Homestands (Chicago Wind #1)

by Sally Bradley

  No. She shook her head. Over breakfast, she’d told him her plans for the day. He’d nodded and stabbed another pancake from the pile as if she’d announced she was getting a pedicure.

  Brett wasn’t coming.

  Other than the funeral, had he ever come? Had he ever loved their youngest child?

  She crossed the paved, one-way road to the thick grass and stood before the gravestone.

  Ashlyn Rose Burkholder

  Received April 9, returned an angel April 12

  Kyla closed her eyes, half embarrassed at the words she’d chosen two years earlier. But what had she known then about life after death? Unbidden, the Ashlyn she’d dreamed of rose in her mind, a curly-haired, blonde pixie with a dimple in each cheek, white bows holding her hair back.

  But the Ashlyn she’d cried over, the Ashlyn attached to tubes and monitors in the NICU, bore no resemblance.

  Kyla kneeled on the ground and ran her hand over the grass as she would have run it over Ashlyn’s arm or leg, the way she ran her hand over Haleigh’s hair when she slept. “Hi, Ashlyn.

  She doubted Ashlyn heard in heaven, but up there she was alive and happy.

  “Haleigh and Jax are in school or they’d be here. Haleigh asked me to give you a kiss.” She swallowed the rock in her throat. “They might come later. We’ll see.”

  Brett should be here.

  “Your daddy’s working hard these days. He hired a pitching coach to help him figure out what’s wrong. He’s happier now that he’s busy.” Which wasn’t saying much. “Maybe he’ll be back in the big leagues soon. It’d be nice, just to get him out of the house.”

  Her eyes slid shut at her words. She should be more understanding of what Brett was going through, but it wasn’t that simple when he talked like he’d pitch in the majors forever. She’d never dreamed the Wind would release him two weeks before the season opener. He was completely unprepared for life after baseball.

  What if he’d already pitched his last? If things were stressful now, what would they be like in a few months when his last check arrived?

  A car door slammed behind her.

  Kyla stiffened. She wouldn’t look. It wasn’t Brett. He hadn’t come.

  Still, she imagined his arm draped around her shoulders and his kneeling beside her. She could almost feel his sculpted chest as he held her against him. She wiped a rogue tear. She should be crying for her lost daughter, not her marriage.

  Except Ashlyn wasn’t lost. Ashlyn’s departure had prompted Kyla’s search into life after death. The woman she’d sobbed all over that first Sunday in church had told her about Ashlyn’s new home. She’d shared how that home could be hers too, and finally Kyla accepted it—not for the reunion with Ashlyn, but for the meeting with the God who’d paid for her many, many sins.

  Haleigh and Jax believed now. And Brett, well…

  “You’re my favorite, Ashlyn.” Kyla laughed. “There. I’ve said it. And it’s not because I never had to change your diapers. Without you—” She swallowed. “Without you, our family would never have a chance to be together. Forever.” She stood and brushed bits of grass from her jeans. “We’ll see you someday, Ashlyn. All of us.” Eventually Brett would be persuaded. And they’d be a family of five again, once they reached heaven.

  Behind her a female voice sounded. “Kyla?”

  Kyla turned, her throat tightening.

  Her neighbor Lacey stood beside an SUV, plain brown hair fluttering with the breeze. “I thought—I hope it’s okay—”

  “Of course it’s okay.” Kyla crossed the road, Lacey meeting her halfway and wrapping her in a tight hug. How wonderful to feel arms around her in this cemetery. “I’m glad you’re here. I dread coming alone, but I can’t stay away either.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, you don’t ever have to come alone. Call me.”

  Somehow the words stung. “You shouldn’t have to do my husband’s job.”

  “Then how about I do a friend’s job?”

  Kyla moaned. “Lacey, I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  For letting her frustration out on the most selfless woman she knew. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot. I just wish Brett was here too.” What was wrong with him? She unclenched the fist she didn’t know she’d made and motioned across the road. “Come with me now?”

  “Now is good.”

  They crossed the asphalt and grass until they stood before the grave. “Lacey, this is…” Words vanished. Her throat swelled.

