Chapter 20
WHEN HE was very young, Ty loved the freedom that came with the end of the school year. It meant pool parties at his friends’ houses and long days riding his bike around town, nights stargazing with his mother on the back deck, state fairs and ice cream and sleepovers.
Then his mother died and Ty was shipped off to boarding school, and suddenly summer break meant long months alone in an empty dormitory, knocking out the requirements to graduate early because he needed something to occupy his time or he’d lose his mind.
The relief and joy Ty felt on Friday when the last bell went and he never had to be a teacher again was like being a little kid times one million—magnified to the power of no more marking ever, divided by the number of times Ty would have to ask a kid to stop chewing gum in class.
“Why do you look like that?” Henry teased as they packed up the last of their things in the athletic office. “Did you hate the kids that much?”
“I love kids,” Ty said seriously. “But teaching is fucking bullshit.”
Henry snorted. “Amen to that.”
“Long hours. Low pay. Administrators.” Ty shuddered, and he and Henry said together, “ Parents .”
They laughed as the athletic office door closed behind them.
“So you’re really going back to Chicago?”
Ty glanced at him. He was serious, but also just curious. “That was always the plan.”
“Sure, sure.” Behind them the hallway lights were flickering off for the last time this school year. Their footsteps echoed. “But plans change.”
Subtle the man was not. “Say what you want to say, Henry.”
“All right.” He paused at the heavy exterior fire door. Bright sunshine poured through the narrow rectangular windows. “You could have a life here if you wanted it. I know you think you have to go back to Chicago because—I don’t know. But you don’t. You can choose. ”
Ty swallowed.
He wanted that promotion. He’d worked for it for years. Being a paramedic gave him something to cling to when the world didn’t make sense. These past few weeks, living in his father’s house, hearing his ghost list Ty’s failures one after the other, sometimes echoed by the town’s other residents, he’d clung to that job.
The job that said he did something right. He did something important. The job that recognized him for it.
He had to choose that for himself, didn’t he? Didn’t he owe himself that much?
“Yeah,” he said, noncommittal, and pushed open the door into summer.
Ollie picked Theo up that afternoon, partly because Theo had somehow strewn his personal belongings across three different locations and the lost and found and needed time to collect them, and partly, Ty suspected, because he could. Ty didn’t actually run into him, but he didn’t need to; the trail of moony-eyed teachers gave the game away.
A few of them gave Ty calculating looks afterward, so obviously word about that was getting around too. As long as everyone still loved Ollie, Ty told himself he didn’t care what anyone thought about him.
Unfortunately, with the game tomorrow and the rest of the week booked up, tonight he couldn’t just go home and relax. He had an appointment with Eliza at her home office to go over their strategy for the town hall meeting tomorrow.
“I’m not on trial,” Ty pointed out.
Eliza raised delicate eyebrows over her reading glasses. “Not yet,” she said. “And we’d like to keep it that way, so pay attention.”
“They don’t have a case, you said.”
“Doesn’t mean he can’t make your life miserable, which he already has. Just because he doesn’t have a case doesn’t mean he can’t have someone bring charges. I don’t think he’s got an ADA in his back pocket, but I don’t want to find out. Do you?”
He sighed. “No.”
“All right, then. Now, I’m not going to show up to this thing acting as your lawyer.”
That sent a jolt through him. “What? Why not?”
“Because you’re not on trial, and showing up with a lawyer makes you look guilty of something. ”
“It makes me look like I’m not an idiot,” Ty muttered.
She offered a slight smile. “That too. Now, just because I’m not going as your lawyer doesn’t mean I’m not going. I like hot gossip as much as the next small-town church lady.”
“You don’t gossip!”
“Not with or about my clients,” she agreed serenely. “But I’m only human, so I will be asking you about my nephew when we’re off the clock.”
Everyone in this town knew everything about everybody else. He should know that by now. “Okay, so I’m showing up solo.” A hollow pit opened in his stomach. Of all the things he hated, of all the things he feared, standing on his own was near the top of the list.
Eliza shook her head. “Not solo . Bring Ollie. Everybody loves Ollie. People see you with him, they’re going to want to see the same things in you that he does.”
In Ty’s opinion, it was more likely to work the other way around. People would wonder if Ollie had a secret criminal side or something. Especially since he’d lost his job. “Are you sure—I mean, he just got fired. Isn’t that going to, like… make people think he’s untrustworthy or something?”
