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“You’re getting married!” my mother shouted, pulling me into her arms as she sobbed. “I never thought I’d see this day.”
And there it was. The reminder that I’d been sick. That I’d almost died. That I shouldn’t be alive today.
The fear. The worry. The burden I’d been.
Smiling, I nodded at my mother as I soothed her tears and fell into the role we were all comfortable with. The one where I smiled, so grateful to be healthy and alive, and reminded others just how fortunate we all were.
My entire purpose in life had been whittled down to making others feel good about their choices. To be a reflection of the hard things they’d overcome and justify the perfect life they felt entitled to live now because of it.
I wasn’t a person, but a prop.
“We’ll need to go shopping immediately. I’m assuming you’ll be planning for an early spring wedding. It will need to be before spring training, of course, and then there’s your birthday,” my mom prattled on as she talked to herself, already creating lists in her head.
“Wow, that quick?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“It’s a big year for the team, BB. We won’t want to miss any of it,” my dad interjected.
Right. The team. The Columbus Blue Devils.
Dad had been a star baseball player for the Blue Devils most of my childhood, then retired and became the general manager of the Wilmington Yellowjackets, a AAA Minor league team in my preteens. By the time I was a teenager, he’d transitioned from team manager to team owner, buying his own baseball club—the Blue Devils and the Yellowjackets.
Bryce had followed in his footsteps and was drafted out of college. He’d moved through the farm system quickly and played in the Majors for the Blue Devils until the end of last season when he’d been injured, and sent to the Yellowjackets to recover. He was hoping to be back with the Blue Devils at the beginning of next season, but hadn’t heard anything definite yet.
It didn’t surprise me either that my mom still accommodated baseball season despite having been divorced from my father for almost ten years now. The Bakers lived, breathed, and revolved around baseball. It was just how it was.
Brandon was the only person in my life who was separate from the Blue Devils. I looked up at him, and he smiled softly and reassuringly. He knew the love/hate relationship I had with the game.
And it wasn’t that I hated it. Most of my best memories revolved around baseball. It was just that everything else came second.
Even the wedding I didn’t want to have, apparently. But what else could I do? If I wanted my family there, then I had no other choice.
“Of course, Dad. Before spring training, it is.” I smiled, but it was weak, and everyone resumed their planning as we headed into the stadium to watch the final game in the World Series—even our family vacations revolved around baseball. The Blue Devils hadn’t made it to the postseason, but it didn’t stop Dad and Bryce from wanting to attend the biggest game of the year.
Thank God Brandon hadn’t proposed during the game. I most certainly would’ve died.
Small mercies, I supposed, but all I really wanted was to go back in time before this day even started. But since I also didn’t have that superpower, I’d have to find some way to be happy about my upcoming nuptials.
TWO
BLAKE
My father believed that baseball could solve anything. Growing up, that meant anytime I had a problem, he would take me out to toss the ball back and forth until we had a solution. If it was a really serious one, we’d head to the batting cages and hit the ball until my arms hurt. I wasn’t particularly good at any of it, my clumsiness and fatigue hindering any actual skills, but I enjoyed the time I spent with my dad. And if it was really bad, we’d go to a game—Little League, College, Minors, or Majors. It didn’t matter as long as baseball was being played.
Like most little girls, I idolized my father. Steven Baker was larger than life. He played professional baseball, making his office the coolest. My brother, Bryce, and I spent as much time as we could at the ballpark. Everyone who worked at the stadium became our extended family, filling us with popcorn and bubblegum while my dad practiced. It was seriously the best.
And for the longest time, I believed my father. Baseball was the answer to everything.
That was until I’d gotten so sick that the treatments no longer worked, and the only thing that could save me was a bone marrow transplant. That day changed everything as my parents wrestled with what to do. How could fate be so cruel to make my brother the only match? Ensuring they’d have to choose between us.
It was the first time I saw my father cry, and I wished with everything I could that baseball would save me. Thankfully, Bryce and I had both come out of the surgeries well, but it put a dent in our previously pristine life.
It was the first time baseball had let me down. The second was my parents’ divorce when I was fifteen, and the third… today.
True to my mother’s word, she’d planned and executed the perfect wedding in four months. Today was February 11—my wedding day—three days before my twenty-fifth birthday and four days before spring training for the Blue Devils.
“Couldn’t even help a girl out and be booked, could you?” I mumbled as I glared at the Blue Devil emblem hanging over the door. Because, of course, my wedding was taking place at Emerald Park, home of the Columbus Blue Devils.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror, my dress pure white and satin with just a hint of lace at the top. It was beautiful, but I felt like a fraud. I’d kept hoping that I’d finally have that “this is right” moment the closer the wedding date neared. But there wasn’t an ounce of happiness inside me… only a foreboding feeling of terror.
