Keith sawed his chicken in half. “That’s good,” he said. “Don’t start.”
I nodded, but it all felt ludicrous. My father, who wasn’t really my father, instructing me to say no to drugs at our first meeting in all of my sixteen years.
It dawned on me that they were even less prepared for this moment than I was. They had no script for an adopted daughter reunion. They knew how to have a nice Saturday night dinner, though, and so that’s what they had done.
“Would you like to come to church with us tomorrow morning?” Mrs. Mitchell asked me. “Nine o’clock mass is beautiful; we got some kind of choir.” She turned to Keith for support, and he nodded but wouldn’t look at me.
I shifted around in my chair and stared down at my food. What had happened to all of the questions I had been so determined to ask? How did I manage to get ensnared in nine o’clock mass?
“Alex probably has a million other things she’s doing tomorrow,” said Maya. She raised her eyebrows toward me. “Don’t you?” I shot her a meaningful glance that I hoped she interpreted as “thank you.”
“Yeah … yes,” I said, grinding the gears of my mind. “I’ve got to finish several workouts in preparation for the state tournament, plus, uh, debate club Sunday night.” The part about the workouts was true. Debate club? I had no idea where that came from, especially since it was summer vacation.
Maya eyed me suspiciously. “That’s a lot.”
I went too far. “Yes,” I said. “It is.”
Jordan loosened her grip on my hand under the table.
I addressed Keith. “What did you…” What was I saying? What was it I had promised myself I would say, again? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them, everyone at the table was watching me in bewilderment. Everyone except for Jordan—she was grinning like she was at some kind of show. This was it; this was the moment.
“Did you not think of me as black?” I blurted out. This might be my only chance. “I mean, since my mother was white and everything. Was that the reason why you gave me to a white family?”
Silence pervaded the room. My eyes were locked with Keith’s, whose expression was one of shock and confusion. Maya’s fork clanged onto her plate, and Jordan jumped at the noise. Mrs. Mitchell tilted her head back and said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Jordan pulled her hand out of mine. “I thought you were black,” she said.
Maya picked up her fork and pushed some rice onto it.
“You look black to me,” Jordan continued.
“Jordan!” Mrs. Mitchell chastised. “That is not appropriate.”
Jordan didn’t even acknowledge that her grandmother had said anything.
I wouldn’t look at Jordan or Mrs. Mitchell; my eyes were locked with Keith’s, who was not responding at all.
Jordan leaned over and put her face near mine. “If I saw you on the street, I’d think you’re black.”
Maya grabbed Jordan’s arm sharply and pulled her back down into the seat. “Stay in your seat at the table, I’ve told you before!”
Jordan rubbed her arm and whimpered. Her bottom lip was sticking out. “You hurt me,” she said softly.
“I never got a chance to say what kind of family you’d be adopted into,” Keith said suddenly, venom biting each word. Mrs. Mitchell and Maya were staring at him like he was a complete stranger. I guess at that particular moment, he was.
“She didn’t give me hardly no choice in anything, Janie.” He shook his head. “Told me she was pregnant and was going to have the baby, and I said we should get married. She said no, that we were neither of us fit to raise a child and that she was going to give it up and that was the last I heard about it.” His face was taut and tired. “Until she mailed me a clipping from the paper years later, something about your dad and your family, and then I knew who you were. She didn’t give me no decision about anything. Nothing.” His bottom lip was quivering—not as much as Jordan’s was, but quivering just the same.
Maya looked like someone had slapped her across the face. We were not half-sisters, I realized. There was no word for what we were to each other.
“Anyway, the most important thing is that a child be raised under the eyes of God,” said Mrs. Mitchell. She looked absolutely unfazed. “No matter what color the family.”
“But even if you’re light, you’re black,” Jordan insisted. “Everyone knows black and white make brown.” She frowned.
“Young lady, that’s enough!” Mrs. Mitchell yelled.
Jordan’s eyes filled with tears, and she started to bawl.
I looked down at my rice and salad and chicken. My stomach churned and I felt nauseous. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean…”
Maya handed Jordan a napkin to dry her eyes and she began dabbing at their edges. “It not fair,” said Jordan.
“Life’s not fair,” Maya and Mrs. Mitchell said at the same time. I put down my fork. I hadn’t planned on leaving until tomorrow morning, but I had booked a room at a hotel nearby, just in case this didn’t work out. There was a way out, even if this visit wasn’t what I’d hoped for. “You know, maybe I should go,” I said. I nodded. “I mean, I didn’t mean to upset everyone…” I heard my voice drift off and then I hiccupped.
Keith had been staring down at his plate, but after this last comment, he looked up at me in surprise. “You hiccup?” he asked. This time, he had obviously heard it.
I hiccupped again. “Yeah,” I said. “Usually when I’m nervous.”
“Or when you just feel bad, right?” he said, a slow smile pouring out the side of his mouth.
I nodded, carefully holding my stomach.
“Yeah, well, me too,” he said. “And my mother, and my uncle Freddie, and his daughter Jasmine, and a whole truckload of Mitchells.”
Jordan had stopped crying. She looked from me to Keith to me again.
