Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
FLETCH
“So that’s why you couldn’t bother getting back to us yesterday,” Granddad says when I reach the car. The exhaust from his Lexus comes up in plumes as thick as his suggestive tone. I’d prefer his blatant disappointment to the way his eyes are on Poppy as she climbs into the Uber.
I hold the breath in my lungs until it scrapes to get out. “It wasn’t like that.”
Grandpa snorts as Dad tries to tug my backpack off.
“Let’s get your bags in the car,” he says, his subtle deflection.
“I got it,” I tell him quietly.
The smile he gives me is small and lightning fast. Dad looks smaller than his six-two frame would suggest. It’s like you can see how worn down he is from being pushed around by his father for so many years.
He’s never defied Granddad to my knowledge.
This smile is the only show of support I’ll get today.
At one time, I tried to pretend I didn’t care, didn’t need any support.
I can see the lie now, and as much as I wish otherwise, this smile isn’t enough. I wonder if his inaction will ever stop hurting.
Of course, compared to Poppy’s betrayal, this is nothing.
My dad offers me the passenger seat, but I get into the back, pretending I don’t notice. The moment we’re all inside, Granddad adjusts the rearview mirror to make sure he can see me.
I brace myself. I should have known he wasn’t letting it go.
“It wasn’t like that, huh?” He shoots up one thick white eyebrow. “That’s even worse. Means she wasn’t interested. She wasted your time like you wasted ours this week.”
My dad’s head drops in the passenger seat, almost like it hurts him to hear his father speak to his son like that.
Almost.
But I clamp my mouth shut hard enough to hurt and shrug.
It’s the only way I can acknowledge him without answering.
It’s been my go-to response since I was eight and he’d assault me with questions about why I didn’t hold the runner, how I possibly could have missed a throw.
He’d never accept me saying, “I did the best I could.” Heaven forbid I say, “I tried.” That would be defensive, in his eyes. Weak.
Why a shrug isn’t weak to him, I’ve never understood. Maybe my refusal to engage is secretly a sign of strength in his eyes.
Or maybe it simply doesn’t give him anything to grab onto.
“Well, you missed quite the couple days with your little detour,” he says. “The showcase. The charity event. The rehearsal dinner. A seizure and a breakdown.”
Right. Because everything wrong in our family is my fault.
I tap my hand on my knee, holding the comment in, “Is Sloane still having a hard time?”
“Who knows what goes through these women’s heads? She’s a dramatic thing, like the rest of them.”
“Come on,” I say, even though it won’t change anything.
He laughs, because he got exactly what he wanted. “You never could take a joke. Or a hit.”
There it is. My career, dragged out like it’s dirty laundry.
For a second I’m back on the stage on signing day with the Braves—Dad’s arm locked around my shoulder, Grandpa grinning like I’d finally paid off his investment.
That night he texted, “Don’t let me down.
” Not “Proud of you.” Not “Congratulations.” Just the reminder that even at my peak, I was on probation.
When Evan speaks at MLB events now—sharing his “tragedy into triumph” story—Granddad brags to everyone. Gives it the Fletcher Baseball Academy branding and posts it everywhere.
But when my team won the Triple-A National Championship Game this year, Granddad went on and on about how the Fischer twins won that game for us, because the Firebirds were too stupid to call them up.
I was never the family’s golden boy, but the shift to whipping boy was so fast, I got whiplash. All it took was a single hit for me to become target practice.
Of course, all it took was one hit for Evan to lose half his life—and somehow gain the rest of the family’s devotion.
I don’t respond or let myself react in any way.
I keep my gaze out the window, watching gray roofs, smoke from chimneys, and the highway shoulders salted into crusted white.
Win or lose, how many times have I been lectured on my failings—reminded that I should’ve kept my elbow in and waited on the pitch; that I should’ve shortened my swing and let the changeup pass?
Or that I should’ve held the runner with a quicker tag and not thrown off-balance? I’ve lost count.
“It’s good to have you home, son,” my dad says softly.
