The Might Have Been

CHAPTER Thirty-four





On Sunday morning, Edward Everett left the hotel at four, slipping out quietly and not showering because he hadn’t wanted to wake Meg, who didn’t stir when he got up. It was still dark when he got home and as he opened his back door, the thought came to him that it was likely most of his players’ last day in baseball. Nineteen years old, twenty, twenty-one, certain for most of their lives that, beginning in late winter, they would be on a diamond somewhere under the sun in some southern state, jogging, working out the kinks, throwing, hitting. He thought about his first professional camp, short-season rookie ball, Johnson City, Tennessee, late June 1967. He was thin as a rail then, waist thirty-one, inseam thirty-four. He saw himself stepping out of the dim tunnel from the clubhouse on his first day, his nose twitching from the mold that grew on the dark, cool concrete, the ballpark already alive with the sounds of the game that never failed to make his heart beat faster, his teammates running and shouting and tossing baseballs. All of his teammates from then were long out of the game now, some when they were as young as Edward Everett’s players, who were going to get their own dismissals any day. Only three from his cohorts made it as far as the big leagues, and none lasted more than four seasons. A pitcher. What was his name, the relative long-timer? George? Ken? Joe? God, so long ago, he thought.

By the time he showered, finished eating cereal, having first one and then a second cup of coffee, and read the slender Sunday paper, it was only seven-fifteen. If he still had an office at the ballpark, he would have gone to it—there were many mornings when he woke early and restless and had gotten to his office while the sun was beginning to crest above the stands along the third base line. But he did not want to go to St. Aloysius and sit alone in the poorly lit, reeking locker room.

He wished he had waked Meg and asked her to come with him. He could go back to bed with her, clean and fresh-smelling, and then thought: That part of my life should be over. To be sixty and randy was absurd, but he was. He calculated the distance from the hotel to his house, thinking about waking Meg in the room—where she, no doubt, still slept—asking her to drive down. By the time she arrived, however, it would be past nine. Besides, he thought: did she have clothing to wear? She must have, but he imagined her driving back to her house, naked, truckers who saw her giving a long blast of their diesel horns, Man, you wouldn’t believe what I saw!

The notion of going to Mass occurred to him. He’d been once in the last year, the past Christmas Eve, not long after Renee had come back from the first time she left, when he was doing everything he could to keep her from leaving again. She had said, “You know what I miss? Mass.” Then, going up the steps to St. Monica’s in a light snow, she had seized his elbow just before he opened the door. “Are we going to be struck by lightning? What do we have between us, two divorces and who knows what else terrible?” But the choir inside began singing “Adeste Fidelis,” and she had closed her eyes in a kind of bliss he hadn’t seen in a while, and they’d gone in. Back then, the church had been decorated for the holiday, but the last Sunday of the baseball season was just a Sunday in Ordinary Time—there would not be the pomp of Christmas, the crèche adorned by lights, the tree near the altar with porcelain angels hung on it, the excited children frantic for the next day, when they would come down in the morning and find their own presents under the tree their parents had decorated.

He went to Mass. The congregation was sparse, but still, he noted, it was far more than what would show up for the last game ever in Perabo City: maybe 150 people scattered in the pews. Throughout the service, he was distracted. It did not help that there was something wrong with the priest’s radio microphone and for long periods of the service, sitting on the aisle in the last pew, he could not hear anything but the buzz and pop of the audio system and the priest’s mumbled prayers. During the homily, long stretches went by without him being able to hear anything, just an occasional phrase: “today, Jesus,” “the lesson of the leper,” “our neighbors suffering from flood.” Nonetheless, he tried to focus on the prayers, tried to follow in his own halting, half-remembering way the hymns that the small guitar choir strummed through—but other business kept pushing into his head: What was he going to do the next day or two weeks from now? What did he need to do to sell his house? The market was bad and he should have called an agent the day after he came back from meeting with Johansen. He thought about his bullpen: who would follow Sandford if the starting pitcher faltered; if they could get a lead by the fifth inning and if Sandford could last that long and if they held on to win the game, it would be Sandford’s twentieth, the magic number that Johansen had asked for.

He thought: I should buy champagne for if we win, at least a case so that my players can follow the rituals they’d seen on the networks when the major league teams won championships and the players sprayed one another with bubbly. Then he thought: half the team was underage; he’d have to buy sparkling grape juice—look the other way if any of them who were not twenty-one took a sip of alcohol.

At Communion, at first he decided not to go: he was not in any state of grace, had not been to confession for decades. Remarriage after divorce was a mortal sin. As the two women and one man who occupied his pew stood to move to the front of the church, he stepped into the aisle to let them pass but when the first woman indicated he should precede her, he decided to go. When he got to the front, he was surprised to see that Renee was the extraordinary minister holding the chalice of wine. She was in a beige linen suit with an organdy blouse, one of the collar points turned up slightly. As Edward Everett reached her, she swiped the white linen cloth across the rim of the ceramic cup and held it to him. “The Blood of Christ,” she said. It was only then that she recognized him, and she nearly dropped the chalice as he gave it back to her. When he stepped away, she glanced at him as if she wanted to say something more but did not. “The Blood of Christ,” she said to the woman behind him, stammering slightly.

