But waiting for Charlie’s blood test results was pretty much like waiting for that last thread to snap and the two-ton safe hanging three stories above your head to fall. Your chances of moving, getting out of the way, were pretty good. But there was always the possibility you’d get your foot caught in a crack in the sidewalk and couldn’t jump fast enough or far enough.
She stabbed at the slice of pie one more time and the entire wedge of lemon pulled away from the crust and hung on her fork. She’d always said that the best diet aid would be eating all your meals in a hospital cafeteria.
She wished Jake could have been here with them. He’d be laughing and telling jokes with the kids, making the time pass quickly instead of the way every second, every minute was dragging now. And he was going out of town on business again, leaving her to deal with everything on her own. She’d like to go out of town. Hell, she’d like to go to the supermarket alone. When was their last vacation? Too long ago, if she couldn’t even remember it.
“I could have stayed home with Brenda, but she has an orthodontist appointment,” Sarah whined, not for the first time.
“I know, honey,” Laura said with all the sympathy she could muster as she leaned over and kissed her daughter’s curls. “And I would have left you with any number of total strangers if I wasn’t afraid they’d bring you back, so let’s just make the best of it, okay? We’ll be home by two.”
“Here, Sarah,” Charlie said, handing over his Game Boy. “You can play with this if you promise to do it over there where I don’t have to watch. Oh, and don’t erase my scores.”
“Thanks, Charlie,” Sarah said, grabbing the toy before her brother could change his mind and retreating to an empty table some distance away.
Laura looked at her son, amazed. “I thought you said you’d never let her play with that.”
Charlie shrugged. “She was being a pain in the neck so I figured I’d shut her up,” he told her with the infinite wisdom of a fourteen-year-old. “Dad says life is full of compromises.”
Laura smiled across the table at her son. “Oh, he did, did he? And when was that?”
Charlie slid his arms forward on the tabletop, resting his chin on the worn Formica. He’d learned, over the years, how to make himself comfortable anywhere, especially during long waits in hospitals. “Last night. Compromises and trade-offs, he said. I can’t play on a team with kids my own age and I can’t play with younger kids who are more my size because those are the rules, so maybe I should think about writing about baseball, being the team statistician or maybe taking photographs of baseball. Whatever.”
“But you still want to play?”
“Yeah, well, sure.” Charlie made a face. “But it’s not going to happen, Mom. I’m not good enough. It’s not just the kidney. I’m just not good enough. Not tall enough, not fast enough, not strong enough. It’s like Coach said—if I tried to block second base on a double play, I’d be buried alive under the guy sliding into the bag.”
“Then nobody should be allowed to slide,” Laura said, sifting through this information and mentally purchasing a baseball rule book online. A rule book and a highlighting pen.
Charlie sat back in the chair, sliding down on the base of his spine, and grinned rather condescendingly at his mother. “Mom, baseball players slide. It’s part of the game, for crying out loud. I can’t ask the other kids not to play the game the way it’s supposed to be played.”
“No, you can’t,” Laura agreed, the wheels turning in her head again. “But maybe there’s a way for a team to play by different rules, rules that make more sense for the kids…”
With inimitable eloquence, Charlie said, “Huh?”
Laura mentally slapped herself. Jake had warned her not to say anything, not to do anything that got Charlie all excited, just so he could be knocked down again. “Oh, nothing, honey, I was just thinking out loud. Women do that, you know. Hey, there’s Duane. You remember him, don’t you? Duane Johnson. He was your roommate here for a few days last year.”
Charlie swiveled around as Duane and his mother entered the cafeteria. “Oh, yeah, sure. Duane. Wow, he’s walking a lot better, isn’t he?”
As the boy came closer, Laura could see the braces sticking out from beneath the cuffs of his slacks. “He is. No more crutches. Isn’t that wonderful? Why don’t you go say hi?”
As Charlie got to his feet, Laura waved to Cherise Johnson, motioning for her to come sit at the table with her. “Hi,” she said as the other woman sat down. “We haven’t seen you guys in a while. Duane looks great.”
