More Than Words: Stories of Hope

by Diana Palmer; Kasey Michaels; Catherine Mann

  “Yeah,” Charlie said, opening the car door. “He’ll like that.”

  “And that’s probably just about all he’s going to like tonight,” Laura mumbled as she struggled with her own seat belt, then walked into the house, her feet dragging, all her enthusiasm gone.

  Maybe if she went on the Internet, as she’d discussed with Cherise, she could find something she could use with Jake as a good argument on how to turn this dream into a reality….

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Is that it?”

  “That’s it.”

  The silence, except for a few snatches of birdsong and the sound of an eighteen-wheeler roaring down the highway to their left, was pretty deafening.

  “Wow.”

  Laura tried to keep her expression neutral, even after Jayne Ann’s rather awed wow. “Well, it’s flat,” she said, looking over the weed-choked ground that spread out in front of the three women and Jacob Cohen’s father. Jacob’s mother had died when Jacob was two. And Laura thought she had problems. “I mean, there is that, right?”

  “Right! There is that,” Jayne Ann said brightly, probably to make up for the less than enthusiastic wow. “And it’s not as if anyone is going to run off a cliff into a quarry way out here, not with the highway bordering us on two sides and the—what is that over there?”

  “The sewage-treatment plant,” Laura said quietly. “It could be worse.”

  “How?” Jayne Ann whispered back. “Granted, I don’t see any warning signs about this being a toxic-waste dump, but it’s pretty terrible, Laura. It will take us years to get this place ready for a baseball court—diamond—whatever. I’m always getting them mixed up, which drives Bobby crazy.”

  “Diamond,” Laura said as Cherise and Larry Cohen walked deeper into the weeds. “And, for your information, it’s home plate, not home base, and baseball has umpires, not referees. So much for me thinking you’d be our resident baseball expert. Charlie gave me a crash course this morning, and my head is still reeling. I always went to Charlie’s games before he got sick, but I was usually too busy chasing after Sarah to pay much attention to what was going on.”

  “You’re lucky,” Jayne Ann said. “Bobby doesn’t share much, although, after I told him about our idea, I did notice that his mitt is back on his desk, not on the floor of the closet underneath his dirty clothes. The dirty clothes are still there, unfortunately. We’re having a serious mental struggle to see who lasts longer, me, the neatnik—or him, the slob. I think he’s winning. One more day, and I know I’m going to gather up his laundry—before the Health Department steps in and his room is declared a toxic-waste dump. So, how’s Jake?”

  Jayne Ann had slid in her question just as Laura was smiling at the battle of the dirty clothes, which sounded very familiar. Charlie’s room had been the scene of more than one skirmish over the same problem. Her smile faded slowly. “Good, he’s good,” she said, nodding her head. “We’re good.”

  “That bad, huh?” Jayne Ann said, wincing. “I guess you were right to keep him out of this for a while. Or am I wrong, and he would have taken one look at this field and said, ‘Yippee, perfect, just what we need’?”

  Laura sighed, remembering something she’d thought yesterday at the hospital. “I’m turning my own husband into an ogre. And he’s not, Jayne Ann. He’s just had enough. He doesn’t want to see Charlie hurt again.”

  “Or himself,” Jayne Ann said. “It’s hard, this acceptance thing. And I think it’s harder for men with their sons.”

  “Jake played baseball in college,” Laura told her, sighing yet again. “Second base, just like Charlie. He brought a tiny glove to the hospital with us the day Charlie was born.” She raised her hands in a helpless gesture, then let them drop to her sides once more. “He never wanted to live through Charlie, recapture old glory or anything like that. He just wanted Charlie to enjoy what he’d enjoyed, you know? Oh, and he did. Charlie, that is. Jake made up that little field out back, and I’d watch them every night after dinner, as I washed the dishes. Charlie and his daddy. I wanted rosebushes, a real garden, you know? But I wouldn’t give back one moment of watching the two of them out there for the most beautiful garden in the world.”

  She turned away from Jayne Ann, swiped at a tear that had escaped, then turned back with a smile. “Sorry. Jake was pretty good when I told him last night, he really was.”

  “But he’s not going to have anything to do with this, is he?”

