Chapter Sixteen
Reed
“Baseball is also a game of balance.”
—Stephen King, Blockade Billy
Bees buzzed around Nana’s big hydrangea bush near the barn door.
Mickey lay a few feet away with his paws propped on either side of a bone he busily chewed.
I used Granddad’s mortises to attach another seat support underneath Dad’s rocking chair.
After making sure each mortise fit the support, I grabbed a rag and wiped my forehead. The glue would have to set for the day.
I took a seat in one of the tractors outside of the barn and watched the sky turn from deep purple to pink to burnt orange as the sun rose over the tall corn.
Amelia Earhart, Nana’s dominant and confused hen, gave her usual gargled-sounding crow, stirring the rest of the chickens in the coop.
Granddad was already up and had taken the Gator to the South Five this morning.
When I came outside about an hour ago, Nana was busy fixing coffee and making biscuits in the kitchen.
The guest bedroom where Ben used to sleep, however, still stayed dark and still. No sound came through his open window.
He didn’t speak to me on the drive home after Cattail Creek, and he all but rolled out of the truck the moment I pulled into the driveway. Brett’s host family called Nana and let them know Ben would be staying with them. I hadn’t heard anything about him since.
“Shit,” I mumbled under my breath. This was all my fault.
The guy practically picked me up off the ground time and time again after Dad’s deployments, dropped everything, including an opportunity to play in the showcase again, to follow me to my grandparents’ this summer, and this was how I repaid him?
What the fuck had gotten into me?
Way to go, Reed. You not only lost your best friend but you possibly also lost the championship and the farm.
“Reed? Can you grab the eggs from the coop for me?” Nana called from the open kitchen window.
I hopped off the tractor. “You got it.”
I hated going into the coop for eggs. No matter how I sweet-talked the chickens, they didn’t like me, and my ankles always got a few pecks before I escaped.
But by some miracle, Marie Curie, Sojourner Truth, Queen Victoria, and Joan of Arc all let me check the nests without harming me, while Amelia Earhart watched from the corner.
Granddad never wanted chickens, but Nana insisted, and once she named them all after notable women from history, they preferred her to any other guest in their coop.
Go figure.
The small wind chimes tinkled behind me as I entered the kitchen. “Here ya go.”
“Thanks. And how were my girls this morning?” Nana asked.
I filled up a cup of water from the sink. “Fine. No fussing when I went in there either.”
“Is that so?” She cracked the eggs into a large bowl. “Maybe they’re getting soft in their old age, like me.”
I laughed. “Maybe.”
Nana reached for the wire whisk behind me but stopped and stared at her hands. They both trembled.
“Nana,” I said, taking them in my own. “You okay?”
“Fine.” She sighed. “Just a little shaky this morning.”
“What’s Lucille say?” I motioned to her insulin pump.
“She’s been quiet lately, now that I think about it. Maybe I should check?”
I helped her hold up her shirt while she pulled the pump out of the band around her waist. “Huh. Battery’s gettin’ low again. That’s the second time in a few months this has happened.” She pointed to the junk drawer by the fridge. “Grab me a double-A from there, will ya?”
After replacing the battery, I convinced her to sit down and let me cook the eggs while she walked me through the process. My stomach growled. The biscuits dinged in the oven a moment before the eggs were ready.
I refilled her orange juice before pouring myself a cup of coffee and sitting across from her. My entire body relaxed with the first forkful of eggs. I should’ve put a little more salt and pepper on them, but damn. These were insanely good.
“Nothin’ beats fresh eggs,” Nana said with a wink.
You got that right.
“Heard from Ben yet?” she asked over her juice.
The eggs turned chalky in my mouth. “No.”
Nana frowned. “Need to talk about it?”
Yes. “No.” I pushed around the food on my plate.
“I’m sure y’all will fix this. You’re too young to burn bridges.”
And yet, here I was playing with fire, thinking about when I could be alone with Eliza again. That definitely wouldn’t help any bridges between Ben and me.
“When was the last time you spoke to your mom?” she asked.
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“Any news about your dad?”
A cold numbness spread across my chest. “No.”
