Chapter Forty-Two
Taylor
I’m sitting in my assigned folding chair among thousands of other graduating seniors, trying to muster some enthusiasm for this milestone that’s supposed to mean something profound. The sun beats down on our black polyester gowns, turning them into personal saunas.
“As you embark on this next chapter of your lives . . .” the university president drones on at the podium, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes at the cliché.
Instead, I try to share a smile with Todd, who’s sitting next to me, but his eyes are glued to the stage.
There’s been a weird distance between us since the Finals that I don’t know how to bridge.
“You’ll face obstacles that seem insurmountable. But remember what you learned here—persistence, resilience, and the power of community,” the president continues, his voice booming through the speakers.
My chest tightens. The words are generic, sure, but they still hit something true.
I think about all the obstacles I’ve already faced—my parents’ divorce, my mother’s alcoholism, Emma’s pregnancy, and accepting that I’ll never play professional baseball.
I’ve persisted through all of it, somehow emerging on the other side with a degree and a job with the Rangers that my heart still hasn’t accepted.
“You stand at the threshold of possibility. The future is unwritten, and you hold the pen.”
I glance down at my hands, calloused from years of gripping baseball bats, and wonder what exactly I’m supposed to write next.
For as long as I can remember, baseball has been my North Star, the one constant in the chaos of my family life.
Now, I’m facing a future where I won’t be playing, but developing players.
It’s not nothing—it’s a great opportunity, one that many sports management graduates would kill for—but it still feels like settling.
The crowd applauds as the president introduces the keynote speaker, a bestselling novelist known for her Jane Austen–inspired historical romance series. She steps up to the podium, smiling with practiced humility.
“When I was your age, I felt like a hamster on wheel, running in circles but going nowhere,” she begins, “I had no idea that my biggest successes would come just a few years later . . .”
I tune her out and watch a bird hopping along the edge of the stadium instead, pecking at discarded program pages. It seems unfazed by the thousands of humans gathered in ceremonial robes, focused entirely on its own small mission.
“Your life doesn’t end when you finish college—or at twenty-five—it’s only just beginning.”
This time I do roll my eyes. I bet she’s never had to pick her mother up from jail or help her younger sister navigate an unplanned pregnancy. I bet her dreams didn’t come with an expiration date.
The speeches finally end, and we move to the conferring of degrees.
My row stands, and we file toward the stage in a slow-moving line of black polyester.
When my name is called, I walk across the stage, shake the president’s hand, accept my diploma, and just like that, I’m a college graduate.
Four years of early mornings, late nights, practices, games, papers, and exams, all distilled into a ten-second crossing of a stage.
As I return to my seat, I catch sight of my family.
Dad pulls at his tie, then continues clapping; Chase is whistling loudly, two fingers in his mouth; and Emma is recording on her phone.
Mom stands beside her, sober and upright, her blonde hair pulled back in a neat bun instead of the messy ponytail I’ve grown accustomed to seeing when she’s two bottles deep.
After the ceremony ends and “Pomp and Circumstance” fades away, I wade through the crowd toward where we agreed to meet. The stadium is a chaos of black gowns, flashing cameras, and embracing families. I spot Chase first, his height making him visible above the crowd.
“There she is,” he says as I approach, putting his arm around my shoulders. “The graduate.”
I smile despite myself. “One of many.”
“Congratulations.” Dad steps forward, giving me a stiff hug. “We’re all very proud of you.”
I turn to my mother, unsure what to say or do. For a second, I almost don’t recognize her. She looks . . . different. Healthier. Clear-eyed. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her sober, I forgot what it looks like on her.
She nods curtly. “Congrats.”
“Should we get a photo?” Chase asks, pulling out his phone.
“No.” I press my lips together, thinking about the fake family photo we posed for when he graduated from MSU. I don’t need to remember today—if anything, it’s likely better forgotten.
Dad clears his throat. “I think that we need to have a real family discussion now that we’re all together. Not here, not like this. Why don’t we all meet back at the house in Cleveland?”
We all agree and head to our respective cars—Dad’s rental, a sensible gray sedan, leads the way with Chase and Emma in tow.
I linger behind, letting them get a head start before I merge onto the traffic-choked freeway.
The flat, sun-bleached ribbon of highway stretches ahead, and for the next two hours, I drive with the windows down and the radio off, letting the wind rattle through my hair while a pang of old family wounds swells in my chest.
My hands ache from gripping the steering wheel by the time I pull into the driveway.
Chase stands in the doorway, his posture a perfect caricature of stoic eldest-son responsibility.
He waves when he sees me, just a flick of the fingers, then disappears inside.
I kill the engine and sit for a second, heart thudding, watching the faint figures moving around the living room through the curtain.
I take a deep breath and drag myself inside.
Mom’s already settled in her usual chair with a mug of coffee between her hands—the one thing I seemingly inherited from her.
She looks up when I enter, and for a moment our eyes lock, unblinking.
Emma sprawls on the couch beside her, scrolling through her phone.
Dad hovers by the window, pulling at the blinds and peeking through them like he’s worried the neighbors will call the cops if they see us all together under one roof.
“So . . .” Chase clears his throat. “Where do we go from here?”
“I’m going to have to start looking for work.” Mom crosses her legs, pulling down her skirt. “I’m sure you’ve been using my savings to cover the mortgage, and that needs to stop.”
“Actually, Dad’s been covering the bills.” Chase glances at our father, who gives a small nod.
