“You’re right, and I’m sorry?”
She put her hand to her heart. “Why, Mason Thaysden, I am a married woman.” She wiggled her left hand at me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed kids trailing down from the school. Drew appeared first.
Carmen saw him too. “Sorry!” she whispered. “For real. I am. But I’m going to make myself scarce.”
Drew’s face was stone-cold as he approached me. “Man,” I said, “I kind of thought you were the only one who wouldn’t be mad at me today, seeing as how I’m dissing everyone else to go be with you.”
Drew shook his head. “Dude, you knew that was my baby, and you didn’t say a thing.”
I put my hand up. “Drew, to be fair, I just found out. I was going to tell you. I swear I was. But you’d worked your whole life for this one meeting, and Maisy was safe with Daisy, and I couldn’t see the harm in waiting two more days to tell you the truth. Why sacrifice your whole future for something that wasn’t totally affecting you in the moment?”
Man, I really was becoming more and more like my mother. Justification central. “And then I found out right after that, so you never had a chance to tell me?”
“Right,” I said. I only added “allegedly” in my mind, since, yeah, I had kind of told Daisy I wouldn’t tell. But I never would have stuck with that. I thought of that crazy-eyed Alex Murdaugh saying, on the stand at his murder trial, “What a tangled web we weave.” I’d done some questionable stuff these past few weeks, but so far I had murdered zero family members, so I guessed I was still a better person than someone.
“Can you forgive me?” I asked.
“I can,” Drew said. “But my mom…” He shook his head. “Man,it was a night at the Christianson house. Let me tell you. She’s saying all this stuff about how she’s going to make me stay home to raise the baby, that I have to be responsible for my actions, and Sarah and I are getting married and—”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Look. I’ll help with your mom, okay? We’ll figure something out that makes sense for everyone.” If there was one thing I knew about Cheryl Christianson it was that she was at least equally if not more invested in Drew’s future as a baseball star than Andy, Drew, and I were. When they needed extra money for camps and private lessons, she took on a part-time job. From peewee league to now, that woman had never missed one game, home, away, travel. Nothing. Her big dream had been to go to Carolina, but her family didn’t have the money, and she didn’t quite qualify for a need-based scholarship. So she had gone to a small private college that had offered her a full ride instead. And she wasn’t going to let her son miss out on his dream. She was pissed, but there was a zero percent chance she was going to trade his future once they had gotten the prize they’d been chasing.
The other boys started funneling onto the field, and I thought I was going to throw up. As they all continued coming down, no one said one word. Usually trying to get these kids to calm down was the hardest part. Drew took his spot among the crowd, so as not to appear to be on my team. I couldn’t blame him. When they were all present and accounted for, I began.
“Men, you are my cavalry, my brothers in arms, and I have let you down.”
I tried to look at each of them. I wanted to explain that I hadn’t meant for them to find out from the rumor mill, but it just seemed like a cop-out. And it was beside the point. They weren’t mad becauseI hadn’t told them; they were mad because I was leaving them. And I understood.
“It is my job to lead you into battle each week, and every day I stand here before you, I preach honesty, integrity, sportsmanship, leadership—and I did not practice what I preached this week. I won’t defend my actions. All I can ask is that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.” I paused, my nerves catching up with me—no one was more intimidating than a group of teenagers—and began pacing. “What I want for all of us is to pull together, to bring home a championship, to be the team that everyone has expected us to be this year in the county, in the state, in the nation. But I also know that it is impossible to give your best to a leader you cannot trust. And so, if I need to step aside for the good of the team, I am prepared to do that.”
I stopped pacing and looked at them. And Kevin, a leader on this field, said, “Coach, if you leave us before we bring home one last championship together, we will never forgive you.”
Luke, the heroic fishing freshman who had a lot of potential, said, “Coach, I’m here to learn as much as I can from you until you have to leave.”
And then they all started chiming in. “We’ll come see you in Chapel Hill!” and “Drew needs you more than we do!” and “We’re going to carry on your legacy.”
There was some unfamiliar misting in my eyes. “Men,” I said. “You are the finest group of athletes I’ve ever had the privilege of coaching. And I’m going to give you my very best for every last moment of this season. Okay?”
“Okay!” they repeated together.
“Then let’s get this practice started!”
They all huddled up, hands together in the air, and, as was ourcustom, Drew called, “One, two, three,” and, in unison, the boys and I called, “Marlins!” Then Kevin said, “Four, five, six,” and we responded, “Family!”
As I called out orders, I felt relieved. But that word reverberated in my head.Family. These boys were my family. I knew they couldn’t trust me right now, that they still felt that I had left them when they needed me most. But they would forgive me because they loved me, and because they knew how much I loved them. And it occurred to me that I had been so excited about my next chapter that I hadn’t fully considered how impossible it would feel to leave the one I was in.
TILLEYMadness
The good thing about living in a town as small as Cape Carolina was that it didn’t take long to find someone you were looking for. Tilley knew her son, and she knew that, on a beautiful spring day like today, in the absence of a baseball game, he would likely sneak down to the dock at Dogwood for a few casts before heading home to his unruly pack of boys. Tilley thought that was just fine. The man worked hard, and he deserved a few moments of peace before he went home to help with homework and activities. But she wondered if Trina would be as forgiving if she knew.
No matter. Tilley had asked for heels to go with this particular Dolly costume, but Kate had insisted that perfectly matching gold sequined ballet shoes were the way to go. Tilley was happy about that fact now as she made her way through the grass, down to the dock, in the heavy gown and headdress.
The sun was just beginning to set, but still warm and high in the sky, and the water was impossibly clear as it lapped the shore. She loved this time of year, before the busyness of summer, before boats were constantly whirring in and out of their little spot in paradise. Robbie’s rod made a satisfying hiss as he cast perfectly, a skill thathis father—or, well, his uncle, as it were—had taught him as soon as he could stand on his two chubby legs. Tilley was surprised how well she remembered it all. It had been so long ago, and she had been so consumed by her grief. But she did. She remembered. And that made her happy.
When Robbie caught a glimpse of her, he did a double take. He reeled in his line and, very slowly, propped his rod up on the counter that held the fish sink and walked toward her. “Aunt Tilley, whatcha doing?” he asked. She could tell he was taking great pains to seem casual, and she felt guilty. But this had to be done.
“Oh, darling, call me Dolly! Dolly Levi.”