Cherise smiled widely. “He does, doesn’t he? This last surgery really has worked a miracle. Charlie looks good.”
For a few minutes, the two women caught up on their children’s’ medical histories, because that was what the mothers of kids like Charlie and Duane did. Sometimes, when things were really bad, that became their only topic of conversation, something that had always scared Laura.
So she did her usual “he’s been fine since the transplant, knock wood,” then actually did knock wood by tapping the seat of her chair, and Cherise did a little bragging about twelve-year-old Duane’s progress with his guitar lessons and his expertise at model plane construction.
“Does Charlie have any hobbies?” Cherise asked.
“If you can count computer games, I guess so,” Laura said, smiling. “Oh, and he loves baseball. My husband actually carved out some bases in the backyard. We like to make sure Charlie gets exercise, gets outside in the fresh air, you know?”
“Yeah, I hear you, girl. That’s always been the tough part with Duane. You know, that old thing—an object at rest tends to stay at rest? He’s starting to put on a few too many pounds, and that has to stop.”
Laura spoke before she thought, or before she could think to keep her mouth shut. “Does Duane like baseball?”
Cherise frowned. “Baseball? Duane? I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I think he tries to stay away from things that might make him upset because he can’t do them very well. When did Charlie start playing?”
“He started on a rubber-ball team back before he got sick, but now he can’t seem to make the hardball team. While the other kids were growing bigger and stronger and playing ball, Charlie was stuck attached to a machine three days a week and too sick to do much of anything for most of the rest of them.”
“I’m still hearing you. For a lot of years, Duane was either waiting for an operation or recovering from an operation. We’ve had several minor miracles, but not without a fight. Baseball, you said? Tell me more.”
Laura felt the excitement she’d experienced at Riley’s with Jayne Ann coming back to her. “Another mom and I started thinking last night—why shouldn’t kids who want to play on a team be allowed to play, you know? We could make up our own teams—oh, and our own rules, as my son just pointed out to me. All we need are the kids. And a field. And some coaches.” Laura wrinkled her nose. “And some uniform shirts and caps from a sponsor, and some bats and balls and mitts, and—well, we were just brainstorming.”
Cherise looked over at her son, and then back at Laura. “Brainstorming, huh? But you’re really serious, aren’t you? Who all could be on the team? I mean, Duane’s two or three years younger than Charlie. Could he be on the team?”
Laura’s enthusiasm ratcheted up another notch and she leaned her elbows on the table. She hadn’t been this excited, this hopeful, in a long, long time. “Sure, why not? Everyone’s welcome. I mean, that’s the whole idea, Cherise—getting the kids to play baseball. Giving them a team, making them feel part of a larger whole, allowing them to recognize their abilities and not just dwell on what they can’t do. And the moms and dads, too. Getting them together, giving them something hopeful, you know? Something to cheer about. Not like a support group where we all sit around and dwell on what’s wrong in our lives and try to comfort each other, but a reason to feel happy and hopeful. A reason to cheer…” She swiped at her stinging eyes. “Sorry, Cherise. It seem
s I care more about this than I realized.”
Cherise grinned. “I thought you were coming over the table for me for a minute there, sweetie. But you know what? I like it. I like it a lot, and I know my husband will like it, too. Bert’s always trying to get Duane up and off his butt. Now, tell me again what we need, because I think I can help on one thing at least.”
“Really? Because I have to be honest, a friend and I just started talking about this last night. I mean, it’s mostly a dream right now.”
“If you can’t dream, what’s left?” Cherise said, spreading her arms, and suddenly Laura did want to “come over the table” and hug the woman. “So, if you can figure out a way to get enough people together to do it, we can loan you a couple of acres Bert’s dad owns about five miles out of town. You know, our own field of dreams?”
“A field of dreams,” Laura repeated, looking over at the kids in time to see Charlie helping Duane to steady himself on his feet before they headed toward their mothers. Sarah was bringing up the rear, still madly pushing buttons on the Game Boy. “And a team of heroes.”
