Hardball

by CD Reiss

  “I don’t think you do. I think I’ve made mistakes with you, and that’s what’s making you balk. So I want to undo those mistakes. I want you to know how much you mean to me.”

  “I get it but—”

  “Marry me.” He reached into his pocket.

  No. Oh no. I grabbed his hand before he could dig in there and pick out what I knew was a ring. A ring bought too soon and for the wrong reasons. Maybe the only ring I’d be offered in my life, but nevertheless, one I couldn’t accept.

  “Don’t,” I whispered urgently. “Don’t do this.”

  He’d obviously expected a different reaction. “Why not? I need you.”

  I shook my head to get the thoughts out. The ones where he was using me to fulfill his superstitions, the ones that demanded I tell it to him straight and lose him forever. They pushed against the filter, bulging and pounding against it.

  “You need me for the wrong reasons,” I said, pushing the rest of it back.

  “What do you mean?”

  That was all that thin membrane holding the truth back needed. The words burst out too fast, and they were hard and unkind.

  “I’m not—”

  Your good luck charm

  Responsible for your failures

  A toy

  I bit it all back so hard I nearly coughed. I couldn’t do it that way. I couldn’t cut him down. The crux of what he was going through was lack of confidence, and I’d almost played into it.

  “You’re a gifted person,” I said. “You don’t need superstitions to be successful. Me, I’m just a trinket right now. But the talent is with you. All you.”

  “You’re not a trinket. How could you say that?”

  Of course he picked the one thing that would deflect the conversation from the real problem. I wanted to talk about his confidence and his ability. I didn’t want to talk about what I thought of myself.

  “You have to work on this idea that you’re not good enough,” he said. “You have to know that we’re that good together. That you’re different. Special. Better for me than any woman I’ve ever met.”

  “And you love me?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Yeah. That was bullshit. I was honored and flattered. I was even tempted. His pseudo-declaration of love was the best he could do, under the circumstances, which were just awful.

  “My father,” I said, then I corrected myself. “My biological father. He and my mother got married in a whirlwind. He was an actor on the verge. Clint Eastwood was casting this western. He’d directed stuff before, but everyone was talking about how this was going to be a big deal for him. My father thought he was getting cast in it. It’s hard to do forensics on a guy I never met, but he was vulnerable when he met my mother. His success was about to crush him, and from what my mom said, success was scarier to him than failure. She was that successful. She was in magazines and fashion shows. She’d survived it. She was a symbol of what he wanted to become and what he feared. He felt safe with her. They met and married in the space of two months.”

  Dash shook his head as if to clear it. “Wait. Who’s your dad?”

  “Nobody. Really nobody. Richard Harris got cast to be English Bob when my mom was pregnant with me, and my father flipped. Nothing she did brought him back to reality, and he blamed her. He said if she hadn’t been pregnant, he would have gone out more, made more contacts. And when Unforgiven did well, everything crashed. They weren’t strong enough to get through it, and he left her with nothing but a baby and a house she couldn’t sell.”

  “That’s not me.”

  I was torn. I felt the depth of his disappointment and disorientation, yet I couldn’t change my mind to soothe it. “No, it’s not you. Because you have real talent.”

  He looked away from me, and only in that redirection did I see how confusing this was for him and how I couldn’t make it better. He’d exposed his deepest vulnerabilities, and I’d thrown them into the pit of his fears.

  Well done, Vivian. Way to go.

  “I love you,” I said.

  Those words should have come before he asked me to marry him, and he looked back at me as if he was shocked to hear them.

  “We should go,” he said.

  That wasn’t the answer I’d been looking for, but what could I expect?

  He helped me down from the wall, but his touch was cold, and his eyes avoided mine.

  forty-five

  Dash

  Before Ithaca winter set in, we got a cord of wood for the fireplace. My father bought rough brown twine to tie it together in manageable bundles. The sisal came in a tubeless cylinder, and we pulled the end from the center. There’s a lot of wood in a cord, and we used yards and yards to bundle it, pulling from the center of the cylinder to take a length. We could use ninety percent of the spool, and the size of the thing never changed. It just got emptier and emptier, but it looked the same on the outside.

  Until the last few yards. Then the shape would start to collapse, and the entire thing disappeared as if the invisible man had gotten undressed, and boom, I’d see how empty it had been all that time.

  I walked her to the car and drove it back to her house, but my shape was crumpling. I was about to be stripped down to invisibility. I’d looked pretty fine and felt okay until she refused me, then I’d realized how little I had left at the core.

  “I’m sorry,” she said when we were halfway to her house.

  It was the point in the drive where I could have gone in either direction: to my place, and a night of fucking, or her place.

  “I understand.” I didn’t understand a thing, but I couldn’t talk. I was about to fall apart, and talking would only use up the few yards I had.

  I held her hand because it would reassure her and she’d stop talking. With that touch came a new unraveling. Had I lost her? Did my desperation drive her away? With that thought, I was one layer of twine from complete collapse.

  I parked and got out before we could talk this through more. I opened her door and helped her out. At the top of the steps, I stopped.