  “You don’t need to say anything, Kyla. I know how much Ashlyn means to you.”

  The end of a physical life. The beginning of a handful of spiritual lives.

  For a few minutes, she stood there with Lacey, looking at the tombstone, listening to the birds sing, feeling the crisp breezes dance around them. Kyla inhaled the grassy scent and thought back to the day two years ago when the tiny casket had sat there. The pain then had been so sharp, as if it attacked her.

  But today—even with her anger at Brett and the pain that threatened—today felt different. Somehow this place held more hope than the last time she’d come. And a little more than the time before that too. Maybe it was Lacey’s presence.

  Or maybe it was God’s.

  Beside her, Lacey sighed. “Sometimes I envy your having a grave to visit.”

  Kyla watched Lacey’s profile. Despite the confession, her features stayed calm.

  Lacey released a little laugh. “That lilac bush in the backyard is my spot to remember the baby. Maybe it’s silly. I don’t know.”

  “It’s not silly.” Lacey had miscarried a year ago, and Kyla—driving by—vividly remembered seeing Derek consoling Lacey in their backyard. His words had been impossible to hear, but, knowing Derek, Kyla had filled them in.

  That he loved Lacey and would be there for her, whenever she needed him.

  That God knew what he was doing, that he would help them through it.

  That she could cry on his shoulder any time.

  What Kyla wouldn’t give for a husband who said those things to her. “It’s not silly,” she repeated.

  Lacey gripped Kyla’s hand as if she understood.

  But she didn’t. Kyla loved Lacey and Derek, but sometimes watching them just plain hurt. They were a constant reminder that there were men out there who loved God and who loved their wives for the right reasons. Men she’d missed. Had probably shunned.

  Maybe… maybe that part of her life would change. She had to hold on to hope. For all she knew, everything could be about to change.

  Lacey nudged her. “What are you smiling at?”

  “Nothing. Hope. Dreams, I guess.”

  “Dreams are good.”

  “As long as they come to pass.”

  Lacey flushed. “Maybe.”

  Lacey with secret dreams? Kyla elbowed her. “Spill it.”

  “No way.”

  “Lacey! I thought we were buds.”

  Lacey shot her a glance, blushing again. “There are things I don’t tell Derek, Kyla.”

  “And I don’t tell Brett every deep, dark desire either.”

  “Then you understand.”

  Flashes of her own longings sprang before her, secrets she would never tell Brett. Or Lacey. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “Okay.”

  If Lacey only knew…

  But she didn’t. Kyla rubbed her forearm, thoughts she refused to think making the silence uncomfortable. “We should head back.”

  Lacey nodded. “You okay then?”

  “Better.” Kyla forced a smile. “Thanks for coming.”

  They walked back to their cars, and Kyla cast one more glance around before opening her door. Yes, she was better than she’d been a year ago. Two years ago. Much better.

  But was her marriage better?

  No.

  She eased onto her seat and from her rearview mirror watched Lacey turn her SUV around. Since the ESPN interview in October, the distance between her and Brett had slowly grown. Sometimes she
thought it was Ashlyn’s death. Sometimes she thought it was her new faith. Sometimes she thought it was just life.

  Then, a month ago, Brett lost his job.

  There was a chasm dividing them now.

  She started the Escalade. She had to hold onto hope that Brett was home this spring for a reason. Maybe, for the first time in a few years, spring would finally bring something good into her life. Maybe this was when Brett would get it.

  When that happened, everything about their marriage would be better.

  Please, God.

  Everything.

  “Haleigh, Jackson!” Kyla leaned around the doorframe of the kitchen stairs and called up to the second floor. “Time for dinner.”

  Above her the shuffle of footsteps sounded, then the arguing. Kyla closed her eyes and held up a hand. Seemed it was a day for arguing. She’d let this one go.

  She’d returned from the cemetery to find Jackson and Haleigh in the kitchen eating a snack with Irina, her housekeeper. Brett was downstairs in the media room, Irina had said, analyzing pitching video with Miles Hamlin, his pitching coach.