“He did get fired,” Eliza agreed placidly. She seemed very smug all of a sudden. “Thanks for bringing that up. Because Ollie got fired for being a good father. Everybody knows his child was in the hospital. Word travels fast around here. Public sympathy is strongly on his side. And if the two of you bring Theo in with you….”
Ty loathed the idea of using Theo as political clout. He wrinkled his nose.
“Believe me, I know. I understand the reluctance. But this is how the game is played. And don’t you think he’d want to help you too?”
God, he’d been here five minutes and he already had a headache. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “All right. What else?”
“ARE YOU sure you don’t want to come to the game?” Ty asked for the third time that morning.
For the third time that morning, Ollie shook his head. “I’ve got a few things I want to finish up around the house, but I’ll meet you at town hall. I won’t be late. Promise. ”
Ty exhaled, anxiety pooling in his stomach.
“Hey.” Ollie touched his arm. “I was going to—if you need me to come, I’ll be there. It’s not like any of my stuff is time sensitive.”
No, Ty was being ridiculous. What could Alan Chiu even do to him anyway? Nothing. Certainly nothing was going to happen at the baseball game. Alan Chiu probably wouldn’t even show up even though his own kid was pitching. “It’s fine,” he said, as much to reassure himself as for Ollie. “But when it’s the only game we win all year and you miss it, it’s your own fault.”
Ollie kissed him briefly. “I’ll take my chances. Theo! Are you ready to go?”
“Ready!”
And—oh. Okay, maybe Ty didn’t need Ollie with him. Because he had Ollie’s kid dressed in Ty’s old baseball jersey from about a hundred years ago. It hung down past his waist and the sleeves covered his elbows. Nothing bad could happen to Ty if he had Theo with him dressed like that.
He cleared his throat. “Wow, nice outfit. Where did you find that?”
“I found it in the basement earlier this week.” Ollie shot him a small smile. “I was looking for more paperwork.”
“I can’t believe you braved the centipedes.”
Ollie took a step back, feigning horror. “There are centipedes ?”
Ty shot him a look. “Did you find any? More paperwork, I mean.”
“A bit. Your dad was a pack rat. As evidenced.” He indicated Theo’s shirt.
“I can’t believe he kept that.” More likely he hadn’t known it existed. “My mom must’ve put that stuff away before she died.”
“But it’s okay if I wear it?” Theo asked.
“Course. Like I said, looks good on you.” And now they would roll up at town hall together with Theo wearing his support for Ty right on his back—keen political machination on Ollie’s part. “We really do have to go, though.”
It never ceased to amaze Ty how the whole town would turn out for a baseball game even if the team hadn’t won all year. Obviously the town needed to put in a trampoline park or something. Maybe a movie theater even.
The visitors’ stands, on the other hand, were nearly as empty as the visitors’ dugout. From the looks of things, Central High had tapped their JV team to fill out their numbers. A couple of the guys were barely taller than Theo .
Three of them were girls, although Ty knew better than to underestimate them based on that. Either one of them had the mumps, or she had a wad of chewing tobacco stuck in her lip.
Ty watched her spit into a bottle.
Okay, then.
“Play ball!” the umpire yelled, and Ty turned his focus to the game.
Even with a skeleton crew, Central High played a tight game. But Pete’s pitching kept them off the scoreboard. Ty’s kids eked out a run in the second inning and two in the fifth.
In the top of the seventh, Tobacco Girl hit the ball deep into left field with two runners on base. Two outs. Ty bit his lip as it went right over the fielder’s head and Tobacco Girl took off at a run.
The runner on third crossed home plate just as the fielder caught up with the ball. He fired the ball toward second base—far too late to catch the second runner rounding third, but they had a hope of getting Tobacco Girl.
Riley missed the catch. Tobacco Girl made for third. On first base, Danny stopped the ball and sent it blistering toward third.
“Out!”
Jesus. Somehow Ty unclenched the knot in his stomach. This game might actually be worse for his blood pressure than the stupid meeting afterward.
“I’ve got Tums if you want them,” Henry offered sotto voce.
“Fuck off,” Ty muttered, conscious of Theo two feet to his left, carefully marking the runs scored on a clipboard. Then, “Yes, please.”
Central held them scoreless to end the seventh, and then it was their turn at bat again.
“C’mon, Petey!” Riley encouraged from third base.
“I’m going to throw up,” Ty said. He’d never been this nervous playing a sport.
Henry passed him another Tums. This time Ty took it without comment.
