Chapter 23 Four Years Post-Graduation #3
“I don’t like this. You have no one there,” Isla said when she drove her to the airport. “Is this about Dad?”
Abby glared. “No.”
“You’re literally returning to where he grew up. You don’t think that’s like some Freudian thing?”
“It’s the only other place I can play that’s not here. I’m not going to explain it.” Abby’s knee bounced while she checked her passport. “Can you just do what I asked?”
Isla drew in an exasperated breath. “You told me not to get in the middle. Paying Kate’s tuition is doing exactly that.”
“She won’t know it’s us.”
“I have a better idea. How about instead of anonymously giving her two hundred grand, you call her like a normal person? Apologize? Make up?”
“This is all I can give her right now,” Abby said.
Isla’s face drooped. “Fine.”
They hugged at the airport as planes squealed overhead.
“You’re a better sister than I deserve,” Abby said.
“I know.” Isla pecked her cheek when they released. “Be safe.”
She made the national team the next day, jet-legged, but buzzing with the adrenaline of having nowhere and no one in this next venture. The feeling only lasted a few hours. The coach added her to the starting lineup six pitches into batting practice, four of which she knocked over the fence.
Abby spent the summer sharing a flat with a few teammates in San Juan while they trained for the World Cup.
She improved her Spanish and lived out of a suitcase.
Between practices and games, she pined for Kate, but it was easier without her phone number, without her address, as if the world was too big to find her again. Maybe even too big to find herself.
Despite telling Isla her decision had nothing to do with Audie, and wholeheartedly believing it, Abby couldn’t resist retracing his footsteps.
Her teammates warned her not to go to La Perla, but it called to her.
She walked through the maze of crumbling sidewalks, passed the homes with peeled paint and tarp roofs, aching each time a child thrust an empty palm at her.
She watched the ocean hit the rocks and tasted salt in the breeze, marveling at the views people would pay millions for, yet the neighborhood stood here, destitute, isolated, alone.
In interviews, Audie always claimed he was glad to have left his home behind, but Abby felt him there. His hardship and his anger. When the hair rose on the back of her neck at nightfall, danger lurking in dark cars and corners as she hurried from the slums, she felt it lurk in her too.
It wasn’t all bad. She spotted his posters and memorabilia in sports bars.
He was the hometown hero. Kids still wore his jersey while they played ball in the streets.
She never told the locals of their connection, but sometimes they looked twice and bought her a drink.
Most days, she didn’t know if it brought her closer or further from him.
Despite Abby’s contributions, Puerto Rico lost the Women’s Softball World Cup in the Netherlands. Team USA dominated as expected, but Abby didn’t care, not even as Skip Zamborelli spurned her for not joining his roster. “You could’ve won a championship,” he said.
Abby shrugged. “I’ve already won a championship.”
The only one that mattered. The one with her friends and Kate for the one place she considered home.
While she’d done a decent job distracting herself, the sting found her chest. The next Women’s Softball World Cup was two years away.
Puerto Rico wouldn’t start training again for several months and Abby didn’t know what would fill her time until then.
So, she rented a room in Amsterdam, dipping into the plump trust fund she wanted to resist, but she had no self-restraint.
Not when the drinks or drugs flowed. Not when she roamed through Berlin and Brussels, Paris and London.
She ate and drank and danced and fucked her way through a few months, jumping on the next train when she worried about the future.
It almost worked. Until she received a letter with a Berkeley address in the corner.
She tore it open, devoured the lines in tears, and hated herself all over again. She convinced herself she’d saved them both by leaving. Instead, she’d left Kate in a despair she knew well. Another thing she wouldn’t forgive herself for.
Traversing Europe quickly lost its sparkle, no longer enough to distract her from loneliness or lack of direction.
She defeatedly returned to the pool house, in a deeper depression than before.
Whenever Isla tried to broach the subject of Kate or what came next, Abby stonewalled her. So, she employed other methods.
After a week of sleeping the day away and drinking poolside, Abby woke to a bucket of water. She bolted up in bed, gasping and drenched.
“Morning, sunshine,” Mick said as she chucked the empty bucket aside.
“What the fuck!” Abby wiped soggy hair out of her eyes. “How’d you find me?”
“Your sister,” Jill said.
Abby’s mouth dropped. It’d been five months since nationals.