  Taking a deep breath, Kyla had pushed open the door to the basement media room.

  “What do you want?” Brett asked without taking his eyes from the screen.

  Maybe some manners? She forced calm into her voice. “I need to talk to you.”

  With a huff, he froze his image on the screen and stepped around Miles to walk up the side ramp of the theater. He stopped before her, the planes of his face especially taut. “What?”

  “I mean a conversation. Can’t you take a break?”

  “No.” He turned away. “We’ll talk tonight.”

  “I have Bible study tonight.”

  He walked down the ramp. “So skip it.”

  “Do you know what today is?”

  He sent her an angry look as he passed Miles in the front row. “Yes, Kyla. April twelfth. I know.” He dropped into his seat and picked up the remote. The Brett frozen mid-delivery on the screen rewound smoothly.

  She shut the door to the media room and stared at its dark wood veneer. “Do you care?”

  The answer had been obvious.

  A thud sounded as one of the kids banged into the stairway wall.

  Now she and Brett wouldn’t talk. In forty-five minutes, she and the kids would leave for church, and Brett was still downstairs working with Miles. By the time she returned and got the kids in bed, Brett would be asleep himself.

  The anniversary of Ashlyn’s death, and he’d said nothing except an irritated “I know.”

  Seven-year-old Haleigh emerged from the enclosed staircase, her six-year-old brother Jax behind her, wearing a smirk. “Don’t push!” Haleigh snapped. “Mom, Jax won’t—”

  “Stop it, both of you. I’m not in the mood. Finish setting the table so we can eat.”

  Jax swung an invisible weapon at Haleigh’s back. “I thought dinner was ready.”

  “It will be, as soon as you put napkins and salad dressings on.”

  “We’re having salad?” He opened the refrigerator and stuck his head inside. “Irina never makes me eat salad.”

  “I’ll talk to Irina in the morning.”

  “Aww, man.”

  Brett’s and Mile’s voices sounded from the basement stairway. Brett entered the kitchen first, Miles on his heels.

  Kyla ignored Brett. “Hi, Miles.”

  As usual, Miles nodded back and stuffed his hands into his baggy shorts’ pockets.

  What was it about her presence that sent this man into his shell? Every time she entered a room, he withdrew, staring at the wall while she and Brett talked—or argued.

  Miles pushed faded blond hair out of his eyes. He needed a haircut. His longish, wavy hair gave him the rumpled appearance of someone who’d just woken from a nap, and his shapeless, late-forties body and expressionless features made him look like a man lost.

  “Feel free to stay for dinner, Miles,” she said. “There’s plenty.”

  “Thank you, but I’ve got dinner waiting at home.” He glanced at her, then away. “Maybe another time.”

  Sure. Just like the other times he’d declined. She shrugged as the men left.

  A glance into the dining room showed Haleigh tipping her chair back and Jax swinging his spoon like a baseball bat. “Jax, stop that. Haleigh, you too.” Why couldn’t the kids behave today?

  “I’m hungry,” Jax whined. “Can we eat without Dad?”

  Kyla lifted the pan of lasagna from the warming drawer and carried it to the table where she set it on a trivet. Where had Brett disappeared to? She pointed to the pan as she backed from the table. “Don’t touch that. It’s hot.”

  Where was Brett? They always ate at six during the off season—he wanted it that way. She hurried through the living room and into the two-story, glass-encased foyer, pausing at the bottom of the main stairs. She leaned up them. “Brett, we need to eat.”

  Nothing.

  “Now.”

  More nothing.

  She climbed the stairs. The door to their bedroom stood shut, and she opened it. “Brett?”

  He popped his head and bare shoulders out of the master bathroom. “What?”

  “Time for dinner. We can’t wait.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He disappeared back into the bathroom, and Kyla followed. He grabbed the T-shirt he’d changed out of and a damp washcloth and tossed them at the wicker hamper. They snagged on the outside, but he ignored them, digging through an open drawer.

  Kyla ignored his actions too. Years of clubhouse attendants picking up after him had cemented his habits. She dreaded the day they couldn’t afford Irina. “How was your workout?”