“Right. All we’re missing is Kevin Costner, and while I have to tell you that’s a damn pity, I think we can manage without him.” Cherise hugged her son against her side and planted an embarrassing kiss on his chubby cheek. “Hey, hero, how’d you like to play baseball with Charlie?”
Laura bit her lip and looked at her son. It was too late to back down now, wasn’t it? She’d opened her big mouth and stuck her foot right in it.
“You mean in our backyard, Mom?”
“Well, sure, to start,” Laura said, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. “But maybe, if we can get enough kids together to make up a team, we could play on a real field.”
“What kind of kids?” Charlie asked, looking at his mother as if she’d suddenly grown another head. “Kids like me, you mean? Kids like Bobby, and Bruce Lee, and Duane here? That kind of kids?”
Oh no. Was Charlie going to reject the idea out of hand? They’d tried so hard to impress on him that he was as normal as the next kid, that his problems were over and he could go on with his life, and now here she was, classing him with kids with different problems from his, but problems that clearly weren’t ever going to go completely away.
“A bad idea, Charlie?” she asked him as he sat down beside her.
“Heck no, Mom, it’s a great idea. I could play and coach, don’t you think? I mean, I know the game, right? But we’d need more than one team. You need two teams to play baseball, or else it’s just practice. I bet Jacob Cohen would want to play. You remember him, Mom, right? He used to ride the special bus with me when nobody wanted me riding the regular bus that year.”
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t think I remember Jacob.”
“Sure you do, Mom,” Sarah piped up. “He’s the kid with, like, only one and a half arms. How could you forget that?”
Laura closed her eyes in embarrassment. Children were so unfailingly blunt. “Thank you, Sarah,” she said, hoping Cherise didn’t think she was raising rude, insensitive children. “I do think I remember Jacob now.”
“He’d be fine, Mom,” Charlie said. “There was this guy, Jim Abbott, who was a lot like Jacob. He only had one hand, but he pitched in the big leagues for the Angels and the Yankees, even pitched a no-hitter one year. That’s big, Mom. He only batted twenty-three times because he mostly played in the American League and didn’t have to bat, but he got two hits. That’s better than a lot of pitchers with two hands. Oh, and he got a gold medal in the Olympics. Not that Coach Billig ever would have let Jim Abbott play on one of his teams.”
“How do you know all of this?” Laura asked. Her son’s ability to remember baseball statistics still amazed her. Especially when he couldn’t seem to remember where they kept the clothes hamper.
“Grandpa got me his rookie card for Christmas last year. Hey, Duane, do you collect baseball cards?”
Duane shook his head. “Hockey cards. Me and Dad love the Flyers.”
“Dad and I,” Cherise said singsong, rolling her eyes. “Duane loves the idea of being on ice skates,” she explained to Laura.
“They move so fast, up and down the ice. It looks like they’re flying.” Duane’s huge brown eyes were filled with dreams. “Hey, maybe if we can play baseball in the summer, we can play ice hockey in the winter.”
“Oh, Mrs. Finnegan, just look what you have started,” Cherise said, laughing. She turned to her son. “One bite of the apple at a time, hotshot, all right? Why don’t you and Charlie take my notebook and pen and go over there and write down some names. You know, kids you think might want to play baseball.”
“Do we have to have girls on the team?” Duane asked warily.
“Do we have to have boys with braces on their legs on the team?” his mother shot back just as quickly, raising her eyebrows at her son.
Duane rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay. Everybody plays. Even girls.”
Laura watched, her chin in her hand, as the three children returned to the table across the room, and then she looked at Cherise. “What have we started here? We don’t have a clue what we’re doing, but those kids think we do. Plus, my husband is going to kill me because he made me promise I wouldn’t get Charlie’s hopes up about this until and unless I knew we could do it.”
“Sweetie, that horse left the barn awhile ago,” Cherise said, pulling a second small notebook from her enormous purse, then extracting a second pen and pushing both pen and notebook across the table to Laura. “Now, let’s make a list. Oh, and how many kids are on a baseball team? We should know that, right?”