The kid walking up to the plate now looked like a minor leaguer. He had five o’clock shadow at eleven in the morning and shoulders that wouldn’t fit into Ollie’s Corolla.
“Who is this kid?” Ty muttered for the fourth time that game .
“I keep telling you,” Theo said patiently, which didn’t bode well for him not having heard Ty’s cussing, “his name is Jeff Bridges.”
Ty knew what the clipboard said. But how was he supposed to believe that kid’s actual name was so appropriate?
Jeff Bridges If That Was His Real Name dragged his bat through the dirt. He squared up to the plate. He spat over his shoulder the way he had the first three times he’d batted.
Henry signaled to the fielders, in case they’d forgotten. His first hit had gone just fair down the first-base line, not quite over the fence—Central’s first run of the game. Second was a pop fly, caught out center field, but after that Central’s coaches got gun-shy and opted for the safe route—an infield grounder to get on base in the hopes someone else could bat him home.
With the game on the line, it was do-or-die time. Ty expected the kid to swing for the fences.
“You can do it, Pete!”
Ty blinked, startled to realize the encouragement came from Danny. “Aren’t the two of them still—”
Henry stepped on his foot, like he thought Ty might jinx it by saying it out loud.
Pete wound up and released the pitch.
“Strike one!”
“Attaboy, Pete! You got this!”
Pete’s cheeks flushed, either with the heat or the pressure or the encouragement.
“Strike two!”
Not Really Jeff Bridges spat again. He waggled the bat. He narrowed his eyes.
Crack.
It happened almost too quickly to see. One minute Pete was releasing the ball. The next minute he was flat on the ground, clutching at his throat.
Not Jeff Bridges didn’t even run. He dropped the bat, his face white with horror. For the first time, he looked like he belonged on a high school baseball team.
Ty was running, though, almost before Pete hit the ground. “Henry, get the first-aid kit! Danny, call 911. Riley, sit with Theo.” The last thing he needed was for his kid to see this .
He skidded to his knees in the dirt, already reaching for Pete’s neck even as he fished out his pocketknife. “Hey, Pete, try to stay calm, okay? I’m going to check out the damage and then I’m going to help you breathe.”
Pete’s eyes were wide and terrified, and their time was limited, but Ty needed to keep him from panicking if he was going to have to do what he thought he’d have to do.
Pete let Ty coax his hands away from his throat, where the ball had struck him straight on below the chin. The impact had left a round red welt, but he’d been lucky enough to take the hit high. Ty had a little room to work.
“Okay, Pete, I need you to do two things. First, can you wiggle your feet?” Ty wouldn’t be able to see his toes inside his shoes.
Both feet moved in the dirt just as Henry set the first-aid kit down next to him.
“Good, that’s good, Pete. Okay, now I want you to take a very slow deep breath if you can. Got it?”
Pete nodded infinitesimally, but his chest barely rose. Ty could see him start to panic.
Ty flicked open the pocketknife without looking up at Henry. “Give me an iodine swab and the straw from one of the water bottles.”
Henry set the supplies on Pete’s chest and took off at a run for the dugout.
“Okay, Pete, you’re doing fine. You’re going to be able to breathe in a minute. Try to relax. This is probably going to hurt, but it’s important to stay still.” Ty didn’t want to wait until he passed out.
Pete gave him a weak thumbs-up. His lips were turning blue.
Ty ripped open the iodine swab and wiped it over the skin just above the kid’s collarbone. He scrubbed his hands and then the blade of the knife and then carefully cut an incision deep enough to reach the trachea and used his finger to open a hole.
He sensed more than heard Henry arrive next to him with the thick plastic straw. Ty cut it down, swabbed that too, for whatever good it would do, and carefully inserted the straw into the hole.
Pete’s chest inflated as his starved lungs got access to oxygen at last. The panic left his eyes. He raised both hands for the thumbs-up this time .
Thank God. “That’s good, Pete, nice job. Don’t try to move, okay? The EMTs are on their way.” He stood up and gestured. “Danny!”
Danny was pale and shaky, but he trotted over obediently, his gaze flicking back and forth between Ty and Pete. “He’ll be all right,” Ty said gently. “Can you—” He was about to reach for the phone, but then he realized he had Pete’s blood all over his hands. “Put it on Speaker?” He waited while Danny held the phone near his face. “Sixteen-year-old male with a tracheobronchial blunt force trauma, trachea is crushed above the C6 vertebra, possible spinal trauma but patient is presenting with no loss of movement. Currently stable after a tracheotomy.”
