“We’ve never done that,” he said. “We don’t have the equipment.”
“You don’t you have a bat and a ball?” I asked, a little horrified. My dad and I had spent hours playing sports together, mostly baseball and basketball. There was no hoop on their garage, but that would have been fun, too.
“I don’t want to,” Lyra told me, and she was scowling hugely. The lipstick made her look ferocious. “We had to play wiffle ball in gym class last year and it was dumb. I hate it.”
“Silas and I could go,” I suggested.
“You can’t without me!” she immediately asserted, and that was it. We would all play, but first we had to find a store and buy equipment because mine was still in Kentucky.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked as the total came up on the register.
“Yes,” I said. The expense was worth it. “It will be really fun.” It didn’t start out that way, though. We drove home from the store with our new stuff and then walked to the park, and Lyra complained the entire time about the bright sun, her thirst, wanting to read, her shoe that rubbed her toe, and a plethora of other issues. When we got there, she settled down against a tree, huffing grumpily.
I took a few practice swings. It really was a beautiful day, with the low humidity that I’d read about and with the sun still warmand brilliant. It felt wonderful to be outside, even though Lyra obviously didn’t agree. She was holding her book in front of her face so that she couldn’t see us.
I sighed as I looked at her. Well, maybe this was another chance to make a connection that would fail, like the cookies and all my other ruses. At least I’d get to hit some balls. “Can you pitch?” I called to Silas.
She suddenly yelled that her brother could do anything, so maybe she wasn’t watching but she was definitely listening. He only shrugged. “I’ve thrown before but I never really played sports, organized sports.” He squeezed the ball we’d bought and studied it. “This feels funny. And it’s yellow.”
“It’s for fastpitch softball,” I explained. I raised the bat and waggled my hips, getting the feeling of it again. “Go ahead.”
He threw underhand and I tapped it back, which seemed to surprise him. “Right to me,” he noted. “You said you played in college?”
“Yes. It was how I afforded to go,” I answered. He threw again and I gently knocked it to him. “Why didn’t you play sports?”
Silas glanced over at his sister, who stayed assiduously concealed behind another mystery book. The cover showed a man with a bullet hole and blood. “I was busy with other stuff.” He mouthed a word to me: “Trouble.” Then he raised his voice again. “You ready, slugger? This is coming faster.”
For someone who hadn’t played sports, he had good control. I bet he could have thrown with a lot of velocity if he’d been shown how to do it. “Here, watch,” I said, and put down the bat to jogover to him. “I wasn’t a pitcher, but my dad taught me some things.” I was demonstrating how to hold the ball differently when we both heard a very angry voice.
“Don’t tell Silas what to do!”
We looked over at Lyra. “It’s ok,” he started to say, but she slammed down her book and stood up.
“You think you know everything!” she yelled, and I was able to grasp that she wasn’t only talking about softball pitches.
“You can’t even hit it far! You suck,” she told me. “You suck!”
I walked back to my bat and snatched it off the ground. “Throw it,” I ordered him. “As hard as you can. Go.”
“I don’t…ok,” he agreed. He looked over at his sister and then at me, and then he let the ball fly.
I launched it. I heard the sound I’d loved when I’d been in the batter’s box as a kid, the sharp thwak that meant a home run. Silas spun around and watched the yellow sphere travel, heading somewhere outside of the park. I hadn’t meant to hit it quite so hard, but anger had driven my swing.
“Holy shit,” he said softly. “Lyra, she knows what she’s doing.”
“I do,” I told them both. “I know how to play. That ball’s gone.”
“It sure is,” he said, and he started to laugh. “I think we might find it over in Wisconsin.”
Lyra spoke again. “That’s another state. It didn’t go that far.” But she sounded a lot less confident.
“I started playing when I was around your age and it took a long time to hit like that. But you could start learning,” I offered. “Do you want to try? I can show you how I do it.” When she didn’t answer, I turned back to Silas. “Ok, let’s play.”
“I’ll try.” She walked over and I handed her the bat, and she grasped it awkwardly. I showed her how to hold it and how to swing. Then I grabbed the bag of stuff I’d bought at the sporting goods store and took out the batting tee.
“You can hit off this. It’s how almost everybody starts,” I explained.
“Did you?”