Laura looked at the empty page of the notebook for a few moments, and then sat back, grinning from ear to ear. “Cherise, I haven’t the faintest idea how many kids are on a baseball team. There’s nine on the field at one time, but there’s also a bunch more on the bench. Tell you what. I’ll call Jayne Ann Maitz—her son will be on the team—and maybe the three of us can get together tonight and talk about all of this some more. In the meantime, now that he knows what we’re planning, I’ll raid Charlie’s room for a book on baseball. Oh, and I think I’ll take a look around on the Internet. Somebody must have had this idea already, right? I mean, we’re good, but I doubt we’re original. Maybe I can pick up a few pointers for us somewhere. Does that sound like a plan?”
Cherise nodded, reaching into her purse yet again, this time coming out with her computerized planner. Laura got the feeling that if she’d asked for a kitchen sink, Cherise would have promptly pulled one from her purse. “How about after dinner? Seven o’clock? Oh, and where?”
“You like ice cream?”
“Riley’s,” Cherise said, rubbing her palms together. “I am a glutton for Riley’s. What about this Cohen kid?”
“I think Charlie knows where he lives. We’ll stop off there on our way home, ask his mom if she wants to join us. Because you know what, Cherise? No men. Not right now at least. They’ll go all logical on us and point out all the problems, and I think we’re safer going into this like wide-eyed optimists, not worrying about pitfalls because we don’t know where to look for them. Plus, I think Jayne Ann is pretty good at baseball—she’ll be our expert for now. And you can bring anyone you think of who might want to become eligible for a good mental health plan—because we’re nuts, you know, Cherise. Certifiably crazy, if we think we can pull this off.”
“I’ll have to tell Bert, since it’s his dad’s land. He’ll be fine with it. Bert learned a long time ago that, with me, it’s easier to just go with the flow, because that way there’s less chance of getting run over. But you don’t want to tell your husband yet?”
“I should. I know I should. Jake’s a wonderful husband, and a wonderful dad. Please don’t think he’s an ogre or something. But he’s kind of tired of being knocked down, and watching Charlie get knocked down. It’s a phase and he’ll get over it. I’d just like to come to him with something already accomplished, something positive.” She tried to smi
le. “We’ve been taking a few hits lately, you know?”
“Yeah, we all know that story, chapter and verse,” Cherise said, reaching across the table to squeeze Laura’s hand. “We’ll get some good news for him, and then you can hit him with the uppercut.”
The two women giggled like children, until their own children told them to stop.
It wasn’t until she was driving home from Jacob Cohen’s house after speaking with his grandmother that Laura realized she’d sailed—positively sailed—through Charlie’s appointment with the nephrologist, happily accepting his good lab numbers as something to be expected and then forgetting them because she was in a hurry to get home and think more about the baseball team. When was the last time she’d done that? Never. That was the last time. Lab test days were hell, always had been. The waiting, the worrying. But not today. Not since she and Cherise had put their heads together with Charlie and Duane in the cafeteria and started making plans.
It was only when she saw Jake’s car in the driveway that her smile finally left her, because she had just done what he’d warned her not to do, and now she had to tell him.
Did she have to tell him? Cherise thought so, and she was probably right. “Nothing good ever comes from secrets,” she had warned, and then grinned. “Besides, girlfriend, it’s too late for you to back out. We’re already in this up to our necks now that the kids know.”
Laura tried bargaining with herself. She could wait to tell Jake until after the meeting tonight, because maybe their dream would come to nothing, and then there’d be nothing to report.
But Charlie would tell him. She couldn’t ask Charlie, or Sarah, to keep secrets from their father.
So she’d tell him.
After dinner. No, before dinner. Before Charlie got to him.
“Stop it,” she told herself out loud when she realized she was dreading seeing her own husband.
“What, Mom?” Charlie asked from the front passenger seat as he undid his seat belt. “Stop what?”
“Nothing, Charlie. I was just talking to myself. Dad’s home. Why don’t you go tell him about your great lab results?”
More Than Words: Stories of Hope Page 12