The Accident at 13th and Jefferson - Book 1 Only

by Brenda Carlton

  Chapter 1.10

  In June, Tom left work early and drove to the high school for Josh’s last baseball game of the season. He felt bad that he’d not been able to see any of Josh’s other games but he couldn’t afford to miss any more work. It was a wonderful day to be off though. There was a bright blue sky, and it was eighty degrees. Perfect baseball weather.

  The game was lightly attended. Twenty other adult fans were dispersed in the bleachers and about another twenty kids were all sitting together in the front rows. Tom took a seat about halfway up the risers to the far right so he could see more of Josh behind the plate from the side. The boys had not come out of the locker room yet.

  Juliet trudged across the grass from the parking lot toward the field and Tom stood up to wave. She spotted him and lumbered up to sit by him. “It was nice of you to come,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t miss my grandson’s game for anything,” she said. Tom tried to think of something to talk about besides the subject of Mitch. “How’s work at the nursing home?” he said.

  “Same stuff. New day,” Juliet said, and sighed. “I’m getting too old for this. I did lose one of my favorite clients last week. I hate when that happens. Mrs. Gianopolis was a real sweetheart. Her mind was sharp right up to the end. She died in her sleep. She was a hundred and two years old.”

  “That’s a very long life,” said Tom.

  “Did you know that she retired from nursing the same year that Bonnie was born? She was retired as long as Bonnie’s whole life. Isn’t that weird?”

  “Yeah, that’s weird,” said Tom. He was watching Elaine come toward the field from the school. She scanned the area and Tom knew that she had spotted him. He waited to see what she would do. His heart beat faster hoping that she would come to sit with him. He knew that she was not at all anxious to have to deal with Juliet again. They’d argued a number of times about how to handle her. He hastened to continue the conversation with Juliet so as to seem nonchalant to Elaine. “Did your hundred and two year old lady have family?” he asked.

  Juliet nodded her head. “Listen to this,” she said. “Three kids of her own, but one died a couple of years ago. He was almost eighty himself. Five grandkids, twelve great-grandkids, and three great-greats. Can you imagine living to see great greats? Those are your grandchildren’s grandchildren.”

  “Yes.” Tom cheered silently. Elaine was definitely coming to sit with them. He nodded to her as she put one foot onto the bleachers. He said to Juliet, “It sounds like the great-grandkids were not breeding as well as the grandkids.”

  Elaine took a seat on the other side of Tom. He smiled and said, “Hi.”

  Elaine smiled back, and said, “Beautiful day isn’t it?”

  Juliet said, “That generation was just getting started.”

  Tom explained to Elaine, “We were talking about a lady in Juliet’s nursing home who just died at the age of a hundred and two.” They had been tense with each other since the big fight with Juliet, talking mostly about the logistical details to coordinate doing things for the boys.

  “I don’t think I want to live that long,” Elaine said. She looked lovely in jeans and her Webster’s Gardens polo shirt. Tom thought she might have put on some weight and that it suited her.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “If I get too old to grow plants and design gardens anymore, I don’t think I’d want to go on,” she said.

  “Oh,” Tom said. “It really means that much to you?”

  “Yes. It does,” she said.

  “I didn’t know that. I learned something about you today.”

  Elaine gave Tom a quizzical look.

  “What?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “How are you Juliet?” she asked.

  “I’m not so well, but thank you for asking,” said Juliet with a deep sigh. She took a dishtowel out of her bag and started mopping her face with it.

  Elaine knew better than to ask what was wrong, so she said, “I’m sorry to hear that. You must be very proud of Josh. He’s a natural as a catcher.”

  “Yes. The poor little thing. He is though. A good catcher, I mean. It’s my son that’s the problem.”

  Elaine had no idea what the problem was, but she said, “I hope it all works out.”

  Juliet was undaunted. “That jail is making him sick. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Mothers worry, you know. I’m sure you know. You’re a mother.”

  Tom turned his head so that Juliet couldn’t see and rolled his eyes at Elaine. She tried to suppress a smile. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she said to Juliet. “Try not to worry. It’s not good for you.”

  Juliet was starting to get wound up. “First a kidney stone and then a something in his you know -- parts,” she wailed. Then she hung her head and stared at her hands in her lap. “They don’t feed him good food. They’re killing me with worry.”

