I smile, feeling a rush of emotion. Parenting doesn’t come with a handbook. Every parent prays that she gets things right more often than wrong.
“What did you decide about spring break?” I ask.
“Um, so you’ll just be swamped at work?”
“Pretty much,” I say. “I can make time to see you, but I can’t take whole days off. We’re just too under the gun. But your father will be free. You guys could do plenty of things.”
“That’d be great,” he says. “I can come home and he can leave for the rest of the day.”
The bluntness knocks something loose inside me.
“Just kidding,” he quickly recovers, realizing how hard the joke landed, a little too bitter, a little too true. My heart tightens; part of me wants to defend Finley out of habit, but the words won’t come.
“I was thinking I’d go to Boston with TJ. A couple other guys are going. His family’s apparently got like this amazing finished basement and we can all shack there.”
I’m still stuck on his earlier comment. We forget, I guess, that our kids have eyes and ears, too. This is how he’s seen Finley all these years? Not with resentment, not even with anger, just with a quiet, practical acceptance that his father slipped out of the hard things whenever he could? I swallow, unsure if it’s painful or a relief to hear it spoken out loud.
“Maybe Boston’s a better idea for spring break, then,” I say. “We’ll see you this summer.”
28
Luke
I probably shouldn’t be here. But I can’tnotbe here.
Trinity sets her recorder on the coffee table next to a neat stack of coasters. Outside, the early-March darkness presses against the windows, the kind that feels more like late winter than almost spring. Inside her townhouse, lamps with warm, amber bulbs pool light over the gray walls. A single string of lights woven along the bookshelf casts gentle reflections on the glass picture frames. A candle flickers on the sideboard, its jasmine scent subtle but steady. The overall effect is cozy, almost cocoon-like, as if the night can’t quite reach us here.
I sit on her sofa, the cushions deep enough to swallow me. Finley takes the armchair across from us, his face half in shadow, foot tapping a restless rhythm on the rug. Other than some quick small talk when he walked in, he has largely avoided me. But he turns to me before we begin. “I haven’t, uh, mentioned this to Allison. That I’m helping with this documentary. Y’know, it annoys her, and she’s got the trial and all.”
In other words, you’re afraid of your own wife.
But I keep my powder dry, because I want to hear what he has to say tonight. “Your secret’s safe with me,” I say.
“Oh, by the way, Trin.” Fin snaps his fingers. “You wanted some home movies of us when we were kids for the documentary? I foundone from not long after Luke’s accident. Allison is showing Luke how to throw a slider.”
“Allison?TaughtLuke?”
Finley laughs. “Oh, yeah. Luke just threw fastballs before that. The old saying, ‘If they can’t hit your fastball, don’t throw anything else’? And nobody could hit Luke’s fastball.”
“Okay…?” Trinity smiles along, glances over at me with a question.
“Allison was determined that I’d pitch again,” I explain. “She always gave me pep talks. We’d go through a mantra every day. She’d say, ‘Will you let this break you?’ And I’d say, ‘No.’ And she’d say, ‘Are you gonna get to work or feel sorry for yourself?’ ‘Is your story gonna be a sad one or an inspirational one?’ So…after the labrum tear, we knew I wouldn’t have near the velocity on my fastball. She decided that I’d make up for it other ways. I’d have to be smarter, more strategic. I’d have to learn how to change speeds and locate pitches and throw the right pitch in the right spot at the right time. I’d have to learn how to throw a changeup, a slider, a cutter. I would’ve learned those pitches, anyway, as I got older. But she wanted to use that time, while I rehabbed, when I couldn’t throw at all, to work on the mental side of pitching.”
“She got books from the library,” Fin jumps in. “She bought videos of pitching instructors. She’d watch the Cubs on TV and record the games and analyze the pitchers. She’d sit there with Luke and talk strategy. ‘He’s coming inside with a fastball. Now he’s gonna throw a change on the outside corner.’ Stuff like that.”
I remember other parts, too. Those first weeks home after the hospital, when I was woozy from painkillers, she’d sit and read some baseball-related book or magazine to me until I fell asleep. When my eyes closed, when she thought I was out, she’d stay with me a while. I would drift away to the sound of her quietly weeping.
“Anyway.” Fin nods at Trinity. “So, you think this documentary, it could be on, like, Netflix or something?”
“Could be,” she says. “A definite possibility.”
Finley seems buoyed. He probably fancies himself the star of thedocumentary, or at least the constant thread through it. That’s fine by me; I’d prefer to be on-screen as little as possible, if at all.
“I can help with the marketing,” says Fin. “That’s my thing.”
“Sounds good.” Trinity clicks on the recorder. “Okay, whenever you’re ready. Recording is live. Talk about what happened that day. I might prompt you, but it’s best if you just talk.”
“This is a practice run-through, right?”
