t do it anymore and fell down, the other had to pick up the ball. They’d been taking turns like this for years. Tonight was her turn to pick up the ball.
She signaled to Sarah to follow her and began the slow walk to the car, hoping her daughter didn’t climb into the backseat beside Charlie and say something typically nine-year-old, like, “Hooray! Now I can go play with Brenda!”
Yeah. Life was just one long carnival…
“Excuse me! You forgot these.”
Laura stopped and turned around to see a petite, blond woman she’d noticed at a few of the other practices. She was holding up Charlie’s bat and glove. “Thank you,” Laura said, taking the equipment. “I don’t know where my head is tonight.”
“If it’s anywhere near where mine is, you’re plotting to go home and stick pins in a Billig doll. I’m thinking a bad knee first, then on to his gallbladder, maybe a migraine.”
Laura smiled at the woman. “Only if I get to stick in the pin that gives him a raging case of hemorrhoids.” She tucked Charlie’s mitt under her arm and held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Laura Finnegan. You’re Bobby’s mother, right?”
“When he acknowledges me, yeah, I am. I have this tendency to cheer a little too loud, you understand, and fourteen-year-old boys don’t like that.” She extended her own hand. “Jayne Ann Maitz. Bobby also got cut, but I’m guessing you know that.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—” Laura stopped, shook her head. “I was so wrapped up in watching Charlie that I didn’t even notice who else was cut. How’s Bobby taking it?”
Jayne Ann shrugged. “He’s used to it. This is his third year in a row. I think Billig figures he’s going to give up, not come back, but he doesn’t know my Bobby. He’s afraid of him, but he doesn’t know him.”
“Afraid of him? I don’t understand.”
“Bobby has a seizure disorder,” Jayne Ann told her as both mothers proceeded toward the parking lot. Bobby had run ahead, and Laura saw that Charlie had rolled down the window in the backseat and the two boys were talking. “We’ve got the seizures pretty well under control, but we still have our…well, we still have our moments. Unfortunately, two years ago Billig witnessed one of those moments. Bobby hasn’t had a chance since then.”
Laura rested the bat on her shoulder as she and Bobby’s mother stopped just at the edge of the parking lot. “Did you ever hear the monologue where Bill Cosby goes on and on about the problems with having kids, raising kids, and says he doesn’t know what happened—all he and his wife wanted was to have some kids to send to college? And that was years before his only son was murdered. Life doesn’t always work out the way we think it’s supposed to, does it?”
“No. Not even close. And definitely not the way my ex thought it was supposed to. He took a hike a year after Bobby had his first seizure. Just couldn’t take it that his son wasn’t perfect, so whatever was wrong with Bobby had to have come from my side of the family. He’s got a new wife and three perfect kids now. Maybe, while you’re at it, you could give him a dose of hemorrhoids, too? I’d even pay you.”
“You saw my husband stomp off, right?” Laura asked, smiling weakly as she came to Jake’s defense. “He’s not ashamed of Charlie. He just remembered that when we married I promised to love and honor him—possibly even obey him from time to time if I’m in the mood—but did not agree to bail him out of jail after an assault-and-battery charge.”
“Well, damn, you should think about putting that in the marriage contract,” Jayne Ann said, grinning. “I would have loved to
see Billig go down on his skinny, sanctimonious backside. I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen in your house tonight, but there’s going to be a lot of crying and throwing things and feeling sorry for ourselves going on in ours. And that’s just me. Bobby will be worse.”
“Yeah, sounds like we’ll be running the same program at our house. Look, Jayne Ann, if we can’t change what’s going to happen, maybe we can at least delay the inevitable. How about we all go for ice cream?”
“Sounds like a plan to me. Ripley’s? I’ll follow you in my van.”
“Okay, good,” Laura said, looking back toward the ball field one last time as the kids who’d made the team began their practice session. “Jayne Ann? How about the other kids who were cut? Why did he cut them?”
“Well, let’s see. There were six, and we’re two of those six. The other four kids? Marvin Bailey couldn’t hit a barn door with a cannon. Someday his father is going to figure out that the poor kid plays a mean game of chess, but that’s it. As for the other three, two of them are about as good in the field as Marvin is with the bat—which leaves Bruce Lee Pak.”
“Bruce Lee was cut? I thought he was fairly good, not that I know much about baseball. Why him?”
“Bruce Lee’s just a little slow, God love him. Not a lot, but just enough that his reactions are not always as fast as they should be. Billig could have cut him a little slack—let kids like Charlie and Bobby and Bruce Lee warm the bench and come in when the score is already out of reach, or something. That’s all they want, to be part of the team. Marvin Bailey was relieved to be cut, and the other two are only thirteen, and can try again next year. But our kids? Next year they’d have to move up again, to the fifteen- and sixteen-year-old bracket, and we already know that’s not going to work. Sorry, I got on my soapbox there for a minute. Why do you ask?”
More Than Words: Stories of Hope Page 10