  Elaine was spared from having to respond when the boys came out onto the baseball field. Josh tipped his hat toward them, looked at his Dad, pointed at Elaine, and gave Dad the thumbs up sign, and then took his position behind home plate. Max ran out to third and did not make any acknowledgement.

  The opposing team, Indian Valley’s first batter hit a single on the first pitch. The second batter advanced him to second on a foul pop-up that Josh caught. Elaine, Tom and Juliet yelled and clapped. Then came a line drive into left field. The left fielder got the ball to Max in time for him to tag the runner at third. A strike out followed to put Maple Valley at bat.

  Lee hit a double, followed by two strikeouts and then Max came up. Elaine was animated, jumping around in her seat. “He’s a hitter,” she told Tom, grinning. “Bring him home,” she yelled out to Max. Tom thought she was adorable, which made him sad.

  Max didn’t swing at the first pitch. He missed the second. He put everything he had into the third and sent it deep into the outfield almost exactly halfway between the right and left fielders. They both scrambled for it. Max made it to third and the runner came home.

  Josh came up next. “Come on, bro. Bring me home,” Max yelled from third. Josh swung at a dirt ball that he had no business swinging at. “Settle down, Josh,” yelled Tom. “Let them go.”

  “Let him be. They’re just kids,” Juliet scolded him. He ignored her. Elaine put her hand on his arm, and he was so conscious of it laying there that it felt charged. Josh let the next ball go by. “That’s it,” yelled Tom.

  Then he let a strike go by and Coach Zeller yelled, “What’re ya doin’?” Finally he hit a grounder, but Indian Valley chased the runner down between home and third and the inning ended.

  “He’ll get ‘em next time,” Elaine said. “He’s grown three inches this year. His new arms are hard to get used to.”

  “Yeah,” said Tom. “He’s gone through three shoe sizes in six months.”

  By the end of the fifth inning the score was tied at four. Josh still hadn’t gotten a hit, but he was doing well catching. Max brought in three of the runs, but he missed a throw at third that let three of Indian Valley’s runs come in, so his performance essentially canceled itself out. Juliet left, saying that she had an important errand to run, but Tom suspected that she was just hot and bored because he wasn’t paying enough attention to her.

  Tom was acutely aware of Elaine next to him, with no one else close by. He badly wanted to put his arm around her. She seemed to sense it and moved about six inches further away.

  Indian Valley loaded the bases with one out. Their batter popped one up into left field but Lee missed it and by the time he got the ball to Max three runners had gone by. Max tagged the batter coming into third. Two outs. He spun and fired the ball toward Josh who still had time to tag the runner coming into home. It was Max’s most impressive fielding move of the game.

  Josh was poised and waiting for the throw, and impressed that Max executed it perfectly.
The runner was a very big kid, six feet tall and still growing, and closing in on two hundred pounds. He bore down on Josh like the fullback that he was during football season. It was raw intimidation but Josh held his ground, left foot planted on the plate. At the same moment that Josh reached to the left to make the catch, the runner theoretically dove for home, but the move he executed was really a barely disguised tackle. He hit Josh, off balance, square in the knees. The ball flew out of Josh’s glove. He went down hard on his back and heard a bone crack in his right calf. His vision went fuzzy from pain.

  Tom didn’t think about what he was doing. He was on the field and had the fullback by the front of his shirt and was trying to throw a punch in the kid’s face, without any trace of logical thought. But his arms wouldn’t move because two coaches, the umpire, and a couple of other guys were trying to stop him.

  “If this little bastard ever plays baseball in this county again, I’m going to kick all your asses,” Tom yelled at the other men. “I want him arrested.”

  The kid was as strong as Tom, but he was scared, so he waited to see what would happen. He could take one man-sized right cross to the jaw without permanent damage. Tom was determined to prove to him that he wasn’t as tough as he thought he was.

  “Mr. Greenwood.” “Tom.” “Tom!” Max’s insistent voice broke through Tom’s rage. “TOM!”

  Tom turned to find him in the general melee.

  “Tom,” Max said when they made eye contact. “Josh is hurt bad. He needs you.”

  Elaine was already trying to tend to him, since everyone in authority was busy trying to restrain Tom.

