Chapter 34 Blair
BLAIR
Danny's bedroom overlooks Mom's vegetable garden, where neat rows of late-season tomatoes and peppers stretch toward the tree line.
His walls are covered with baseball memorabilia—signed photos, vintage pennants, and a collection of baseballs from every major league stadium he's ever visited.
The shelf above his desk displays his prized possession: a baseball signed by Cal Ripken Jr. that John surprised him with for his twenty-first birthday.
We've been camped out here for five days now, ever since the doctors cleared him to come home with strict instructions to "take it easy.
" Of course, Danny's version of taking it easy would involve throwing fastballs in the backyard within hours, so we've had to implement what Mom diplomatically calls "fictional medical guidance.
" We told him he needs to stay in bed for a full week to let his brain heal properly or he might not be able to play baseball again.
It's not entirely untrue—rest is important—but mostly it's the only way to keep him from overdoing it.
The evidence of our extended sleepover is scattered across every surface: empty ice cream containers, Danny's laptop open to Netflix, and his running commentary notebooks where he's been documenting every statistical detail mentioned in each film.
We've binged The Natural, Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, Major League, and The Sandlot twice.
Danny's personal favorite remains A League of Their Own, which he quotes while keeping notes about the Rockford Peaches' batting averages.
My family home sits on fifteen acres of rolling hills about twenty minutes outside Asheville—a sprawling colonial that Mom and John bought when they married.
It's a peaceful place where you can sit on the wraparound porch and see nothing but trees and pasture for miles.
John's workshop occupies the converted barn, and the constant hum of his sander or table saw provides a comforting background soundtrack during the day.
Danny shifts beside me on his bed, adjusting the bandages that still cover half his head. The bruising around his eyes has faded to a yellowish-green.
"I'm so bored," he announces with a deep sigh. "This is the most boring I've ever been in my whole life. I mean, I like that you're here, but I don't like being in bed."
"Just a few more weeks," I remind him. "But I promise you, when you're all better, I'll take you anywhere you want to go. Anywhere at all."
Danny's eyes light up immediately. "Really? Anywhere?"
"Anywhere. Your choice."
He doesn't even hesitate. "The National Mustard Museum."
I blink. "The what now?"
"Well, I would pick a baseball museum," Danny explains, "but you and John have already taken me to all of them. The Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore, even that little one in Louisville where they make the bats."
He's right. Over the years, John and I have made it our mission to take Danny to every baseball-related museum and landmark we could find. He's probably seen more baseball history than most professional players.
"So my next favorite thing is mustard," Danny continues matter-of-factly. "That's why I want to go to the National Mustard Museum in Middleton. They have over a thousand different mustards from all fifty states and seventy countries. And you can taste them. All of them."
"Okay, that makes sense," I say, though I'm not entirely sure it does. "So where is this mustard museum? Where’s Middleton?"
"Wisconsin."
I start laughing. Here I am, offering to take my brother literally anywhere in the world—Paris, Tokyo, the Great Barrier Reef—and he wants to go to Wisconsin to look at mustard jars.
"What's so funny?" Danny asks, looking genuinely confused.
"Nothing, buddy. It's just... you could pick anywhere. The pyramids in Egypt, the beaches in Hawaii, anywhere at all. And you want to go to Wisconsin for mustard."
"It's not just mustard," Danny corrects me in all seriousness. "They also have mustard artifacts and mustard history and a mustard tasting bar where they put them on hot dogs. Plus they give you a certificate when you finish the tour."
Of course they do. Danny loves his certificates. "Okay, deal,” I say. “When you're better, we're going to Wisconsin to become mustard experts."
"That’s going to be the best day ever." Danny shoots me a grin. Then he pauses and frowns. "Blair?"
"Yeah, buddy?"
"How come you're sad?"
I glance at him, surprised. "I'm not sad. Why would you think that?"
It's a lie, and apparently not a convincing one. I've been carrying this weight in my chest since my phone call with Liv. The hurt in her voice, the way she cut me off when I tried to explain—it's been eating at me.
Danny turns to face me fully. People underestimate him because of his disability, but his emotional intelligence is razor-sharp. He reads faces, picks up on subtle changes in tone and body language that others miss.
"Your mouth is different," he says, pointing at my face. "It goes down now instead of up. And your eyes look tired, but not sleepy-tired. Sad-tired."
Damn it. Danny notices everything—it's one of his superpowers.
"And you keep looking at your phone but you don't call anybody," he continues. "You just stare at it and put it away and make that noise."
"What noise?"
"The sad noise. Like this." He demonstrates with a heavy sigh that's so accurate it makes me wince. "Mom makes that noise when she's worried about something but doesn't want to tell me."
I can't help but smile. "You don't miss much, do you?"
"Nope," he says with pride. "So why are you sad?"
I consider deflecting again, but decide to be honest. He's been through hell this week, and here he is worried about my emotional state.
"Okay, maybe I am a little sad," I admit. "Remember that friend I told you about? The date at the wedding?"
"The one you danced with?"
"Yeah, Liv. Well, she was my friend. And I really liked her. A lot." I run my hand through my hair. "But I lied to her about some things, and I shouldn't have done that."
Danny's expression grows serious. "What kind of lies?"
"I told her I had a different job, I told her I lived in a different place, and I made her think I was someone I'm not."
"Why did you do that?"
Such a simple question. Why did I lie to Liv? At the time, it seemed like harmless fun. But looking back, I can see the deeper motivations.
"I should have told her the truth sooner but by the time I got to know her better I guess I wanted her to like me for me," I say. "Not because I have money or because I could do things for her. I wanted to know if she'd like me just as a regular person."
Danny nods thoughtfully. "But you're not a regular person. You're Blair."
"I know, but—"
"And she liked Blair, right? Even when you were pretending to be someone else?"
"Yeah, I think she did."
"So she liked you even when you were lying?" Danny's brow furrows in concentration. "That means she liked you, period."
His logic is both simple and profound.
"But I hurt her feelings," I explain. "When someone lies to you, it makes you feel bad. It makes you not trust them anymore."
"Did you say you were sorry?" he asks.
"Yeah, I tried to. But it's too late. She doesn’t want to talk to me anymore."
Danny considers this, his face scrunched in thought. "When I broke Mom's favorite vase, I said I was sorry but she was still sad about the vase because it was Grandma's and she could never get it back."
"Right."
"But then I helped her clean it up and I bought her a new one from the store downtown. The biggest and nicest one I could find.”
I smile. That explains the vase currently terrorizing the hallway—an enormous ceramic nightmare painted in swirling purple and orange with what might be dolphins or possibly deformed cats. I suppose Mom keeps it in the most prominent spot because she loves Danny more than she values aesthetics.
“And then she wasn't sad anymore because she knew I was really sorry," Danny adds.
"That's different, buddy. You can't just buy a new person's feelings."
"No, but you can do something to show you're sorry. Like how Tommy has been bringing me baseball cards every day since I got home because he felt bad about almost killing me." He shrugs. "I was never angry with him but now I have more baseball cards."
I smile and squeeze his hand. Danny's never pretended to be someone else, never been able to hide behind false personas. What you see with Danny is what you get, and maybe that's why he understands human nature better than most people.
"So you think I should try again?"
"I think you should try until she believes you're sorry," Danny says firmly. "Because if you really like her, you don't just give up. You keep trying."