Jake might have ended up here permanently, too, had it not been for his talent to play baseball. By the grace of heaven, a junior high coach had taken a keen interest in him and his abilities. But the coach didn’t have to work too hard to convince Jake to turn from the streets—he loved baseball. He was never without his cleats or glove, and in high school, when his father said he’d never amount to anything, and tried to take the glove and make him work, Jake had stood up to the old man for the first time in his life. He had worked hard, spending endless hours throwing the ball against the side of the garage to field grounders. In his senior year, he was scouted by the Astros, then made the roster of their farm team. The day after graduation, he left home to play ball and never looked back.
That had been a magical time. He had seen beautiful, exclusive parts of Houston, awash in palm trees and big white houses behind wrought-iron fences. He had seen the Texas coastal plains and the ranch land that stretched green and lush all the way to the piney woods. He had seen New Orleans and its voodoo magic, then Dallas, where tall glass buildings stretched right up to the relentless sun. He met people far more educated and sophisticated than anyone he had ever known, had sampled exotic food, strong drink, and pretty women.
The more of that world he tasted, the greater his hunger for it grew. And he might have made it, might have gone all the way to the Bigs had he not slid into home plate one sultry Sunday afternoon and torn his right Achilles tendon.
That was a career-ending, dream-obliterating injury that, in the space of a few days, if not hours, had left him drifting. By the time he healed and could walk again, his money was gone. He took the first job he could find, drifted from one construction job to another while he desperately tried to find his bearings and avoid a return to the life he had left behind—to this life, on Old Galveston Road.
Jake slowed at a familiar intersection, turned next to a topless dancer joint, where four young thugs stood huddled outside, sharing a smoke. About a mile down, he found the old road he was looking for and turned left again, onto a dirt road that ran out to the levee that wended deep into the bayou. He rode slowly, coming to a stop more than once to peer into the thick foliage for any sign of kids.
Strange how time could fray memories. Sometimes it felt like he had dreamed his years here. His desire to escape the poverty and misery he had known as a child had allowed him to turn his back on this place. When Dad ran off with Mom’s friend, Jake had been absent, just as he was when Todd knocked off a liquor store and ended up in the pen for it. He missed Cole’s birth, and it really wasn’t until Ross was forced into rehab that Jake began to notice his family again. And remember.
By then, Jake was working for A. J. Ackerman. A. J. owned a small construction firm, and took a liking to Jake, showed him the tricks of the trade and the business side of things. It was A. J. who told him he had a natural talent for design and had urged him to take a drafting class.
Jake had scoffed at the idea, but A. J. was relentless about it. The upshot of all that badgering was that now, at thirty-eight, Jake was only fifteen hours away from a degree in architecture.
A flicker of light through a stand of brush caught his eye, and he downshifted, brought the bike to a stop. A path cut through the brush, leading down to the levee, where there was, on any given night, a dozen or more teenagers. This, Jake knew from personal experience.
Yep, Jake thought as he kicked his way through the brush, had it not been for Ross’s death, he might never have come back. But his brother’s death had awakened something sharp and unexpected in him, an instinct that had sliced through his conscience when he’d seen Cole at the funeral. It shocked him to see then how much the boy looked like Ross had when Jake had left home eighteen years before. It was like being transported back in time.
That was a clarifying moment, a moment when Jake suddenly understood that a distance had spread like a cancer between him and a brother he had once loved. That day, he sensed he was being handed a second chance and vowed to himself and to God that he would fight every day to keep Cole from following the same, useless path of alcohol and menial jobs Ross had followed. Just like their father had.
And as Jake stalked through the brush on that old path, he imagined exactly how he’d punish the kid. When he emerged in the clearing on the levee, he spotted Cole right away. Several of the kids saw him at the same moment and scattered, but the bolder ones merely looked at him over their shoulder, lifting their beer bottles in blatant defiance.
“Yo, Manning. Your old man is here,” one of them said as Jake marched forward to where Cole was squatting at a makeshift fire, a cigarette dangling from one hand.
The announcement obviously startled Cole; he jerked around and opened his mouth to speak, but Jake grabbed his arm and yanked him up before he could utter a word.
“Woo-hoo! Manning’s going to get a span-king!” one of them taunted in a singsong voice.
The ridicule passed over Cole’s blemished face; his eyes hardened, he thrust his chin out and glared up at Jake. “He ain’t my old man!” he responded defiantly.
“Maybe not, but I’m all you’ve got,” Jake said low, and grabbed Cole’s smoke, tossed it down, and ground it out with his heel before shoving Cole forward, away from the fire.