  “Dad?” said Josh, disoriented.

  “He’s coming honey,” said Elaine.

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s trying to punch out the kid who tackled you.”

  Josh started to laugh and cry at the same time. When Tom got to him, he was getting hysterical. Tom asked him how he was doing and he pointed at his calf, laughing uncontrollably.

  “What’s so funny?” Tom asked. Meanwhile he looked at the calf and looked at Elaine. “I don’t think we should try to move him,” she said. It was a compound fracture. Even to a layman it was not hard to see that what was sticking out of Josh’s calf was bone. Coach Umbridge said, “I already called the ambulance.” The school nurse appeared from somewhere, and put ice around the wound and on Josh’s forehead. “It’s bad isn’t it?” Josh screeched, and then stopped laughing and gulped ragged jerky inhalations like a two-year-old coming down from a crying fit. “Take, inhale, me, inhale, to, inhale, the, inhale, closest, inhale, MORPHINE!!”

  “Squeeze my hand,” Tom said. Josh was strong. He squeezed Tom’s hand so hard that Tom was afraid there would be more than one broken bone in the family.

  The ambulance crew arrived and while they were stabilizing Josh’s leg for transport Tom remembered the baseball game in progress and the crowd. He didn’t see any sign of the kid who he’d tried to punch. Someone must have hustled him away. The rest of the kids were standing around waiting for someone to tell them what to do now.

  “We’re not going to finish the game,” Coach Umbridge said. “Everyone can go.”

  Elaine asked Max if he could get another ride home if she rode to the hospital with Tom and Josh.

  Max said, “I want to come with you.”

  “It’s just going to be a lot of sitting and waiting,” she said.

  “I don’t care. He’s like my brother.”

  “Will one of you please keep me informed from the hospital?” Coach Umbridge said. “I’ve never seen anything like this in twenty five years of coaching baseball.”

  At the hospital Josh had to have surgery to set his leg.

  “I should’ve killed that kid when I had the chance,” Tom grumbled while they were waiting to hear that Josh had been moved to the recovery room. “I can’t believe that you can do something like that with no consequences.”

  “And if you had, Josh would be in surgery with his Pop at the courthouse getting himself arraigned,” said Elaine. “I don’t see how that would help the situation.”

  “It’s not right,” said Tom. “Do you think that kid had it in for Josh for some reason?” he asked Max.

  “Neither of us ever saw him before, as far as I know. He’s just a wild kid, I think.”

  “It was cool, you going after him like that. At least you scared him for a minute. I’d have done the same thing if I were a man,” said Elaine.

  “Why wouldn’t a woman do that? What about the famous ‘mama bear protecting her cubs’ instincts?” he kidded Elaine.

  “That kid is already the kind of man that scares the crap out of us,” said Elaine. “But I was proud of you though.”

  Tom beamed. Then he said, “I’d have thought that you would’ve been horrified at my lack of self-control.”

  “Quite the contrary. You haven’t had all your basic instincts beaten out of you. I like that.”

  “I thought you didn’t like Tom anymore,” said Max. “What’s up with that?”

  Elaine gave him a dirty look. “Max…,” she warned. Then she smiled at Tom. He was more confused than ever.

  Max said defiantly, “You guys stopped….whatever, dating, courting, whatever, the night you told me about my father. Was it my fault somehow?”

  “No, Honey,” Elaine hastened to say. “It wasn’t about you.”

  “Good,” Max said. “But I wish I knew what it was so I could try to fix it.”

  Tom could tell that Elaine was very uncomfortable but he was worse. They were sitting in the same waiting room where the doctor told him that Bonnie was gone, although Elaine and Max didn’t know that. In the silence that followed, he felt Bonnie nearby. At the same time he was sure he was imagining it.

  Bonnie’s voice was inside his head. “She misses you,” she said, or he imagined she said.

  He didn’t answer her in words, even internally. It was just a feeling. I’m not good enough for her. She’s only being kind.

  Bonnie’s answer was, “you damn fool,” and then she was gone.

  Tom simply accepted it, real or not. He hesitated for a half a minute, made his decision, took a deep breath and said, “I’d like to fix it too. What about you?”

  Max crossed his fingers on both hands and held them in front of his chest.

  Elaine stared at Tom for a few seconds and then said, “What about my mother?”