At the end of the Mass, he looked for her, not sure of what he would say but feeling he ought to say something. I’m leaving town. Something.

When he found her, she was talking to a man who towered over her, someone who was nearly six foot six and who looked familiar. As he approached them, Renee kept glancing between the man and Edward Everett. He stopped at what he thought was an appropriate distance to wait for her but she laid her hand on the man’s elbow, turning him slightly to face Edward Everett. Then Edward Everett knew where he had seen him: her former husband. Art. The one who had left her for his cousin.

“Art,” Renee said. “You remember Ed.” Art colored slightly but extended his hand to shake Edward Everett’s. His palm was massive, engulfing Edward Everett’s. “Can I talk to Ed for a minute?” Renee asked. Art eyed Edward Everett in a way that suggested he suspected he might assault Renee but nodded and stepped away. Renee gave him a nod, meaning, a little farther, and after hesitating, he left them there, walking to the vestibule, glancing over his shoulder several times.

“So,” Renee said. “You finally tracked me down.”

He realized that she assumed the only reason he had been at Mass was to see her. “No,” he said. “I just decided to come to church.”

“Just decided,” Renee said. “Right.” She shook her head sadly. “I thought, since you signed the divorce, you had let go. You really need to, Ed. I’m not coming back.” She held up her left hand, a slender gold band glinting from the fourth finger. “Art and I remarried.”

“I thought—what happened to his cousin?”

“We’ve all made mistakes,” she said. “It’s not common but sometimes life lets you use a delete key.” She shrugged. “This was one of those times.”

“That was …” Fast, he was going to say; how long had it been since he signed the divorce papers?

“You know what? As far as Mother Church is concerned, we were always married—Art and I. No divorce in the Church.”

“What about us?” he said.

She shrugged. “In here,” she gestured to take in the church, “we never happened. So maybe it’s best if you think of it that way. I’m really not coming back. It’s not like before.”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t trying …” he began but then just said, “I was just coming up to say good-bye.”

“What?”

“I’m leaving,” he said. “I have a new job. In another country.”

“Another county?”

“Country. With an ‘r.’ ”

She furrowed her brow and cocked her head to one side—what he had come to know as her sign that she was dubious.

“And I forgive you,” he said on impulse.

“You forgive me?” she said. “That suggests—”

He didn’t want to argue and so he interrupted her. “I’ve got to go.” He left her there, although she snapped, “Wait,” her voice echoing in the church. “Wait!”

Outside, small knots of families chatted amiably. Standing on the top step leading to the street, the priest shook his hand. “Thank you for coming. Have a blessed day.”

It was a benediction, he thought, walking to his car, feeling peaceful. Whether it was the Mass or his conversation with Renee that had allowed him to put a period at the end of their relationship, he wasn’t sure—it was not absolute absolution but perhaps the promise of one, and as he got into his car, he did feel blessed.

As he put on his jersey for the game, he found that some of the threads affixing the initial “P” in the town’s name had broken, the top arc of the letter flopped over. Leaving the jersey unbuttoned, he went to the kitchen to fish through the junk drawer to look for a needle and thread. Before he got there, however, his doorbell rang.

When he opened the door, Nelson was on his front porch, more disheveled than he’d been the last time Edward Everett had seen him, running away from St. Aloysius. Blades of grass clung to his four or five days of beard and there was a redbud leaf stuck behind his right ear, the leaf skeletonized by an insect. He wondered if Nelson had been sleeping outdoors. His face looked as if he had been in a fight: scratches across his left check, his eyes swollen. His clothing was torn: his nylon gym shorts; the sweatshirt that seemed stretched out longer on the right than on the left; his canvas skater shoes.

“Jesus, Nelson,” he said, not meaning to. “You look bad.”

“How did you expect I’d look?” he said, glancing over his shoulder as a car passed.

“Come on in,” Edward Everett said, not wanting him to but not wanting him on his porch, either. Taking the step up from the porch into the house, Nelson staggered, clutching Edward Everett’s arm to steady himself, nearly pulling him down. That close, he thought he smelled beer on Nelson’s breath, on his clothing.

“I brung you this,” Nelson said, pulling a crumpled twenty-dollar bill from his sweatshirt pocket and thrusting it toward Edward Everett.

“I just thought you could use something,” Edward Everett said, not taking the money. “You need to eat,” he said. “When’s the last time you ate?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He tugged at the fuzz on his chin, hard enough that it seemed it should hurt. “Yesterday, maybe. F*ck, what day is it? What does it matter?”

“It’s Sunday.”

“Sunday,” Nelson said in a way that suggested the word was one he was trying out for the first time. “Sun. Day.”

“You should use that,” Edward Everett said, nodding at the bill in Nelson’s hand.

“I’m no charity case,” he said. “Besides, a twenty ain’t going to fix much, Skip.” He held out the bill but when Edward Everett didn’t take it, he let it flutter to the floor.

“Look, Nels—Ross, sit down. I’ll get you something to eat. I have to get going.”

