“But you can’t see how you would take care of her all alone?” I filled in.
Eyes still closed, she nodded. “I can’t take care of her without my parents, and I know my parents would never let me keep her, even if they did know, which they never can because they would kill me. They would never help me, and it would just…” She started crying again.
I sighed. “Maybe you aren’t giving them enough credit. I mean, parenting is all about doing what’s best for your child even when it hurts you.” Saying that out loud hit home. A core truth. One that I had wanted so desperately to say to the mother of my last patient in Charlotte. But looking at Sarah now, I realized that maybe things weremore complicated than that. Maybe I had been wrong. And the idea of that began to hurt in a different way.
She opened her eyes then. “That’s what I’m doing now,” she said. “I love my parents, but I would never choose for my child to be raised by them.”
Well, now, that was interesting. I knew I was the adult, and I should be guiding Sarah. But I also knew that I couldn’t make this life-altering decision for her.
“Are there any other family members who might want to step in?” I asked.
She shook her head, eyes closed.
I looked down at my phone. It was almost ten o’clock. Tomorrow, I had my home visit with DSS. And then I would be keeping Greer and George for four nights. I couldn’t walk into tomorrow exhausted. I had to leave. But then I thought back to the night after the only mother I had ever known left, when I woke up with stomach pains and a fever in the middle of the night. My dad had never solo parented. Sickness was Mom’s thing. And so he loaded me into the car and headed to the hospital.
I was so sad and confused already, so adding sick and scared on top of that was not ideal. They made Dad sit in the waiting room while they took me back to run some tests. I remember the way the nurse stroked a cool cloth on my clammy forehead, the way my mom would have done. She talked to me in such soothing tones. Just her “Honey, you are fine. Everything is okay” made me feel better.
In retrospect, it was a small town. She probably knew me, knew that my mom had just taken off. But she never left my side. When I woke up the next morning, whatever virus had overtaken me had subsided. But that nurse was still there.
When I saw her, I burst into tears. It was the first time I had cried for my mom. I’ll never forget what she said to me. “Honey, there are times in our lives when we have to reach so far down inside ourselves for strength that we don’t believe we have. But, when we look, we always find it. And those times make us kind. They make us humble. Because they teach us that everyone around us is facing a silent battle.”
I made a pact with myself then. Well, two, really. One, I was never going to cry again over the mother who’d left me. If she didn’t want me, I didn’t want her. Two, I was going to be a nurse. I was going to take care of people the way this woman had done for me.
I had made good on both promises.
And now, it was time to return what had been given to me. Sure, I had a big day tomorrow. But I didn’t want to leave Sarah alone and scared. She would likely be discharged tonight, and then what? I wasn’t going to let the girl Uber home alone. She didn’t need to spend the night alone either. I leaned back in my chair, resigning myself to the fact that it was going to be a long night. I was in this now, like it or not.
Sarah’s eyelids were heavy from the pain meds.
“You get some rest,” I said. “I have to go check on something.”
She nodded, and I wondered if she had gotten any sleep at all since Maisy was born. I doubted it. She needed this. Her body was wracked and exhausted, and any medical professional worth her salt could tell you that stress and anxiety wreaked havoc on the physical body. I wanted to be upset with her, but I simply could not bring myself to do it. So, for now, I would let Sarah sleep.
As I walked out of the room, I knew I wasn’t checking on something. I was checking on someone. She was almost seven pounds, and, if I was honest, I couldn’t imagine living a single day of the rest of my life without her.
MASONOur Village
We had a sign hanging in the locker room that read: “Be the man on the field you want to be in the world.” It had been hanging for so long that the red lettering had faded, and the corners of the sign were chipping, and—let me tell you—when I was a student here, I had been great on the field and shitty in the world. Arrogant and elitist, especially when it came to girls. I’d like to say that I didn’t understand what I was doing, that I believed them when they said they didn’t want anything serious. But I knew better. I knew that I had left some broken hearts and unmended fences out in the world.
But Drew? Drew had not. Drew was one of the good ones. I looked down at my computer again, the cursor on the Excel spreadsheet blinking, reminding me that I had not even started the expense report that would take me roughly twenty minutes if I would just focus. But I could not. Because my mind kept drifting to Sarah.
I sighed and checked my email. I almost deleted the message fromBaseball Insider, but then I decided it was good procrastination. I was shocked to find it wasn’t a newsletter; it was a request:
Dear Coach Thaysden,
Congratulations! You have been chosen as one ofBaseball Insider’s twenty coaches redefining the game. Would you have time for an interview next week?
All best,
Peter Preston
I felt really tingly for a moment. There was no way this was real. I googled the name. Well, that was a real reporter. Huh. What was happening? I mean, I was a good coach, sure. And, yes, we were favored to win States and probably at least place at Nationals this year. But three media requests in a matter of weeks? This was weird. I typed back:
Isn’t this usually sort of a professional coach thing?
The reply came instantly:
Sure. But we’re realizing that high school coaches are the ones professional players most often credit with molding them. You’ve got a hell of a team, there, Coach, in a tiny town. You’re making ballplayers, and we want to know how. Does next Thursday at 11 a.m. work?