  Laura shook her head. “Not yet, no. But he can’t seem to really give me a reason, and I didn’t push. He just needs some time, Jayne Ann. It’s only been six months. He thought when Charlie was better that everything else would be better, too, that everything would just sort of morph back to the way it was before Charlie got sick. I tried to tell him, more than once, that it wouldn’t be like that, but he’s always been the optimist. Somebody had to be, Charlie needed that. So now it’s my turn to be the cheerleader, I guess, and Jake’s turn to take a little time off, get his head back in gear. It only seems fair, since he’s propped me up plenty over the years. He leaves for Boston tomorrow, on business, and won’t be back for a week. That’s probably a good thing.”

  Jayne Ann nodded. “If it keeps him from looking at this field? Yeah, I’d say it’s a good thing. Okay, here come Cherise and Larry. Put on your cheerleader uniform, because sounding optimistic right now is going to take pom-poms and high kicks to pull off.”

  Cherise was busy pulling her electronic notebook and cell phone from her purse as Larry Cohen approached, rubbing his hands together in front of him. Larry was a small man, rather thin, and had a bald spot that actually made him look rather endearing, Laura thought.

  “He’s cute, isn’t he?” Jayne Ann whispered, fluffing her hair. “I mean, I gave up on Hugh Grant years ago, after he was caught with that hooker.”

  “Down, girl,” Laura said, trying to regain her good humor. “But, yes, he’s cute. In a sort of ‘take him home and feed him dinner’ sort of way.”

  “Thanks, Laura. I’ll have to dig out my lasagna recipe.”

  Larry had his endearing smile firmly in place as he stopped in front of Laura and Jayne Ann. “Wrong sports analogy, ladies, but I think we’re going to have to go back ten and punt. There’s just too much work to do here to have a baseball field ready before the first snowfall.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Laura said, her shoulders sagging. “And, you know, it’s not just the field. Charlie said we need—wait, I’ve got a list.” She dug into her own purse and came out with a folded sheet of pink paper with kittens stamped all over it that she’d commandeered from Sarah.

  “You really should get one of these, Laura,” Cherise said, holding up her electronic organizer. “Not that the kittens don’t look professional, or anything,” she added, winking at Jayne Ann.

  “Hey, in my house, you get what you find, even if that means ripping off a nine-year-old,” Laura said, grinning. Cherise was good for her, she really was. “Okay, here we go. Benches—the team has to sit somewhere. No bleachers, because parents can bring their own blankets and lawn chairs. Bases, home plate, some sort of backstop.” She looked at Cherise. “You know what that is?”

  Cherise nodded. “I have a vague idea. Go on. I’m typing this all into my organizer. What else?”

  Larry started counting out items on his fingers. “A line-marking machine to put down the baselines and batting box every game. Bats, mitts, balls. A pitching rubber. Protective gear for the catcher. Shirts and caps, because we don’t need actual uniforms if we get everyone matching T-shirts and caps.”

  “A hot dog, soda and candy stand,” Jayne Ann said, then shrugged her shoulders. “Hey, a girl can dream.”

  “So,” Cherise said, closing the organizer, “what we’re actually saying here is money. We need money. Who’s up for robbing a bank? I’m in for driving the getaway car. I just got a tune-up and a new muffler.”

  Larry was wearing the rather stunned expression common in men
who suddenly realized they were badly outnumbered by females and couldn’t begin to understand their language. “We, um, we need a sponsor. Maybe more than one. Probably more than one.”

  “A sponsor? Oh, wait,” Jayne Ann said. “You mean like we used to have for my bowling league? Although I have to tell you, I think the real reason we disbanded is because nobody could face another year of hot-pink shirts with Sam’s Exotic Delights stamped on the back.”

  “You’re making that up,” Laura said, turning around as she heard a pickup truck pulling onto the edge of the field.

  “Oh, come on, Laura, who could make that up?” Jayne Ann placed her hands on her hips. “And, far be it from me to be a wet blanket here, but we have only five kids for this team—these teams. Charlie, Jacob, Duane, Bruce Lee Pak and my Bobby. Until and unless we get a field, get something, how are we going to attract more players? Who’s that?”

