Chapter Thirty-Three
The late afternoon sun burns my eyes as I emerge from the subway station. It’s an off day for the Yankees, so it’s not too busy here, just a few people snapping pictures or going about their days.
I stand by the stadium and take three deep breaths, my suitcase handle in one hand and the baseball in the other. I close my eyes and prepare to do what I came here to do.
A shadow falls across my face and I open my eyes to a man standing next to me.
“Sorry.” He winces. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
His face is young but aged by the sun. He’s wearing a Yankees cap and a sweaty blue shirt.
“It’s okay. I’m Bennet.”
“Mike.” He wipes sweat off his brow and squints up at the stadium. “It never gets old, does it? I mean, I work here and I’m still not used to it.”
Normally a random interaction like this would send me running the other way, but I channel Henry, and I welcome the conversation.
“You work here?”
He turns to show me the back of his shirt, which is drenched with sweat. The word Maintenance is written across his shoulder blades.
“Very cool,” I say. I remember standing here not too long ago, wishing I could see Sam somewhere in the stadium’s infrastructure. Wishing I could feel him. “The Yankees were my boyfriend’s team,” I say.
“Were? Don’t tell me he’s a Mets guy now.”
“He passed away while I was in college.” Mike looks caught off guard, mouth slightly open, as if trying to conjure something to say. “Sorry, I know it’s an overshare. But I’m working on being open.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay. Really.” I look at him, daring myself to be bold. To be brave. “Mike, you ever take people inside the stadium to see the field?”
He looks at his watch and bites his lip. “I’m not supposed to….”
“I’ll be super quick,” I say. “I won’t touch anything .”
He glances over his shoulder as if he’s looking for his boss or supervisor. I feel bad for the position I’ve put him in, but I have to see it from the inside. I just have to.
“I just want to see it,” I say. “I never got to go to a game with him.”
Mike blows a breath out through his lips and puts his hands on his belt buckle. “In honor of your boyfriend, I’ll make an exception.”
“You won’t get in trouble?”
He shrugs. “I caught the head of maintenance having an affair in one of the locker rooms. He owes me one.” He starts walking briskly toward the stadium and gestures for me to follow him.
I trail Mike through a small side door, rolling my suitcase behind me. He leads me through a series of hallways and stairwells and I worry that following a strange man into a dark alley was a terrible mistake. But as light streams into my eyes, and we pour out into the open air, I know I’m supposed to be here.
The field is gigantic and filled with turf as green as apple Jolly Ranchers. It smells of freshly cut grass and dirt. I lose my breath at the scale. I feel like I’m standing in the middle of a thumbprint made by a giant.
“Pretty wild, huh?” Mike takes his baseball cap off and fans himself.
“I feel so small,” I say.
“Puts things into perspective.”
“Thank you for this, Mike. You’ll never know how much it means to me.”
He brushes it off. “Sure.” He points to a small door across the field. “I’ll bring your bag through those doors over there for when you’re done. Take your time.” I watch as he wheels my suitcase off the field.
I turn to face the pitcher’s mound and walk carefully toward it. I line my toes up with the plate and stare at first base. My heart is beating fast.
I place the ball on the center of the plate and sit down crisscross applesauce facing it. I stay there for a moment, letting my body soak in the atmosphere of the stadium, the massiveness of it all. I will myself not to feel self-conscious about what comes next.
“Hey, Sam.” A breeze blows across my face. “Hey, my love.”
I drag my fingers through the silky dirt near the plate. “So…I went to Andy’s wedding. I’m sure you already know that. Or, I don’t know what you know…I don’t know what I believe you know. But if you are around somewhere, I’m sure you were there on the beach with us. She looked beautiful. You’d like Theo, I think.”
I take a shaky breath and skate my fingers across the top of the ball, turning it so the words I’m sorry are facing me.
“I saw your parents. They’re doing great. They miss you so much. We all do.” I glance at the sky to choke back the stinging feeling in my throat.
“Listen, Sam, I never said I was sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve wished every single day that I could say that to you, but it never felt like enough. Such a trivial word against such a colossal thing. I’ve gone over in my head what I want to say to you a million times and nothing seems right. It doesn’t feel like any words could fill the magnitude of your loss.”
A cloud casts a shadow over my eyes, relieving the intense heat.
“And I love you. I will probably love you until the day I die. I can’t see a world where I stop loving you. I need you to know that. I never stopped and I never will.”
The wind picks up, whipping my hair in my face. “I want you to know that even if I love other people, it is only possible because I also love you. I am forever better because you were in my life.”
I drag my thumb over the words I love you on the ball.
“I thought living in New York would be the best way to honor you, but I know now that the best way is to never stop loving. So I won’t. Ever.”
All of a sudden, the sky opens up and rain pours down over my head. The bright kind of summer shower that is warm and gentle. It soaks through my clothes. I stand up in the middle of the field and stretch my arms out to the sky. The rain streams down my face and into my hair. It floods my eyes. It fills my ears. I run to first base, my lungs tight and wheezing. And then I keep running. I round second base, my breath labored and heavy. I round third, my legs screaming for me to stop. But I don’t. When I reach home, I press my lips to my fingers and then to the plate, and I mouth the words, I love you .
I leave the ball on home plate and run toward the stadium exit. The rain splashes down my face and pools in my shoes and washes away the cobwebs that have settled in my life for far too long. Suddenly thunder claps against the late summer sky. Sam.
As I leave Yankee Stadium, I turn back one more time and smile through the rain. I whisper, “Thank you,” to everything around me, and then I leave it all behind.
As soon as I get home, I tear off my drenched clothes, change into something dry, and pace the living room, sweating in the sweltering September heat. I think about what I learned about myself the past few months, about Sam, and Henry, and Andy, and Sonya, and Jamie. About happiness. About passion. About grief. I think about the Passion Project and all it represented, the hope it gave me for the future, and I realize I have one final thing to do for myself to finish the project once and for all. It involves three phone calls:
One, to a therapist. Two, to my undergraduate guidance counselor. And three, to Sarah.