Ha, I think.
Good for who?
My mom looks relieved to see me. She throws her thin arms around me and squeezes.
“You look beautiful, Mom,” I say. Her blonde hair is pulled up into some knot, and the flowy green dress she’s wearing suits her. It’s the exact shade of green past the ring of golden brown in Poppy’s eyes.
“I was so worried,” she says.
My mom is a tall but delicate woman, and it’s always been easier for her to put up with what’s going on than to stand up for herself. I come by this trait naturally. We’re both walking, talking doormats for my overbearing granddad. Where we differ, though, is that she’s gentle and kind.
I’m hard and resentful.
“Sorry, Mom. I hit black ice in Ohio and got stranded.” I hold her narrow shoulders, hating that I can’t talk to her about Poppy.
She doesn’t keep anything from my dad, though—something I get between a married couple.
The problem is, Dad struggles to keep anything from Granddad, although I think he wishes he could.
My mom would have thoughts about Poppy. Probably helpful ones. But I can’t have Granddad talk about Poppy again.
It hurts enough thinking about her … for so many reasons.
She lied to me. She heard me go on and on about Darren, and she kept quiet.
It was her case, and she said nothing! Just shook her head and tsked over how hard sentencing is.
The moment I mentioned Mercy in Justice, she should have told me she worked for them so I could have kept my distance.
Even if she hadn’t helped him, though, I could never be with someone who prioritizes attackers over victims, like my poor brother.
Darren got no time because of her.
And she made me fall for her after she knew how I felt. We were together for, what, two more days after we talked about Evan’s case? I can’t remember. But there’s no way she didn’t know how much this would hurt me.
What could she possibly say that would have justified her involvement? Her lie?
No, she said nothing, and now I don’t know how to move forward, don’t know how I’ll ever let someone in again.
I should have stuck with my dream girl online.
GracieLou.
I knew what I was getting with her: no secrets or lies, no risk. Just safe, anonymous conversations with someone who understood me, who challenged me, who even excited me.
But who’s to say I haven’t lost her, too? She asked, and I turned her down for Poppy.
Poppy—
GracieLou—
This hurts.
For a second the edges of my anger over Poppy and sorrow over Grace blur into one of those 3D pictures that you have to cross your eyes to see. And the image is clear:
Me, lonely and heartbroken.
Mom reaches a hand up to pat my face, makeup covering the dark circles she’s had under her eyes for as long as I can remember.
Her fingers are warm and small against my cheek, and suddenly, my sadness shifts away from me to the woman who’s hitched her wagon to a man—a family—who doesn’t always deserve it.
But for all their faults and fears, I know my parents love each other.
I think back to a video call last spring—I’d called Mom to check in, and halfway through, my dad came home from work. She held the phone at an angle to show Dad. “Any message for your son?”
“Tell him to look at his pitching rotation. Fischer has setup man written all over him.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t, either. He’s got the makings of a closer. Wait, aren’t there two Fischer boys on the team? Which one are we talking about?”
“The one you follow on Tik Tok.” Dad wasn’t on screen, but I could still hear him clearly.
She laughed, and the sound put a smile on my face.
“I liked one video,” she said. “You’re one to talk, though. You follow the whole team.”
“Of course I do,” he said, sitting down next to Mom on the couch. “My son’s their manager.”
“Interim manager,” I said, before either of them could say it first.
“Close enough,” Dad said.
My eyes went misty at what was almost a compliment. For a moment they sounded like the couple they must’ve been before Granddad wore them down. More like the parents they might have been without his controlling presence, his constant criticism.
It was tender, real. A glimpse of what our family could have been.
And, like everything good in this house, it was fleeting.
I wished I could bottle that moment—store it up for all the times I’d need proof that somewhere, beneath all the disappointment and expectations, my dad was proud of me. Saw me. Believed in me.
But I knew better than to hope for the impossible.
“At least you made it home eventually,” Mom says.
“Is the wedding still on? Sloane’s okay?”