  Cherise was waving at the tall man walking toward them. Tall, and fairly close to immense, actually. “That, my friends, is my baby brother. Did I happen to mention that he owns a construction company? You know, a construction company? One of those companies that owns bulldozers and backhoes and all those good things? So you can stop worrying about the field. I called him a few minutes ago and he said he’d be right over. He’s so obedient, but that’s probably because I used to babysit him and he’s still afraid of me.”

  Laura looked at her new friend in amazement. “Cherise Johnson, have I told you lately that I love you? Now,” she said, rubbing her palms together, “who else has a friend or relative we can use—that is, ask to volunteer?”

  An hour later, after a quick lunch at a fast-food restaurant, the four split up, each with their own assignment except for Jayne Ann, who had just gotten her Realtor’s license and had a showing for a customer on the other side of town. Cherise went off to see her sister, who worked for the township (bless the woman, she had eight siblings!), to find out what the chances were that the recreation department had some old baseball equipment lying around that nobody was using anymore. Larry had to go back to work at the bank, but he’d promised to print up some flyers they could deliver to the pediatric departments in all three of the area’s hospitals and to several pediatricians’ offices.

  Once those flyers were out, there’d be no turning back!

  And that left Laura the job she hated most but felt she had to tackle since it had been her idea—finding sponsors for the teams. When it came to being a salesperson, she’d always thought of herself as the kind who would knock on a stranger’s door, then say, “You don’t want to buy a set of encyclopedias, do you?” Jake could sell sand in a desert, but she’d rather eat that sand than try to do the same thing.

  But this time she had a mission, and it wasn’t calendars for the high-school band, or candy bars for their church group, or even Girl Scout cookies (one of the worst failures of her youth). This time she was raising money for the Heroes. That was the one thing they’d all agreed upon at lunch, the name for their league. The Heroes. Jayne Ann had thought the letters could stand for something and had even come up with Helping Everyone Rise Over…but then they’d all drawn a blank on the ES, so they gave up that idea as a bad job and just stuck with Heroes.

  Larry’s “Egregious Stuff” hadn’t been all that bad, really. And definitely much better than Jayne Ann’s pithy suggestion for the S-word.

  Laura also had what she believed to be two aces in her pocket—Charlie and Sarah—and she wasn’t above using them, either. Charlie was so damn cute with his shock of red hair and his big smile, and if that didn’t work, Sarah, who had begged to stay home with Brenda, would wear any prospective donor down with her “my dog just died” expression.

  Yes, Laura knew, she was shameless. But it was for a good cause, and that’s what she’d keep telling herself.

  “So, how much do we need?” Charlie asked as Laura drove along what was known locally as the Golden Strip, home of the two large and four smaller shopping malls in the township. This street had it all—clothing stores, restaurants, automobile dealerships, movie theaters, mattress stores, tanning salons. Laura looked at all the signs, considering which places she could hit up for money. Hit up. Yes, she was feeling rather ruthless.

  “I don’t know,” Laura said as she eased up to a red light. “Do you?”

  Charlie rolled his eyes. “Mom, I’m fourteen. But a good mitt is over a hundred bucks, easy, and aluminum bats aren’t much cheaper, although we’ll only need about five or six of those and everyone can share. I’ve got my own mitt and bat, and so does Bobby, but most of the kids won’t, right? And the moms and dads might not be able to afford them, either.”

  Laura had a quick mental flash of the parking lot at the dialysis center, the one filled with run-down cars. You could pick out the patients’ cars by their age and condition. It was the first rule of having a chronically ill or disabled child, or adult, for that matter—go quietly broke, no matter how well cushioned you might have been when the Egregious Stuff first hit the fan. She tapped her fingertips against the steering wheel. “Right. Okay, first stop, a sporting-goods store. We’ll price things, and then we’ll go asking for money.”

  Their investigation at the sporting-goods store took another hour and added more items to their “we have to have this” list. Laura was beginning to feel the butterflies back in her stomach when she totaled up the figures in her head and decided they needed over a thousand dollars—and that was if everyone on the team chipped in a sign-up fee, which she didn’t want to ask for. She’d been at the bottom of the well herself and knew that even twenty-five or thirty dollars could sometimes seem like a million. The Heroes were supposed to be an opportunity, not yet another problem, so they’d all decided that the fee would be happily accepted but not mandatory.