  “Fine.” He tugged a clean gray Yankees T-shirt over his head.

  “Anything interesting?”

  He shrugged as he picked up a tube of lotion and squeezed a dollop into his hand. “Taped pitches this morning, watched them this afternoon.”

  She waited for more while he rubbed lotion over his scalp.

  Brett stayed silent.

  “And?” she prodded.

  “Really don’t want to talk about it, Kyla.” He slipped past her, into the bedroom, and grabbed his wedding ring from the dresser. He headed for the door, his face set as if he was walking to the pitcher’s mound, the game on the line.

  Did he think he was the only one in this house with problems? As he passed, she stretched her arm across his chest and tried to tug him close.

  For an instant, his body tensed, as if to pull away. Then he stilled and looked at her, his eyes flat and unblinking.

  Why was he so cold? She wrapped her arms around his waist and flashed a flirtatious smile. “Can’t a girl hug her man?”

  He gave her a token hug, the kind she’d come to expect. Where was he lately? Was it just his lack of a job? Or something else?

  He pulled out of her embrace. “We should make sure the kids aren’t having a food fight.” He left and hurried down the stairs, as if he wanted to get away from her.

  Slowly, Kyla followed. She shouldn’t let him get to her. He was going through a difficult period. Baseball had always been his life, and to not have it now…

  She lagged behind as they entered the dining room. The kids’ faces lit up. Jax pointed his finger at Brett and started shooting, sound effects and all. Brett dipped and ducked as if evading bullets all the way to Jax’s chair where he grabbed him in a bear hug and shook him gently.

  Across the table, Haleigh squealed and put up her hands in pretend fear, a grin spreading across her pretty features. Brett growled around the table, taking exaggerated steps until he stood behind her. Haleigh curled into a ball on her chair, still squealing. Brett lowered his face closer, closer to hers, his mouth opening wide like a bear about to eat his dinner. At the last second, he puckered and covered her cheeks and blonde hair in kisses.

  Jax wrinkled his nose. “Kisses—gross.”

  Never gross. Wonderful. How long since Brett had kissed he
r with feeling? Heat flooded her face, and Kyla escaped to the kitchen. Something beyond baseball had to be wrong for him to be cold one minute and so loving and open the next.

  She tossed her hair and raised her chin, relieved that this time she’d contained her emotions. Still, she needed a moment to compose herself. She grabbed the basket with today’s mail and flipped through it. Credit card applications, a Jewel grocery store flyer, the latest Restoration Hardware catalog, an envelope with Brett’s name printed across it in funny type—

  She picked it up and studied it, a vague memory fighting a film of time. She slid her finger beneath the sealed flap. A single piece of paper, covered in printed computer type, was folded inside.

  Brett,

  Are you sleeping well at night? Wondering where I am? If tonight’s the night we meet?

  I still owe some on those World Series games you blew. The guy I owe is getting impatient. He’s threatened my family. Because of you.

  It’s not fair what you did. I still keep the Glock by my bed. I keep it there because I might need it to protect my family. And I might need it for yours—

  The paper fluttered from her hands. Her fingers chased it, clutching after it as it floated down, onto the floor, print side up. Kyla swallowed. Saliva stuck in her throat. She gagged and grabbed the edge of the quartz counter, her fingers slipping and sending her crashing to the floor.

  “Kyla?”

  Brett’s voice sounded so far away.

  A chair scraped the floor. “I’ll see what your mom knocked over this time.”

  The paper lay an inch from her knee.

  I still keep the Glock—

  “Kyla?”

  She jerked at his voice above her and looked up.

  He frowned at her, a mix of bewilderment and annoyance.

  She lifted a hand, watched it shake.

  He stared at it, then her, before hauling her to her feet. “What’s the matter with you?”

  She couldn’t keep her eyes off the letter.

  Brett snatched it up, scowling as he scanned it.

  Maybe she’d read it wrong. Maybe he’d look at her with that you’re-crazy look she despised. Maybe—

  He stiffened.

  So it was real, it was true, she hadn’t imagined it.

  His eyes met hers over the paper. “Kyla.”