Chapter 29
[Ford]
When Cadence and I return from the concert, I walk her to her bedroom door and stand outside it, pressing her into the frame while I kiss her goodnight.
I want her to invite me in. I want to take her to my room.
Most of all, I want her to spend the entire night with me.
Because in spite of all the touches and kisses, strokes and licks, one thing remains constant—Cadence does not stay in my bed through the night.
Her excuse has been her concern the girls might need me during the night or wander into my room in the early morning hours.
She doesn’t want to confuse them. Instead, she’s confusing me.
Feelings are getting in the way. I hadn’t realized how attention starved I’d been, and not for the cheers of a fan-filled stadium, but the one-on-one kind.
The kind where a woman craves a man, that man being me.
I didn’t want to lose Cadence, but I didn’t know how to keep her.
Her world, her drive, was bigger than the new corner I was carving out for me and my girls.
A corner that quite possibly had me not returning to baseball.
When another Sunday arrives, we return to Stone’s house for the weekly meal.
Standing in the back yard of my childhood home, I feel off.
A hum beneath my skin. I’m restless to play ball again and my eyes keep wandering to the gravel lane leading to the barn.
Once upon a time, our mother loved horses and we owned a few.
I have hazy memories of entering what is now a weather-worn structure, the scent of long-gone horses still a whiff in the air on occasion.
I didn’t spend much time in the place once our mother passed, and as my older brothers grew, a punching bag was set up in a stable.
The irony that our father never used the thing, preferring his children instead, was never lost on me.
Wandering away from the gathering, I saunter toward the barn but focus on the overgrown meadow surrounded by a dilapidated white fence.
Walking all the way up to the fence, I cross my arms over the top rail, plant one foot on a lower one and just stare at the tall grass waving beneath a hot summer afternoon.
“Needs a bit of cleanup.” Stone’s strong voice has me turning my head but not shifting my position.
My brother stands beside me, lifting a leg like me, staring at the weedy, overgrown field.
“Used to have some good times out here,” he begins.
“Mom had her horses, and Dad just loved to watch her. We strung lights on tall posts.” Stone points around the fenced-in yard. “And played whiffle ball one night.”
My gaze darts from him to the vacant space. A dusty memory comes to me. I had to be younger than four, no older than June right now.
Standing behind me, helping me hold an oversized plastic bat, a woman’s laughter fills my ears as together we swing our arms. When the bat thunks against the ball, the woman tosses the bat to the side. Behind me, she cheers, “Run, Ford. Run.”
I’m racing toward one of my brothers. One squatting down and waving me toward him, only I decide I don’t want to go to him. I veer left and race to a different base, making my own path. Eventually, I’m caught up in strong arms and raised in the air.
“Ford, you’re supposed to run to first base,” someone laughs.
“He’ll learn the rules one day,” Dad adds, his voice behind me.
“You did good, Fordie.” Feminine laughter follows the praise.
Like a whisper in the wind, I can almost hear the sound. I fell in love with baseball because of my mom. The thought hits me so hard it’s like I’ve taken a fast ball to the chest. But my memory can’t be right. I was roughly June’s age when my mom passed.
“Think she would have been proud of me?” My voice cracks as I ask.
Stone turns his head. “Definitely.” He squints and glances at the field. “But you could have done anything, Ford, and she would have been happy, as long as you were happy.” He looks back at me. “Are you?”
Leaning away from the fence, I stretch out my arms, hands curling over the top rail. The pull stretches my left shoulder. The burn has lessened, but an ache still lingers. My range of motion hasn’t fully returned.
“I need to play ball,” I admit.
“There’s a field at the high school. You could probably talk to Tate Haven. He’s the athletic director.”
“Tate Haven?” I stare at Stone. “I didn’t think the family was speaking to the Havens.” There was bad blood between my older brother and his ex-best friend, who happened to be the eldest of the Havens. Tate was Cortland’s younger brother.
Stone shrugs. “Sometimes you need to be civil.” However, his jaw ticks, a trait I’d picked up from watching him bite his tongue and hold his ground against belligerent men.
“Maybe,” I sigh, turning my attention back to the field. Playing on the old dirt near my high school certainly would bring back memories, but I didn’t necessarily want to hit there.