  Tom looked at her like she had three heads. “What on God’s green earth does your mother have to do with anything?”

  Max started to say something, and Elaine cut him off with, “Shut up! Now!”

  Max pulled an imaginary zipper across his mouth.

  “Are you trying to tell me that you didn’t leave the restaurant in such an almighty hurry that night because you were repulsed by what I told you about my mother?”

  “Good grief,” said Tom. “No. I have uglier skeletons in my closet. One of my grandfathers was a Nazi defector. I don’t expect anyone to hold me responsible for that.”

  “Then why in the hell did you leave?” Elaine was angry.

  “Because I felt like a fool when I found out who I was competing with.” Tom acted like he was explaining the color red to a kindergartner. “Mr. X is a real VIP. Dumb old Tom Greenwood thinks he can win over a woman who’s in love with, like, Henry Kissinger, or somebody.”

  Tom studied Elaine’s face carefully. First she looked amazed and then she started to giggle. Max started dancing in front of the plate glass window. They both pointedly ignored him. He wouldn’t let them. “Go, team, go,” he began to chant. Tom relented and gave him the thumbs up sign. Elaine started to laugh out loud.

  “And what did I learn and then never believe about men’s egos?” she said. “That beats all.”

  “Huh?” said Tom.

  It was her turn to explain the color blue to a kindergartner. “That was when I changed my mind about Davi
d, you big dork. That’s what I was working up to telling you in the restaurant that night. I had to tell you the whole background so you would understand how I got to the point of changing my mind, but you didn’t let me finish.”

  “And what was that little thing about women changing their minds?” said Tom. “Touché.”

  Max’s dance in front of the window now included arms up in the touchdown signal.

  “Bonnie’s right. I’m a damn fool,” said Tom.

  It was Elaine’s turn to say, “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” said Tom. “So, lady, would you like to go out to dinner with me on Saturday night.”

  She leaned in to give him a peck on the cheek. He turned her face to give her a real kiss, slightly abbreviated due to Max.

  After much too long an interval to be decent in a hospital waiting room, even if they were the only ones there, she pulled away and said, “Regarding Saturday night, I think we’ll probably be taking care of your injured son.”

  “Right. So I guess we’ve already moved beyond dating and directly into domestic bliss,” said Tom.

  “Except for the sleeping arrangement,” said Elaine with a wide grin.

  “Mom!” yelped Max. “My tender ears.”

  “YOU, little one. Did you want a father or not?” she said.

  Max rolled his eyes. “Maybe,” he said. He punched Tom on the arm and said, “Can I be the one to tell Josh?”

  They finally went in to see Josh in the recovery room. He was groggy and in pain and not sure where he was or what had happened. Tom tried to explain, but he fell asleep again while Tom was talking. When he woke up again, he asked, “Did they give him the run?” His head rolled away to the wrong side and Elaine rolled it back over so he could see his father.

  “I don’t think so,” said Tom. “They cancelled the rest of the game. How are you feeling?”

  “Like someone cracked my leg over their knee like a piece of firewood,” said Josh.

  “That’s pretty close to the truth,” said a very old doctor who had just come up. “We had to put a pin in it, but you’re going to heal just fine.”

  “Can I play baseball again?” asked Josh.

  “I don’t see why not,” the doctor said.

  “Yippee,” said Josh, in a voice that was fading away. He was starting to slip out again. Max was impatiently waiting to tell Josh the news, shifting from one foot to the other, and drumming his fingers on a tray table.

  The doctor checked Josh over, and said, “We’ll want to keep him overnight, but he’ll probably be able to go home tomorrow afternoon. He’s as young and healthy as they come.”

  “Take it easy on your brother for a while, OK son?” he said to Max and then he left.

  Max wiggled Josh’s shoulder to keep him awake. “Guess what, Josh,” he said.

  “Good throw,” said Josh drowsily.

  “Thank you,” said Max. “You’re the only one who noticed in all the commotion. Guess what? Mom and your Dad made up.”

  “Really?” Josh was awake again.

  “Yes, really,” said Elaine. Josh looked at Tom for confirmation. He nodded.

  Josh put on his best English accent and said, “Crickey. The things I have to do to keep you people sorted out. Bloody well time.” And then he slept for six hours.