20
Daren
The Ridge Burn.
I used to come out here during the summers and play Capture the Flag with my high school buddies. I was never really good at the game. In fact, I was never really good at any sports. Running and catching and competing were never really my strong suit. Now, sexing and charming and making girls melt? Those were activities I could win a gold medal in.
I rub at my wrist where the skin is slightly raw and shiny. “Your father could have at least picked handcuffs that weren’t so wickedly uncomfortable.”
“I guess it’s better than wearing fuzzy cuffs where people would think we’re on some kind of kinky sexcapade,” she says.
“Oh right. Because looking like chained-up fugitives on the run is so much better.”
Eleven miles down Canary Road, we pull into a muddy clearing and park by the Ridge Burn.
“So how far away is this magic tree of yours?” I stare out at the wet forest.
The rain is more of a light drizzle now and less like a downpour so at least we can see relatively clearly.
“A hundred yards or so.” She shuts the engine off.
“Wonderful.”
We climb out of the car and I stretch my stiff limbs. She leads me by the wrist through the woods for fifteen minutes until we come to a large tree beside the river that looks exactly the same as every other tree we’ve passed.
“How do you know this is the one?” I gaze up at the thick trunk reaching into the low gray clouds.
She sighs quietly. “I just do.” She marches around the trunk. “Look for another clue.”
I search high and low for anything that might be a clue. My eyes catch on a small green pole sticking up out of the muddy ground at the base of the tree and I stop.
“Could that be it?” I point to the pole.
“Maybe.” She hurries to dig it up and, once the dirt is cleared away, there is a box. It’s no bigger than a shoebox, but it’s large enough to hold a few stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
“Bingo!” I smile.
She grins at me then opens the box.
Another piece of paper.
She pulls out the paper inside and reads, “ ‘I’m pleased you remember this tree, Kayla. It holds a special place in my heart, just like you. Lesson number four: The world is bigger than what you know. There is more to life than what you see and what you think. And if you ever reach a place where you think you know it all, then you are most definitely lost. Now go home to the place where winning is relative.’ ” She frowns. “What does that mean?”
“It means your dad had a fantastic memory.” I smile and shake my head, shocked that Turner remembered a conversation we had years ago. “It also means we’ve got a long drive back up and through Copper Springs.”
“What?” she says, dragging behind me as I start heading back to the car. “Why?”
“Because I’m pretty sure your dad wants us to go to Copper Field.”
“The baseball stadium?”
“Yep.”
As we drive back in the direction we just came from, I think back to when I was thirteen and had my baseball championship game out at Copper Field.
I was no good at sports. But I was a guy, and guys in small towns are expected not just to play sports, but to excel at them. So my father put me in baseball and forced me to stay in it for ten years. Ten long years of misery.
The championship game came and, unfortunately, I was up to bat right when we had two outs and the game was tied. If it had been a movie, that would have been the moment where I finally hit my first home run and scored the winning point, and we’d win the game and the crowd would go wild.
It wasn’t a movie.
I struck out and the other team came up to bat and hit a home run on their first swing. So essentially, I was blamed for our team losing. My father was sorely disappointed and my teammates were giving me shit about how lousy I was, but Marcella still believed in me.
She came to every one of my baseball games, rain or shine, and sat in the stands with a beaming smile like she wanted the whole world to know she was proud of me.
That was my favorite part of playing baseball—Marcella’s proud smile watching me from the stands. God, I miss her.
But at that particular game, even Marcella’s confidence in me wasn’t helping. I started thinking about how I really was lousy, and how I was always going to be a loser. I wasn’t a good student, I wasn’t good at sports, and I had no real talents… I was just lousy, in general. And maybe I always would be.
But Marcella wasn’t the only spectator rooting me on that day. Old Man Turner came to every single one of my baseball games too. We didn’t usually talk or say hi, but I always saw him in the stands, watching me and cheering for me.
After the game, while everyone else got into in their cars to go celebrate their win, I cut across the field to where my bike was stashed and Turner’s voice surprised me.
“Not your best game tonight,” he said.
I turned to him and glared. “Thanks for noticing.”
He shrugged. “Winning a baseball game isn’t everything.”
“Tell that to them.” I nodded over at my disgruntled teammates and their fans.
He shook his head. “You’ve got it all wrong.” He walked up beside me. “Winning is relative. Winning in baseball isn’t the same as winning in life. And winning in life, well… that’s the only game that counts.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I nodded anyway. “Sure.”
He slapped me on the back and started to walk away. “Life is the only game that counts, Daren,” he called over his shoulder. “Remember that.” Then he disappeared into his car.
I didn’t understand why my boss at the time, and a man I barely knew, would bother to show up at all my games, let alone give me a pep talk after I bombed one terribly, but I was grateful nonetheless. It was nice that he cared enough to give me some advice—even if that advice was odd and cryptic.
Winning in baseball was the only kind of winning I was interested in at the time. Because my father saw me as such a huge disappointment in sports, my teenage ego was convinced that if I could win a baseball game—or at least not lose it completely—then I would earn his approval.
It wasn’t until years later that “winning in life” became something I understood, and then something I wanted. But here I am, almost a decade later, still striking out on that one.