  “The game tomorrow…” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Will you come? I have the seats for you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you still walk the bases with me?” I asked. I needed her to. For luck, yes. Because I needed the routine. But also because it meant she was beside me.

  She barely hesitated, and that told me the truth of her response. “Yes.”

  “We’re playing San Diego next.”

  “I want to go. Can I just go to your games when I can?”

  “Yes, I”—take a breath—“I need you there. Whenever you can.”

  “Dash, you’re fine with or without me. You have to believe that.”

  I put my fingers to her lips. I couldn’t hear another word. She turned her head until my palm cupped her face, and she pressed it to her cheek, letting her eyes flutter closed.

  I’d hurt her. I hadn’t thought it was possible to hurt someone with an unopened ring box, but I had, and with that, the last of the string got pulled away.

  forty-six

  Vivian

  “Why do you look like that?” Dad asked when I got inside. He was in his robe and slippers, boiling water for tea. His amber med bottles were out. If it was midnight and he was up with painkillers, the arthritis was flaring.

  I got a cup from the cabinet, deciding to stay up with him.

  “He asked me to marry him.”

  “Mazel tov! Where’s the funeral?”

  “I said no.” I pushed my mug toward him, and he swung a teabag into it. “It’s too soon.”

  “It is, it is.”

  “Why do I feel like crying?”

  “I want to tell you something you don’t know. Do you remember that boyfriend you used to have?”

  “Carl?”

  “That one. He used to call here all the time. After you broke up, I mean.”

  “What?” The teapot whistled just as I said it. “Why?�
�

  Dad turned off the heat. “He wanted to know if you were all right. And I didn’t like the guy. I didn’t like what he did. I was mad at him. But he was very upset.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why should I? He was wrong for you. If I told you how much that stupid ass cried for you—you with your good heart?—you’d just try to comfort him.”

  He poured hot water into my cup, and the water went from clear to pale yellow, releasing the waxy florals of chamomile.

  “I don’t have the energy to be mad at you,” I said.

  “Have the energy to realize it’s hard to say no to someone you care about. Even for Carl the schlemiel.”

  I dunked my teabag, pinched it, and put it to the side. Carl had put a stake in my heart. I’d thought I’d never get over it.

  And Dash? What had he done by moving too fast? Whipped the rug out from under me, from all my view of how things were and should be, and I was going to make contact with the floor. Hard.

  “I’m afraid he’s going to leave me.”

  When I said the words, my face tingled and crunched. That was my hard place, and by refusing him, I’d angled my body to hit harder and faster. My mouth filled with gunk, and my eyes burned with tears. In a second, I couldn’t breathe unless I gulped.

  Dad was there. He held me right there in the kitchen for a good ten minutes while I sobbed as if I hadn’t been proposed to. I sobbed as if I’d been dumped.

  forty-seven

  Vivian

  Are you up?

  It’s 2am. Of course

  (…)

  (…)

  You have a game tomorrow. You need to sleep

  I can’t

  (…)

  (…)

  I’m sorry

  No. I’m sorry

  forty-eight

  Vivian

  My phone lit up. He was calling. The thing to do was to answer it. Talk to him. Tell him I loved him and accept his love even if he felt half-heartedly trapped into expressing it.

  Or not.

  Who was I to doubt him?

  I was the sensible one, that’s who. I started saying things to myself as the phone vibrated in my hand. Bad things.

  I was an object.

  When he got to know me, he’d dump me.

  He couldn’t hear me crying, and I didn’t want him to. I rejected the call.

  I’m not functioning well. I can’t talk

  He didn’t answer for a long time. And why should he? He was the one who had put his heart on the line, and I was the one who was protected and fortified. Not only had I rejected his proposal, I’d rejected his call.

  I’ll walk the bases with you tomorrow

  You don’t have to

  The next text came right after.

  Your tickets are at the will call if you still want to come to the game. Otherwise, I’ll see you another time

  Another time.

  Simple and polite. Nonspecific. Not demanding. Move along. Nothing to see here. Nothing but nothing. I couldn’t call him and reassure him. I’d already said I couldn’t talk.

  Good night

  I hit Send and started on the next text before the first even went through.

  I love you

  Both messages were delivered. The screen said so, but nothing came back. I had no way of knowing if he even saw them.

  I tried to sleep and failed. My brain was too busy winding guilt around justification, knotting me into a braid of righteous self-reproach.

  I should have just said yes.

  But I couldn’t have.

  I fell asleep, sure I’d lost him, and woke up an hour later when the birds started whistling. Dash was the first thought on my mind. I didn’t look at my phone. I was afraid of what I’d see.

  I was tired. Tired of all the limits I’d put on myself. Tired of the box I’d built around my heart. I wanted to change but didn’t know how.

  Padding into the kitchen, gunk in my eyes and sleep in my veins, I found Dad already up. I loved him. I loved him more than my heart could even fit. The way he bent in front of the fridge so slowly, careful not to twist his joints, made me doubt what I’d decided during the walk across the house.