Mom whips her head around to look at him. “And what possessed you to do that?”
“I couldn’t let Emma go homeless just because you couldn’t provide for her,” Dad says, his tone sharper than I’ve heard in a while. “I would like her to move back to St. Louis with me but she’s against that idea.”
“Because I don’t want to live there!”
Chase pinches the bridge of his nose. “Emma—”
“No!” She stands her ground, arms crossed, chin raised defiantly. “There’s nothing for me there—you and Taylor like St. Louis. You have memories there, old friends, baseball. But I don’t. I’ve always spent summers alone while you two are off reliving your golden years.”
“Where are you planning to live, then?” Dad asks.
“Here,” she replies as if it’s the most obvious answer.
“Emma, I don’t even know how long I’m going to be living here,” Mom says. “This house is too big, even if it’s the two of us, and if I’m looking for a job, I might as well look nationwide.”
I squint at her. “So you’re saying you don’t plan to stick around?”
She shrugs. “I have nothing left here.”
That’s it. That’s the final blow. Years of disappointment, frustration, and pain crack wide open inside me.
“So you’re going to leave even though Emma wants to stay?” I shake my head bitterly. “You never cease to amaze me.”
Chase reaches for me. “Taylor—”
“No, I want to know how she can sit here and say Emma isn’t worth sticking around for. What about your grandchild? Or are they not enough either?”
“I never wanted kids!” Mom yells. “I was never interested in motherhood. Never babysat growing up. I wanted nothing to do with children.”
I shoot out of my seat, flinging my arm out. “Then why didn’t you stop at Chase?”
“Because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I had a job, a husband—I thought family would come naturally.”
“But it didn’t. So you let us suffer.”
“I don’t need you to remind me of my mistakes!” She rises as well, leveling her gaze on me. “I’m well aware of what I’ve done.”
Chase steps between us. “Rehashing this won’t change anything either.”
I drop back into my chair, burying my face in my hands. My mother sits as well, her jaw tight and her hands twitching. I know that look. She’s craving a drink.
“Why’d you even take us in the first place?” I ask. “If you didn’t want us, why not just move to Cleveland on your own? Could’ve had the clean break you always wanted.”
“Because I wanted to hurt Nathan,” she replies, using Dad’s name like a weapon. “He used you kids against me every chance he got, so I took you to make sure he couldn’t.”
I sit there, tongue pressed against the inside of my cheek, staring at the floor.
The silence that follows is different from the last—it’s scorched earth, leveled by the bombs Mom just tossed.
My ears ring, and across the room, Dad looks away, jaw clenching and unclenching, like he’s chewing over the past fourteen years and finding new flavors of regret each time he bites down.
Chase suddenly straightens, voice cutting through the room. “I don’t see any other solution, Emma. You’re going to have to go back to St. Louis with Dad.”
“So you guys will just tell me where to live but you won’t tell me what to do about this pregnancy?”
The question hits like a fastball to the head, clearing the benches.
Everyone starts talking—Dad’s voice rising in exasperation, Mom’s slicing through with brittle sarcasm, Emma shrieking like a cornered cat, and Chase trying to mediate it all.
None of them are actually listening, least of all to one another.
It’s just a volley of anger and resentment, a mess of old wounds dressed up as new grievances.
I stare at Emma across the fray. My little sister—barely eighteen, with her eyeliner smudged and lip curled, hands shaking so hard her phone trembles in her grip.
I wonder, with a sudden gutting clarity, what her life will look like if this is all she knows—if she stays here with Mom or goes with Dad.
I imagine her finishing high school in St. Louis, the city that’s a shrine to everything Chase and I were, but a tomb to anything Emma could become.
If that isn’t a recipe for her to fall back into her old ways, I don’t know what is.
Suddenly a fleeting image of her in Arlington with me crosses my mind. Both of us away from the gravitational pull of our family’s mess, in a place where maybe we could actually become new people.
The idea takes root, brittle at first but quickly gaining strength, and before I can fully talk myself out of it, I ask, “How would you feel about living in Texas?”
Emma whips around, studying me, eyes wide and searching. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I know you don’t want to go to St. Louis ‘cause there’s less opportunity for Jacob to be involved with the baby—and it’d kinda be the same issue in Arlington—but would you have any other objections to it?”
“You mean live with you? I thought you didn’t want that anymore.”
“What I don’t want is to have to take care of you—to police whether you’re going to school, doing your homework, or lying dead on the side of the road. If you come to Texas with me, it’ll be as my roommate—you’ll have to be responsible for yourself and the baby.”
She bites her lip, her gaze drifting upward. “I mean, it’d be better than living with Mom or Dad.”
“Sounds like that’s settled, then,” Mom says, draining her mug, then stares out the window with the same blank composure she used to save for courtroom defeats, as if every feeling has been neatly filed away for later review.
Dad’s mouth opens, then snaps shut, words caught behind his teeth.
He doesn’t look at me, or at Emma, just sort of past us—like the space between us is a void he might fall into.
The hurt in his eyes is more than I’ve ever seen from him, complicated and raw.
For a few seconds, I think he’ll actually say something, but he just presses his lips together, nods once, and lets silence fill the room.
Emma and I sit across from each other, neither of us ready to move. There’s no hug, no celebratory speech or even a half-assed toast to our next chapter. It’s just a tentative recognition that, for the first time, we might actually control the story from here on out.