  With Jake leaving in the morning (and her nervousness threatening to get the better of her), Laura decided they’d had enough for one day, so they stopped at the local grocery store for three freshly cut T-bone steaks for dinner—Jake’s favorite. After all, once he was off to Boston they could eat more hamburgers and pizza, which the kids liked better anyway.

  Laura stood in front of the glassed-in meat counter while Sarah scoped out the homemade cupcakes and Charlie opened a bottle of a sports drink and chugged down half of it. For over two years the amount of fluid he could drink a day was severely restricted, so now he was always drinking something.

  “Jerry?” she asked as the butcher loaded three steaks onto a piece of brown paper and tossed them on the scale. “Have you ever thought about sponsoring a baseball team?”

  Then she smiled, because she hadn’t realized she was going to ask the question until she heard it coming out of her mouth. And, hey, it hadn’t been so bad. All Jerry could do was say no, right?

  “Sure,” Jerry said, eyeballing the scale. “I already do. You know, the township youth league?”

  “Oh,” Laura said, her shoulders sagging in spite of her best efforts to keep smiling. “Then you wouldn’t want to help sponsor another one, would you?”

  You don’t want to buy a set of encyclopedias, do you…?

  “Sure, why not? For Sarah, right?”

  “Uh, no. Not Sarah. Charlie.”

  Jerry hesitated as he reached for the steaks. “Charlie? But Jake was in here last night, and he said Charlie just got cut. I’m sorry about that, Laura. That really stinks.”

  “I know.” Laura stepped to the end of the meat cooler and Jerry joined her there. “We’re putting together a new team, actually. One where anyone can play. We…” Suddenly she was speaking quickly, her enthusiasm overcoming her nervousness. “We’re gathering up kids who normally couldn’t play on a regular team and giving them the chance to learn about baseball. Teamwork. And anything else good about team sports. Charlie’s friend Bobby has a seizure disorder, and Duane Johnson has spina bifida, so he wears leg braces—but he’s doing great, he really is. Jacob Cohen—”

  “I know Jacob,” Jerry said. “He and his g
randmother come in here a lot.” He leaned a hip against the meat case. “How about Toni D’Amato? Antoinette, I mean. She’s ten, I think. Cute kid. She comes in here for sour balls all the time. But deaf, you know?” He shook his head. “No, she couldn’t play. What if she had her back turned and the ball was coming at her? Nobody could warn her and she could get hurt.”

  “Then…then she’d have her mom or dad or somebody else in the field with her to make sure she pays attention. That would work, wouldn’t it? We’re making up our own rules, Jerry. If Toni wants to play, she plays. That’s what the Heroes is all about.”

  “The Heroes, huh?” Jerry walked back behind the counter and pulled out a long pack of solid American cheese, then sheared off a few slices and laid them on a small square of waxed paper. “Here you go—Sarah likes cheese.”

  “Thank you, Jerry,” Laura said, handing the cheese to Sarah, and then picking up the wrapped steaks.

  “Put me down for two hundred, okay? Oh, and let me look up Toni’s mom’s number in the phone book for you before you go. Name’s Lucie. Lucie D’Amato. And I’ll ask around, see if anyone else wants to chip in. The Heroes, huh? I like that.”

  “Yeah, I do, too,” Laura said, grinning. “Thanks, Jerry.”

  “Hey, for Charlie? For Jacob and Toni? How could I say no? You’re doing a good thing here, Laura. A good thing.”

  “We’re doing a good thing, Jake,” Laura told her husband five hours later, once Charlie and Sarah had gone to bed and she was watching Jake pack his suitcase.

  He stopped halfway to the bed, where Laura was refolding each piece immediately after he tossed it in the suitcase. “I know that, Laura. You mean well. But Gary—”

  “I talked to Gary. He says there’s a way around all that liability mumbo jumbo, and he’s offered to do any legal work, gratis. Besides, we’re not going to use a township field. What else is bothering you?”