Since she resigned herself to never seeing them again.
If anything, Kate deserved their friends after the split, and with Abby’s unceremonious departure, she didn’t expect they’d want anything to do with her.
Their arrival threatened tears she couldn’t handle.
Rather than let them spill, she deflected to the less pressing but equally unavoidable questions.
“What the fuck, Shupe? Are you pregnant?” Abby asked.
“You’re not supposed to ask people that,” Jill said.
“Yes, she’s pregnant.” Mick folded her arms. “You would know, if you didn’t ditch us.”
Abby couldn’t resist a smirk. “Are you the father?”
“Still waiting on the paternity test.” Mick winked. “Heard you won’t shower; thought we’d help you get a jump start.”
“Mission successful.” Abby peeled the wet sheet back and wrung out her T-shirt. She reluctantly met Mick’s and Jill’s faces, and her throat caught on a whimper. “Why are you here?”
“Trying to figure out what the hell you were thinking.” Mick sat on the edge of the bed. “Dipping out the side door? Leaving Hutch a fucking cop-out letter?”
“I’m not enough for her, Mick. You both know that.” Abby looked away at Jill’s mournful sigh. “I almost ruined everything at nationals. I’m not about to ruin her.”
“You think she deserves this though? You think we deserve it?”
Abby buried her head in her hands and sniffled. “How is she?”
“She’s Kate. She’s strong,” Jill said. “But she’s really hurt. This crushed her, Abby.”
More tears streamed. “She sent a letter.” Her voice cracked, and then the rest of her did too. “I don’t know what to do.”
Mick gripped her shoulder hard, but it was a comfort as Abby wept. Jill took her other side, with another arm to strap her in. They held her heaving body between them, fixed and wordless. It brought Abby’s fit to a simmer, and when she could breathe again, Mick spoke solemnly.
“You either get yourself together and go after her with everything you have.” She paused and exhaled, like it pained her to say the rest. “Or you don’t respond. Leave her be and try to find a new normal. But nothing in between.”
Abby scrubbed her cheeks. She had a last chance to decide. Only there wasn’t a decision. She wasn’t ready, didn’t have anything to give Kate, and nothing to give herself.
“Either way, you’re not getting rid of us so easily,” Jill said.
Abby lifted her head. “But what about…”
“You’re stuck with us,” Mick said. “I know whatever is happening with Hutch is complicated, but we’re not going to choose between you guys.”
“Plus, who else is going to be this baby’s hitting coach?”
Abby smiled through tears. She’d never understand why Mick, Jill, and T.K. kept her in their orbit, when they didn’t need to. Their calls, their video messages, their visits and hers, holiday plans, and baby Juniper would keep her afloat for years to come.
After their visit, she jumped back into the game. There were rumblings of a league starting in the U.S., but Abby flew to Italy. Several of her teammates from Puerto Rico played there, and while it was hardly a living wage, it kept her on the field.
She spent two seasons in Milan, playing shortstop for Bollate, knocking home runs across Europe.
The Italians called her Sprezzatura for her fearless play and countless flings, and while she settled into her team and a routine, the temporary apartments and hotels left her adrift, unsettled, as much in life as at heart.
When Canada’s fledgling professional league recruited her, Abby moved to Toronto.
She reasoned that it was a closer flight to Isla and Mick and Jill, even though in its meager two seasons the league only had four teams and scarce sponsorship deals.
She made less money than she did in Italy.
Few fans filled the stands and despite the league’s promise of publicity and new investors, bringing in players like Abby to drum up interest, none of it came to fruition.
When the season ended, she experienced the same story she’d heard from countless softball players in America and around the world.
The league folded without a warning or press conference.
The front office just sent an email, asking the players to gather their things after the last game.
There wasn’t enough funding, not enough fans, and no way forward.
For Abby, it wasn’t the end of the road, but for many of her teammates, it was a sudden, cruel end.
While they passed a few bottles of liquor back and forth in the stands, watching the sunset over the field, she wondered if this was all there was.
Isla and Luca’s wedding a month later reinforced her growing restlessness.
As Abby admired her sister, dancing in the arms of her new husband, she tried to imagine it for herself but stopped short.
Worse than that, as she slammed drinks, she couldn’t stop thinking about the one person who deserved to be there.