  “Dad,” I said.

  “Good morning.”

  “Would you be mad if I moved out?”

  He stood cautiously, closed the refrigerator, and leaned on it. “Mad?”

  “Disappointed. Or whatever. Maybe the question is, ‘How would you feel if I moved out?’ But not far. As close as I could afford.”

  He laughed quietly. “I’ve been meaning to ask you the same thing.”

  I hadn’t even considered the idea. This was Mom and Dad’s house. This was my home base. My life was in this single-story O-shaped modernist masterpiece, and even if I was gone, it had to be here.

  “You can’t—” I stopped myself at the apostrophe. “Where will you go?”

  “Somewhere smaller. I’m feeling all right with the new pills, but the steps aren’t good in the long run. And this is really your house.”

  “What? No! It’s yours.”

  He waved me off, which he’d done a million times before without annoying me. That morning, however, I was in no mood.

  “You made sure Mom got this house, and when she was gone, you’re the one who paid the mortgage and made it a home,” I said.

  “I only stayed so you had some consistency when your mother died. And now it’s just a habit. Honestly, I don’t even like it.”

  I had to swallow that hard. It was a complete turnaround. I had to sit down. “You don’t like it?”

  “I like the older style. And the neighborhood? Too many nosy old ladies. And I can’t walk to the grocery store. I’m not going to be able to drive much longer, peanut.”

  I hadn’t even wondered if I liked the house. It was the house I had grown up in, and when I left to live with Carl, the fact that it was there, and Dad was in it, was a comfort I took for granted.

  “You should go if you’re not happy here.” I said it as if I was talking to myself, and in a way, I was.

  Dad put his hand on my shoulder. “I am happy here. I kvell thinking of you doing your homework in the courtyard. Reading on that couch. I watched you for hours. You were the reason I was here, and lately I’ve been thinking I made you my reason too long.”

  “I thought you stayed because of Mom.”

  “For a few years, sure. I was a lonely grouch when I met your mother. After you came, I was a man with a family. My empty heart was full. You gave me everything. I stayed in this house to thank you.”

  I gulped back denials because I was the one who should have been thanking him. He’d built his life around me because it was what I needed. He’d taught me the purest form of love, but had I learned it? I choked back a sob.

  “Believe me,” I said, looking up at him, “I’m trying not to say I owe you the thanks. But being your daughter was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  He patted my shoulder again then squeezed it. I put my arms around him and laid my cheek against his chest.

  Dash hadn’t answered the text, and I was glad. He needed to rest. He’d been tired and upset about his performance over spring training. One great game wasn’t going to change that. He needed constant injections of confidence.

  I was his serum.

  I sat on the edge of the bed. My room looked over the vegetable garden that volunteered to grow on its own every year. I’d crawled out of that window every night when I was fourteen until Dad put a bell on the outside and I was busted. The walls had been painted twice. Dark blue over pink when I went to high school, and two coats of primer and white over that when I started college. I’d studied here, eaten here, fucked here.

  I could move from this house to Dash’s place in the hills. I could demand he and I get a new place. I could stay in this house. I could get an apartment. I could stand on my head and spit nickels. It didn’t matter.

  What mattered?

  Som
eone needed me. A human being I cared about. The way Dad needed Mom and he needed me. The house didn’t matter. The ring didn’t matter. What mattered was the evolution of a relationship.

  My bio dad hadn’t evolved. He’d needed my mother at a certain stage in his life, and when that changed, he didn’t go with it, because in the end, he didn’t know how to love her.

  If Dash needed me to give him confidence now, that didn’t mean he’d need the same thing next year or in ten years or after his retirement. I needed to be willing to give him what he needed and evolve later.

  I feared he wouldn’t be able to evolve, but wasn’t that always the fear? No matter who I was with, we’d need to evolve. Wouldn’t children, middle age, old age change us and change our needs?

  I was going to be a zombie today, but a zombie with a completely changed attitude. No dream had come to change my outlook. No little spirit whispered in my ear.

  No. Just a little rest for the brain.

  Dash Wallace was the only man in the world I wanted.

  I was going to be there for him one hundred percent. I was going to let him know that every day, every minute, until he put his heart back into us. If he needed me to walk the bases around every major league field in the United States, I’d do it. He’d own my summer and a chunk of my autumn. His rushed proposal wasn’t going to stop me from loving him with everything I had. I could refuse it and still love him. I could put a ring around my heart.

  I took a deep breath and committed myself to him.

  Long haul. He was my responsibility.

  forty-nine

  Dash

  I couldn’t sleep. I put my phone on Do Not Disturb for the night and juggled three balls ten different ways. I was a fuckup. Everything was fucked up. Wrong. And those phrases just replayed as I tried to distract myself with the rhythm of the balls. You’re a fuckup. You’re a fuckup. She hates you now she thinks you only want her for luck do you love her do you even love her such a fuckup a fucking her is the best thing that ever happened to me with her body around mine she’s mine no one else can fuck up you fucked up you fucked up…