“You ever try standing on your head to get rid of them?” he asked me.
“I’ve tried everything,” I said. Then I thought about it. “Except that, I guess.” I laughed, in spite of myself.
“Well, next time, try that,” he said. “Works like a charm.”
I still felt so strange, sitting there in my father’s living room with his family, pretending that we knew each other. “I’ll do that,” I told him.
His eyes stared into mine, and I could see tears in their depths. There is no language to explain what has happened to us. There is nothing that can replace what is gone. I looked back down at my plate because I couldn’t look at those eyes anymore. I got ready to tell them goodnight.
“Eat your chicken,” Keith said, pointing to my half-eaten plate with his fork.
I looked into his eyes again and the tears had faded to the background. Forget everything. Let me die in your mind like I did before and forget that this night ever happened.
“Go on,” he said. “Eat now, girl. You can’t be coming all this way and not eat all this good food my wife and daughter prepared.”
Maya nodded. “You can’t be going back to Madison hungry,” she said. “That would make us look like we got no home-training down here in Detroit. You can’t let us go out like that.”
I turned to Mrs. Mitchell, and she nodded. “Eat,” she said simply.
I took a deep breath, picked up my fork and knife, and began sawing into my chicken. Every one of the Mitchells picked up their forks after me and continued eating as well.
• • •
In the middle of the night, I pulled the covers up to my nose and pushed myself as far onto the edge of the pull-out couch as possible. I wanted to be exposed. Like I was about to fall down onto the floor and bruise or break something. I didn’t really want to get hurt. I think I just wanted Keith to see that I was as broken as he was. That I had no idea what I was doing, but that I was willing to take whatever pain and consequences might follow from whatever our relationship was. Or maybe I just wanted to see and feel my brokenness for myself—not just hold it in my mind.
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I had thought that my reunion could bring so many possibilities: connection, finally a sense of belonging, or even confusion. But one thing I had not considered was that it would intensify this ache in me that everything in my life would never really fit together. As I rolled over in my makeshift bed at my birth father’s, at 2:17 in the morning, I began to contemplate that things might never coalesce, and I wondered if there was a way that this could be okay.
• • •
The sky was clear blue over I-94, and I could see for miles on all sides. It was mid-afternoon, and I only had a few hours left on the road. I actually almost regretted it. It had been so long since I had been on a road trip, and I had forgotten how nice it was to just take off and go, even if you had a destination.
Your father wanted you, he always wanted you. Even though I was alone, I reflexively lowered my glance so that no one could see the tears gathering in my eyes. Mom and Dad love me, but they don’t know what to do with me. And I don’t know what to do with them. I stiffened and gripped the steering wheel tighter. And out of nowhere, the thought came: Baseball is not the only thing in the world. The world is large. There are more uses than that for my body. I passed a car on the left, and then signaled to come back over to the right lane.
The first thing I’d do, I decided, when I got home, was call Reggie and tell him everything. I wanted to see his face change from disbelief to worry to excitement as I told him about eating dinner with Keith, about how he hadn’t had any say in my adoption, about how I thought I would visit them again, even though I knew I would probably never feel completely comfortable around them—especially because I wasn’t a Christian. I wanted to apologize for not telling him everything before and explain that I was scared, that I had always been scared. I decided I would begin my journey back home by finally telling him the truth: I was starting to love him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
When I entered the house, Dad was bent over the table, poring over papers and playbooks scattered everywhere. I stood—watching him—really noticing him. It felt like I was watching a complete stranger. He didn’t notice me standing there till the door shut behind me.
“Hey you,” he said, turning toward me. His eyes brightened and he set down the pen. “How was it?”
For the first time, I really saw my father. His hair was graying on the sides and his hairline receded more each season. Purple bags hung under his eyes and the lines around them were growing deeper. I wondered how my father could have gotten so old without me even noticing.
“Milwaukee was fine,” I lied, dropping my duffel onto the floor. “Good.” I scanned his face for any sign that he knew I was lying, but I could find nothing. That was one thing I had always been thankful for: reading Dad was as natural and easy to me as breathing.
“We hit the Afro Fest and the Celtic Fest,” I said, picking two of Milwaukee’s festivals at random. I had no idea if they were actually held that weekend, but the city had so many festivals every season no one could keep track anyway.
“Food any good at either of them?” he asked.
I shrugged. “It was okay. We mostly ate at those high-end restaurants that Mrs. Adams likes.” Mrs. Adams, my friend’s mother, did have extravagant taste in food and was constantly arguing with my friend over whether she could have a corn dog or a portobello mushroom panini for lunch.
Dad stood up and walked toward me. I wasn’t sure why. “Well, I have to admit that I’m glad to hear it. I’m going to need you as fresh and healthy as possible for Tuesday’s game, and you’ll need plenty of good food in your system for that.” Tuesday: The quarterfinals, the first day of the state tournament. I had almost forgotten on the ride home.
Dad wrapped his arms around me suddenly and caught me in a suffocating hug. My breath was caught in my throat. Dad, I just got back from Detroit. I was visiting my father.