Nana reached across the table and placed her warm hand on mine. “Don’t you worry a bit about it. Your daddy is as strong as an ox. We’ll hear something soon.”
I just hoped when we did, it would be good news.
Later that afternoon, the team ran foul poles six times before stretching. Foul poles were typical in practice, but today, in the humidity, it was hard as hell. Ben wasn’t there. Brett said Ben had left in the middle of the night.
Left? For where?
Coach grilled all of us about it, but no one had heard from him. Guilt knotted up my stomach, twisting it tighter with every new stretch. Even after joining some of the others in center field, my secondary position, I still felt like I needed to puke.
The only thing that kept me somewhat grounded was the idea that maybe I could see Eliza later. I hadn’t heard from her since the carnival, but I wouldn’t allow myself to believe that was a bad sign. I had enough of those already.
Just as I was about to secretly send another text to Ben in the dugout, he finally showed up after Coach started batting practice.
Christ. He looked like hell.
His practice uniform was wrinkled, like he had slept in it, and his eyes were bloodshot, a bruise forming underneath one.
I cursed under my breath as he shuffled his feet into the dugout.
Coach Monaco left home plate and stomped over to Ben. I couldn’t hear what he said, but from how his hands moved, I could tell he wasn’t happy.
I should’ve gone over to Brett’s last night. Brought Ben back home with me. Looked after him the way he’d looked after me time and time again.
A minute later, Ben chucked his glove toward the dugout, ripped off his chest protector and shin guards, and jogged out of the stadium.
“Bet coach has him runnin’ the cross-country route,” Cameron said from right field, which was his secondary position. “He needs to get his head on straight. We need him for PFPs later.”
Coach hit a pop fly to left field. Nick caught it on a run and threw it to our cutoff man.
“He’ll be okay,” I said, more for myself than for Cameron. He has to be.
“He’d better be.” Cameron hit his glove a few times. “After that close call with that bunt the last game, Coach will be pissed if he isn’t back in time today.”
Ben missed the PFPs.
He also didn’t make it back to see Dominic nail a sweet backhanded catch and flip. Total Jeter moment.
When the turtle was rolled out and set up behind home plate, Ben walked back up to the field. He dripped with sweat and looked greener than I had ever seen him as he dropped onto the bench several feet away from me. He guzzled almost an entire bottle of water.
“You okay?” I asked.
He stared straight ahead.
Oh, come on. “Hello?” I waved my hand in front of his face.
He stood up and slid on his batting gloves. Coach Monaco began throwing from the mound toward the turtle. The top of our lineup and our first baseman, Alejandro, stood at the plate.
“So what, you gonna ignore me the rest of the season?” I asked.
He spat, stepped out of the dugout, and muttered a few things before he whirled around. “It would be easier for both of us if I did.”
“No, it wouldn’t.” I hit the inside of my glove. “Come back to the farm. We’ve got season three of Stranger Things to start now—”
“I don’t like season three.”
I frowned. “But you said it’s Hopper’s best season…”
“I changed my mind.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.
Coach Roeper yelled from the outfield. “Let’s go, Fulton! Footwork drills start in two.”
“On my way!” I yelled back before turning to Ben. “Look, I’m sorry that you had to give up the showcase to be here, and I’m sorry about fucking up the pact.”
“Let’s be honest here, Fulton. This is about more than just the showcase and that damn pact.”
“What?”
“You…you’re different here. You never want to go out with me and the guys. You’re letting your gramps take you into the fields for, like, farming lessons and shit.” He tightened the Velcro on his batting gloves. “I came here to play baseball and hang out with my best friend.”
“We’ve been winning, Ben. And we can still chill.” I motioned to the field. “But I didn’t come here this summer just to party with Brett and Dominic or tag some buildings or cardinal statues. There’s too much at stake.”
“I know that.”
Coach Roeper yelled for me again.
“It’s like you said. If Granddad loses this tournament, we lose the farm. I…I can’t blow this. Not when it comes to family,” I said.
“And yet you’re still seeing her.” Ben stepped around me and started up the steps of the dugout. “You know, it’s funny. You used to call me family once too.”