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“I’m in room 2222, I left my key card back in my rental which I left in town. Could I get another?”
He pushes his glasses up, “You could use the app.”
I do not want to deal with this shit right now, I think as I pull my phone out of my pocket and see it’s dead. I hold it up and show him. “Not possible right now.”
Clearly annoyed about this, which yeah pisses me off because it’s literally what he’s here for. He grabs another card and codes it.
“The amount of these that get misplaced and go unreturned are horrible for the environment.”
Why some people feel the need to give a lesson to everyone around is something I’ll never understand. I don’t walk into a ballpark and start doling them out unless asked. What happened to, here you go, have a nice night… even though I won’t.
Holding the little white envelope out he arches a brow, “You’ll return this and the other, and get the app right?”
I’d like to explain to him how the actual phones we’re all glued to are probably more harmful to the environment than a key card, but he’d argue that fact. Instead, I pull it out of the sleeve and set it on the counter. “I won’t need this, and yeah, I’ll do my best.”
Inside my room I realize I don’t have a fucking charger because it’s in the rental. Frustrated beyond belief, I’m ready to pack my bag and walk back to New York. But I can’t because I came to face what I’ve been putting off. Add the fact that I just found out Whit’s a single mom, and that … that fucks with me on several different levels.
If it’s Danny’s kid, why’d Marks say she’s a single mom and doing the best she can? Why isn’t he being a man and stepping up? I know Danny, and a handful of years doesn’t change a person that much. To my bones, I know Whit’s not Danny’s. I also know she’s not living with that shitbag who locked up her finger because he asked her to stay with him tonight, which burned deep—real fucking deep.
So who’s the asshole that made her a single mother? Whit went to a local college to get her associate’s degree in nursing instead of going with the plan she had in place before I left. That plan? She was going to Arizona State to play women’s softball and work on her degree to become a psychiatrist. The answer to my question, who the father of Whit’s kid shouldn’t be hard to find out, we live in Walton, where everyone knows everyone. She never left. He’s gotta be from here.
I go over Marks’s words in my head. “We all gave you the space to do that.” On top of that, he said, “You come back here and start dissing our life choices?” And his “Nah, man,” the answer.
My first thought was how they had taken care of Mom because she insisted I follow our dream—Dad’s, hers, and mine. Whit, Danny, Marks, Coach, and Leland Locke—they all but forced me to get back in the game.
So, all that and the fact that there was not one word about a kid lead me to believe they’re hiding something from me, and I hate that I think I know why.
I slept for shit and wake just as agitated as I was when I last closed my eyes. Instead of lying there, I hit the hotel gym at six and overhear someone mentioning they offer transportation service. I set that up, call Danny from the lobby, let him know my phone is dead and that I have a ride and we’ll catch up later. Then, I shower and get ready to get some answers, and I know exactly where I need to start.
I time it right by walking into the First Methodist Church of Walton as the opening hymn begins.
“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
Danny, Whit, Marks, and I were here every Sunday. We’d have to be half dead to get out of attending church. We came up with ways to entertain ourselves though. During hymns, we used to watch the Mitchell sisters in their weekly duel, to see who can sing the loudest, today it’s Hilda.
Even with Whit being five foot seven, there’s no way to spot her in the front row from here, and clearly, I can’t see the child either. For as long as I’ve lived in Walton, the second row has belonged to the McKinney family, who sit behind Whit and are all as tall as I am.
When I’ve settled on waiting it out, pressing down a very strong desire to see her, my focus goes in a direction that I wish it hadn’t.
Mom’s service was here, and that day, the church was so full of flowers, all different varieties. I remember the mingled scents being so overwhelming that I swore they were stuck in my throat and at times felt like they were choking me.
I was in the front row that day with Whit on one side, Danny and Marks on the other.
Whit sat closer to me that day than she’d ever sat before, and she held my hand. At the peak of that feeling, the tightening of my throat and wanting to vomit, she’d somehow sense it and give me a squeeze.
“They’re together again, Pope.”
And they were. Mom had asked that Dad’s urn be placed by her side in the very casket she picked out herself.
“They’re with your great-granddad, talking about how much you take after him.”
My great-grandfather on Mom’s side made it to the minors and was then drafted. Because of this, he never got his shot at the majors. From what I heard, he’d have made it too.
People say things to comfort you in times of loss, and you grab hold of them, knowing they’re mostly bullshit. But what Whit said next, I knew it to be true.
“They’re going to be sitting on the bleachers in heaven and wishing on every fly ball that you make it to the majors.”
When I’m at bat, I think of that. Every. Time.