Danny pulled the phone back, took it off Speaker, and listened for a reply. “They say they’re ten minutes out.”
Ty felt sick. Ten minutes. Would he have made it?
“Great job, Danny. Uh.” Ty looked around. Pete’s dad wasn’t here today. Well, of course he wasn’t; he was at his makeshift courthouse, preparing his case against Ty’s continued existence in his life. “Is Pete’s mom here? Or grandparents or something?”
“No, Coach. Um, I think Coach Tate is calling them, though.”
Right, well, in that case they could meet him at the hospital, but—“Do you want to stay with him?”
Danny brightened. “Can I?”
“It’ll depend on the EMTs. Henry—uh, Coach Tate—probably has to go in the ambulance. You can see if there’s room for you too.”
For a second, Ty wondered if he’d guessed wrong. Danny looked back toward Pete with his mouth set and his brow furrowed. Then he glanced back at Ty, knelt next to Pete, and took his hand.
Yeah, that tracked.
Ty stayed with them, monitoring his patient until the paramedics arrived. Eliana looked from Pete to Ty and back again and said, “Jesus, Morris, what the hell happened?”
“Line drive to the throat.”
She whistled under her breath as her coworkers got Pete on a backboard. “Lucky you were here, then.” She clapped his shoulder. “We got it from here. Good luck today, yeah?” She paused and looked him over. “Uh, maybe change before you go.”
Was this thing still going to go forward? Chiu’s kid was going to be in the hospital .
But—yeah, he definitely needed to wash up. He was going to traumatize Theo if he kept getting covered in other people’s blood.
He tried to ignore the sounds of retching while he was washing his hands in the fieldhouse bathroom, staining the porcelain pink with Pete’s blood. It seemed only polite.
Then the umpire emerged from one of the stalls, skin green and waxy. He blanched further when he saw Ty was still cleaning up, and for a second, Ty thought he was going to barf again, but he rallied. “Uh.” He didn’t get any closer, though. “Think we’re gonna call the game.”
Oh, do you fucking think? Ty bit his tongue on that comment. “Good idea,” he said instead.
He couldn’t do much about the shirt. He really would have to go home and change. First, though, he needed to check on Theo and make sure he was all right. He jogged back to the dugout just in time to see the ambulance leave the parking lot.
Ty barely had time to thank Riley before Theo launched himself into his stomach and wrapped his arms around him. “Oof!” Oh jeez. “Careful, buddy, I’m kind of—dirty.” If Ollie saw Theo covered in blood he would have an aneurysm. This day had been traumatic enough.
“That was scary,” Theo said into Ty’s navel. “Is Pete gonna be okay?”
Fuck it. Ty needed a hug too. He wrapped his arms around Theo’s shoulders and gave him a squeeze. “He might have a little bit of trouble talking for a while, but he’ll be okay.”
Theo looked up without loosening his grip. “I’m glad you were here, Ty.”
Eyes stinging, Ty ruffled his hair. “Me too.”
A throat clearing interrupted their moment. “Uh, Coach.” Riley held up Ty’s phone, which he’d left on the bench. “This thing has been going like crazy.”
He unlocked it to six text messages and four missed calls from Ollie.
Waiting for you at town hall. It’s going to be fine!
Damn this place is filling up fast though.
Oh fuck. Shit for brains decided to “move up the agenda” AKA he’s planning to start this thing in ten minutes with or without you. Will do my best to stall but get here FAST.
Where are you ?
Jesus please answer your phone.
Ty???
Ty took a deep, calming breath. He’d literally just saved a kid’s life, but his adrenaline rush had faded. Now he existed in a state of Zen. What could Alan Chiu do to him? Nothing. Ty had literally held the man’s kid’s life in his hands, and he was going to sit judgment on Ty’s existence in town hall not even knowing Pete was in the hospital with a tube down his throat? Or did he know and not care?
Minor emergency, on my way , Ty texted back, and then he shoved his phone in his pocket. “Hey, Riley, can you do me a favor? You know that kid who hit the baseball?”
Maybe-Jeff-Bridges was sitting in the dugout with his head between his knees as his teammates looked on. No one seemed to know what to do with him.
“I mean, not personally?” Riley hedged.
“Just, uh, let everyone know there’s someone they can call if they need to talk about what happened, okay? Counseling. Totally free. I’ll text you the number.” He turned to Theo. “Can you get all your stuff together, buddy? It turns out we’re going to be late.”