“I never thanked you enough for all you did.” The confession comes decades late, but having my own kids, I can see how parenting will be a thankless job.
I want Stone to know I appreciate him, especially since he wasn’t my parent, but he made ends meet.
He kept us Sylvers together. “You really helped me get where I am. The equipment. The camps. The encouragement.”
The corner of Stone’s mouth curls. Not a full smile but a hint he’s touched by my gratitude.
“I can’t take full credit, though. Need to thank Sebastian for a few things, even if he didn’t come by it legally.”
“What do you mean?” I shift and lean into the top rail, facing my eldest brother.
“Even if his methods weren’t legal, I might have turned a blind eye a time or two at first. I wanted to give all of you what Dad couldn’t.”
“Stone, what are you saying?”
He turns his head, deep blue eyes meeting mine with sympathy and guilt. “Sebastian bought the equipment in the early years. He paid for the camps.”
“What? How?” I straighten off the fence.
Stone stares at me long and hard, almost begging me to not make him explain.
My brother sold drugs from a young age. Not noble.
Not right. But the money helped. Stone wasn’t the sheriff then but a deputy, a newbie in the hierarchy of civil servants.
The job included a meager salary when he had three young mouths to feed after Knox took off for the Navy.
Which meant there shouldn’t have been anything left over for the expensive attire needed for a growing boy and the necessary camps to help build his skills.
“Stone? I never . . . I didn’t . . .” I turn my head toward the house, not able to see the full family from here but knowing my younger brother is in the yard.
“I didn’t want to admit it, and sometimes it was extra difficult to accept, but Sebastian was sneaky. He’d purchase the stuff and already set it in the room you shared. He’d register you for camps and sign my permission.”
“What is with all the forgery surrounding me?”
Stone chuckles, narrowing his eyes once more toward the overgrown field.
“Wasn’t malicious then.” He turns back to me, looking me right in the eyes.
“It was love.” He sighs. “Your brother knew you were destined for bigger things. Bigger than this yard.” Stone nods at the fenced-in space.
“He wanted to give you what he, and I, couldn’t afford. ”
My mouth falls open and I stare back toward the house. “But he’s always been a dick.”
Stone laughs harder. “And you were the easiest to live with? He had his own demons to wrestle. I think he might have just wanted a little positive attention from you.”
And sometimes negative behavior is the only way to get attention. Except, I’d ignored Sebastian most of the time, especially when he started selling drugs and I focused on baseball. I’d assumed our separate paths were chosen for us without realizing he’d been nudging me deeper along mine.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I glare at Stone.
He shrugs, his mouth crooking up in the corner. “Figured I would when you were ready. You seem ready now to handle the truth. And maybe make amends with your brother.”
“Fuck.” I swipe a hand down my face, my palm scratching on the growth on my jaw.
“He’d only done it a few times before I caught on.
Should have questioned how a twelve-year-old had the money, but I didn’t.
By the time he reached high school, things were different for me financially.
You were on your way to college scholarships, and I’d shut the door on how you’d gotten there.
” Guilt is ripe in every word, but Stone cannot beat himself up.
He’d done the best he could, being just out of boyhood himself.
“Fuck, I’m so sorry, man.”
Stone shakes his head before I’m even finished. “Your apology might be better directed to Seb.”
I lower my head and sigh, but a firm hand comes to my shoulder forcing me to look up once more.
“And I’ve never needed your gratitude, although I appreciate it. I’m proud of you, brother. Always have been. Always will be. No matter what.” He squeezes once before he walks back toward the house.
His touch punctuated his sentiment.
Whether I played ball or not, he’d be proud of me, as long as I was happy.
+ + +
Over the sound of Chris Stapleton’s “White Horse” blaring in my ears, I think I hear someone yelling at me. Turning the corner on the ride-on mower Stone uses to cut the grass, I’ve cleared half of the fenced-in meadow. But there’s no getting around the sudden wall of Sebastian standing in my path.
“What that hell are you doing?” The loud holler resounds over the din of the ride-on.
I cut the engine, turn off the music, and tug an ear bud from my ear. “What?” I shout louder than necessary.