“I know this has been a hard few months for you, what with your slump, and this business about your birth father and everything,” he whispered in my ear. “But we’ll make it through together. We always do.” He squeezed me hard, and I thought my ribcage might snap. He pulled back suddenly and held my shoulders in his hands. “Right?”
I could feel his hands shake—ever so slightly—on my shoulders, and I saw a deep sadness inside his eyes. It wasn’t a statement, like usual. I couldn’t remember the last time he really asked me something like that. Now’s your chance to tell him. Tell him.
I turned away and picked up my bag. “You sure you want to play me?” I tried to breathe deep, but my stomach was tightening, my windpipe thick. I didn’t even know if I wanted to play. It would be beautiful to prove them all wrong, that I was still the same nationally-ranked center fielder, but at the same time, I realized that how they saw me was not nearly as important to me as it had been even just a few days before.
Sonny Rollins’ slippery saxophone trickled out of the speakers. Dad had it on low, always had it on low when he was working. He only played Sonny or Miles, he said, to keep him cool while he wrestled with the frustration of plays and paperwork and strategy.
Dad’s brow furrowed. “Alex, of course I’m going to play you. You thought—” He cocked his head to the side and put his hand on my shoulder again.
I watched my purple Converse and imagined I had X-ray vision and could see my toes squirming inside them.
“I mean, I know … Like I said, it’s been a difficult season for you, but that doesn’t mean you’re not still one of my top boys…”
I winced as he fumbled for words. Last year I was the top boy.
Dad took his hand from my shoulder and dropped it to his side. “You’re going to go out there on Friday, and you’re going to kick some ass. I don’t want to see anything drop in that you can lay out for, I want to see you get on base five times and score four. I don’t want anyone in that stadium to have any doubt that you’re Terry Kirtridge’s daughter.”
I had heard the speech, or one like it, a million times before, and it had made me want to go out there and do everything he said, to get what he wanted, to get what I wanted. At the same time, I wondered why he couldn’t just accept that I played my best.
I raised my head slowly and tried to smile. Sonny Rollins was pushing out “Autumn Leaves,” my favorite track.
Dad turned away, taking my half-smile as enough, I guess, and walked back to the table. “I got so much work to do between now and then. I’m going through all of Eau Claire’s games from the last three seasons, looking for holes. Called some other coaches for gossip. Seems like their slugging second baseman is actually a defensive liability. Hard slides rattle him and they’ve had more than a few easy double plays turn into runs. And his hitting goes to hell when he makes errors. So if we can figure out how to rattle him, we just might be able to take advantage of that…” He sat down, picked up a paper, and was lost in his scribbling a minute later.
I turned and started walking toward the stairs. I thought about this poor second baseman, the star hitter, the defensive liability, the one easily rattled by a hard slide. Who was he really? I was exhausted and needed to lay out my plan to reveal all to Reggie.
“Oh yeah,” Dad said suddenly, breaking from his reverie. “I almost forgot—Reggie called for you.”
My legs froze in place. I had told him I would call him myself—why in the world would he call the house? How did he even get the number?
“He said to call him right when you got back, that it was really important.”
My stomach flipped, and I gripped my duffel strap tighter. He got to you first. I turned around.
Dad tapped his pen against the side of his head. “That’s that kid from the Midwest Championship, right?”
I nodded.
“From East, right?”
I nodded again.
Dad shook his head. “Helluva pitcher. Could really be something some day if he trained with us.”
I somehow squeaked out a “Yeah.”
“I said he should come by sometim
e to just throw around with us, that we’d love to see him again.”
Shit. “You did?”
Dad nodded. “Had a nice little chat with him, actually. He said that you and him have been hanging out a lot lately. Actually called you his girlfriend.” He looked a little embarrassed, and there was no mistaking the surprise in his voice.
I put my hand over my mouth but it was too late—I hiccupped.
“I told him he should come over for dinner sometime, that we would love to meet him.” Dad laughed. “We were talking about how you really don’t know somebody until you know their family.” He fiddled with his pen. “I hope you don’t mind, but I actually invited him and his family out with ours for a picnic sometime next weekend, after the big game’s over, when we’ve won and everything’s quiet again. I hope that’s okay.” He looked up at me again, hesitantly.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“I didn’t tell my parents about my first girlfriend either. It’s … something you kind of want to keep to yourself,” he said. Was he trying to get me to talk more about it with him? I couldn’t think of anything I was more uninterested in at that particular moment.
My face was getting redder by the minute. I wondered if he would follow me if I just bolted from the room.
“But Reggie said you two have been going out for a month now so … it’d be great to get to know him a little better.”
I hiccupped again. Sonny Rollins had nothing more to say with his saxophone; the CD had stopped.
“Is that okay, Alex?” Dad was gnawing on his bottom lip, and he tapped his pen on the table. Each tap felt like a pin in my retina. I blinked.
“Yeah, that’s cool,” I said.
• • •
I met Reggie at dusk, when the heat was beginning to settle back into the ground. You could see dark clouds on the horizon, but they looked far away. “How was Milwaukee?” he asked, kicking a stone in his path. We were in Bayard Park, but we weren’t running this time, just walking leisurely.
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