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“I’m sorry, what was that, Jesse?”
“Nothing.”
It was under his breath, but we’d both caught it. Gabe’s eight-year-old son had just dropped the F bomb. Well, this was getting more and more interesting. I watched Jesse closely, looking for his reaction, then glanced at Gabe. He gave me a wink to let me know he was onto it, and I smiled faintly.
“Another try? Or are you giving up?” Gabe’s tone was pretty mild. Jesse could definitely stop if he wasn’t having fun, but it wasn’t great to give up before making his best effort, was it?
With a heavy frown on his face, Jesse retrieved the ball without a word and placed it carefully back on the tee.
“Looking good, Jesse. You just want to bring the bat behind your head a bit, open up your stance so you can really swing at it. I’m gonna go back here, so if you give it a really good whack, I can catch it.”
Jesse got in position, shifted his grip a little, took a deep breath and swung again. The ball plopped to the ground, no further than five feet from the tee, and rolled to a slow, sad stop.
“This is fucking stupid!” At full volume.
I gave a startled gasp, caught Gabe’s and Jake’s looks of surprise. But the worst was Jesse, who dropped the bat like it was on fire and turned to look at his dad. The terror in his eyes lanced straight through my heart. Calmly folding his arms across his chest, Gabe said, “I’ll only say this once, bud. I don’t care how angry and frustrated you are. Language like that won’t be tolerated. Got it?”
He nodded, lowering his gaze. “D-do I have to go to my room?”
“Not this time.” The rest was implied, of course, and Jesse understood immediately. He looked so awkward and ashamed, and the fear was definitely still there. “Come over here a sec.” Gabe tipped his chin, indicating for Jesse to follow, so they were a few feet away from the tee. “Feeling pretty crap right now, I’m guessing?”
He nodded, keeping his eyes downcast. “I’m v-very sorry.”
“Thank you for saying that. I appreciate it.” Gabe put his hand on Jesse’s shoulder, taking a moment to gather his thoughts, I guessed. He needed to let Jesse know it wasn’t as bad as he seemed to think, since it was clear that angry outbursts weren’t something Sandra had ever had any patience with. “It’s okay to feel bad, or frustrated or angry, especially when you’re trying to learn something new. It’s also okay to show that you’re angry. Not with bad language, obviously, but I don’t want you to think you’re going to get you in trouble for feeling angry. Not ever. What we need to do, though, is make sure you let it out in appropriate ways. Imagine if you swore like that at school. You’d get in a lot of trouble, I’d get a phone call, and things would get real awkward, real quick. Know what I mean?”
Another miserable nod, but when Gabe gave Jesse an affectionate pat on the shoulder, I could see the tension leave him and relief washed through me. Seriously, the last thing Jesse needed was to be afraid of his dad.
“Okay, so next thing. Like I said, learning something new can be frustrating, because we always want to be good at stuff. But no one’s ever good at something right away. People only ever get good by not giving up when it’s tough, pushing through the bad feelings, and practicing. So you’ve got a choice here. You gonna try again? Or are you gonna give up?”
“I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it.” His voice vibrated with uncertainty.
I blew out a breath. This kid was going to break my heart, I swear. But I loved watching Gabe set him straight.
“You don’t know that unless you try. I’ll tell you one thing, though. You’re doing all the right things. Grip, stance, everything. It just looks to me like maybe you’re scared to hit it hard enough. Try swinging through the ball, not at it. Do you understand? And we’ll see what happens. How does that sound?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Let’s go.”
They walked back to the tee and Gabe took his place behind Jesse, folding his arms across his chest. He glanced at me and I could see he was feeling pretty happy about the situation. As he should be. I smiled and the smile he gave me in return had my heart tapdancing all over the place.
Drawing a deep breath, he said, “Alright, bud. Swing through the ball.”
With a nod and a very serious frown on his face, Jesse swung the bat as hard as he could and whack! The ball sailed through the air, straight into Jake’s glove.
“Wow!” I clapped my hands enthusiastically. “That was so good, Jesse!”
A smile lit up his whole face. “Can I do it again?” he asked Gabe.
“I don’t know, can you?” He caught the ball Jake threw, placed it back on the tee and gestured for Jesse to go ahead. This shot was even better, and Jake had to take a few jogging steps backward to catch it.
“Perfect, bud. Everything is perfect,” Jake said, tossing the ball back to Gabe. “Let’s give you a few more tries with the tee and then if you want, we can totally try pitching it.”
“You mean so it’s not on the tee?”
“Exactly. But do this a few more times first, just to get a really good feel for it.”
With each shot, I could literally see Jesse’s confidence increasing. He wasn’t gripping the bat as tightly, his feet were more relaxed and his swing was much more fluid. “Can I try a pitch?”