“She’s okay,” Mom says. “We had a talk after Evan called, and she talked to the pastor. She understands that love is patient, love is kind, love can handle your husband occasionally losing his mind.” Mom’s smile looks like it was painted in watercolor.
Too light and watery. “We leave for the church in a couple of hours, so you have time for a shower. Your tux is upstairs in your old room.”
“Thanks, Mom. Is Evan up there?”
“In your old room, too,” she says, giving me a pat on my arm. “He’s steady now, but he needs you, Ollie.”
A lump sits heavy in my throat. If I hadn’t spent yesterday with Poppy, I could have been here to help Evan this morning, could have sat with him, reassured him, stopped him from calling Sloane.
But the idea of regretting yesterday—it hurts too much to even think about it.
I pad up the stairs to my old room and open the thick door to see my brother on his old twin bed, head in his hands. His tux jacket is draped over the desk chair, and his tie hangs loose around his neck, as undone as he is.
My chest aches seeing my brother like this. Even now, I still half expect to see the brash wild child when I look at him. I feel guilty, but not because I don’t accept him as he is now. But because sometimes, I’m relieved that that guy is gone.
If only it had happened any other way …
When he sees me, Evan jumps up and throws his arms around me. “I didn’t think you’d make it.”
“I said I would, didn’t I?” I say, pounding his back with my hand. But Evan doesn’t let go, almost squeezing the air out of me. “How are you feeling?”
“Too much,” he answers, finally releasing me to sit back on the bed.
“My head is too much. All these weather delays and the mixup with the caterer were bad enough. And then the seizure really freaked Sloane out. It happened while we were writing our vows at her apartment, and I dropped the pen. She thought I was choking or something, and by the time she realized, I was already gone.”
“I can imagine,” I say. Context clues tell me the wedding’s clearly still on, but that doesn’t mean all’s well in paradise. “Is she okay now? This isn’t the first time she’s seen you have a seizure.”
“She’s okay,” he says with a loud exhale.
“But I’m not.” His eyes are red and puffy, and I’m forcibly reminded of Poppy’s red, puffy eyes.
I blink away the memory. I don’t have room for those emotions, not right now.
“I’m trying my box-breathing, writing down the stuff that makes me spiral.
Even shutting myself in the dark with my noise-canceling headphones, but it’s like I’m watching myself from outside myself.
I’ll tell myself not to react, not to worry, but Now-Me won’t listen. ”
I sit on my bed across from him. It’s a big room, but we’re both a lot bigger than we used to be.
Our house has two spare bedrooms and an office, but my parents made us share a room my last few years at home.
I don’t know if it was Granddad’s idea or something Mom read, but it didn’t increase the harmony between us.
It only made me more resentful when I’d see Evan climbing out the window at midnight and coming back at six a.m. stinking like weed or cheap beer.
There’s no hint of resentment in me for Evan anymore. I have issues with how my family went all-in on him and dropped me like a torn glove, but that’s not his fault.
“I’m so broken,” Evan says, his voice cracking, the tears flowing, making his shoulders and chest shake.
I get up and sit next to him, putting my arm on his back. “You’re not broken. You’re brave. After everything that happened, you could have chosen to be bitter and angry, and instead, you’ve become the guy who lives to help others. I don’t know how you’ve done it.”
“I haven’t done anything—”
“Hey, self-deprecation has its place, but this isn’t it. You’re a motivational speaker, bro. If you don’t believe your crap, who will?”
Evan laughs through his tears. “You suck.”
“Your mom sucks.”
“Mom’s great. Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
Evan laughs again. He sniffs and grabs a tissue from the nightstand. He wipes his eyes, blows his nose, and then, because he hasn’t changed that much, he throws the tissue at me.
I roll back on the bed. “Dude. Gross.”
“Your mom’s gross,” he says.
I shake with laughter. Evan picks up the tissue and tosses it into the trash while I roll to my feet.
We both stand there, raw but smiling.
No, I don’t have issues with Evan. I love the guy.
I just wish my family could love me as much as they love him.