“Ball game?” Nelson said. “Season’s still going on?”

“Last game,” Edward Everett said. “We’re—” Tied with Quad Cities, he was going to say but caught himself. If he were Nelson, he wouldn’t want to know anything about that. He finished his sentence, “—wrapping things up.”

“The guys miss me, Skip?” Nelson said. “I know how it is. It’s like I was never there. I seen it when I was one of the guys that stuck. The hole closes up behind you. Shoomp. Like a f*cking vacuum.”

“No, Nelson—Ross.”

“Don’t lie to me, Skip. It’s like a f*cking vacuum.”

“I’m going to get you some food,” he said. “If you just eat—”

“It’s feed a cold, starve a fever,” Nelson said. “This ain’t a cold, Skip.”

“Look, I’ll get you something,” he said; he went out to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He had no idea what Nelson would want. “What are you in the mood for?” he called, as if he were entertaining an ordinary guest, a friend who had just dropped by for a visit.

Nelson didn’t respond. Edward Everett took a loaf of bread and three wrapped slices of cheese out of the refrigerator. He could at least make him a sandwich; something was better than nothing.

From the living room, he could hear Grizzly growling in a low, menacing way and he went to check on him. Nelson was standing on the couch, rocking side to side on the cushions to keep his balance. It reminded Edward Everett of a child bouncing on a bed. Grizzly was crouched low, his hindquarters up, his teeth bared.

“Get him the f*ck away from me,” Nelson said, slapping at his sweatshirt pocket. When he brought his hand back up, he was holding a gun.

Edward Everett dropped the bread and cheese. “What the f*ck, Nelson?”

Grizzly lunged toward the couch, trying to leap onto it, but fell short. Startled, Nelson tumbled over the back of it, slamming against a box of the game log cards Edward Everett had brought up from the basement weeks earlier, the box tearing open, cards skittering across the floor. Again Grizzly leaped for the couch, and made it that time, barking furiously, Nelson scrambling to his feet, slipping on the loose cards, pointing the gun in the direction of the dog, his hand shaking. Edward Everett eyed the front door and then the kitchen behind him: which was the easier way out? If he ran, would Nelson shoot him?

“Ross,” he said in a voice he hoped was calming, but he could hear a tremor in it.

“Do something about the f*cking dog,” Nelson shouted, still pointing the gun toward Grizzly, who was barking and leaping toward him. “I hate dogs.”

“Let me get him.” Edward Everett took a tentative step toward the couch. “Just getting the dog,” he said, holding up his hand at an angle: a foolish gesture, he realized, as if that would shield him if Nelson pulled the trigger. He snatched at Grizzly’s collar but the dog twisted, snapping at him, biting the base of his right thumb, drawing blood and getting away. The second time he reached for the dog’s collar, he managed to snag it, picking him up, Grizzly flailing the air with his paws, his teeth flashing. He held him at arm’s length, barely keeping his fingers laced through the collar, managed to open the door to the closet near the front door, hurled the dog in and slammed the door. On the other side, Grizzly flung himself against the door, the hangers on which Edward Everett had hung his coats clanging.

Nelson was pale, leaning over, his free hand braced on the back of the couch, breathing shallowly, while Grizzly barked wildly. Maybe Nelson would hyperventilate, pass out, Edward Everett thought, but he sucked in a breath, let it out and straightened.

“F*ck, Skip. I’m f*cking going to shoot that f*cking dog.”

“Grizzly,” Edward Everett bellowed, so loudly that Nelson startled. The dog did stop barking but then another noise began in the closet: the dog’s nails clicking against the hardwood floor, every once in a while something knocking against the wall. It was his head, Edward Everett knew, Grizzly in the throes of a seizure.

“Ross,” he said. “Let’s just put the gun away. We can talk. Long as you want.”

“Skip,” Nelson said, leaning against the back of the sofa, the gun resting on a cushion. “I’m f*cked.”

“No you’re not,” he said, keeping his eye on the gun.

With his free hand, Nelson fumbled in his sweatshirt pocket and came out with a folded wad of paper: something with a pale blue cover sheet. A legal document. Nelson tried unfolding it with one hand but became frustrated and thrust it at Edward Everett, who took it, his own hand shaking so much the paper rattled. Unfolding it, he saw it was an order of protection, prohibiting Nelson from coming within fifty yards of the petitioner, Cynthia Nelson, as well as Jacob Nelson and Sarah Nelson, minor children.

“I don’t know what this means, Skip,” Nelson said. He was crying and he reached up to wipe his eyes with the wrist of his hand that held the gun. What kind of weapon was it? Edward Everett wondered. Not a revolver; a gun that loaded with a clip in the handle. He knew nothing about guns except what he had seen in movies and on television, but he thought: Guns like that have a safety. He squinted at it, trying to find it, but had no idea where it would be or what it would look like on or off.

“Oh, f*ck, Skip,” Nelson said, pointing the gun in Edward Everett’s direction. “Don’t even think of trying to get this away from me.”

“I wasn’t,” Edward Everett said. His head was suddenly light. He wanted to sit down and, without thinking of how Nelson would respond, he staggered back until his knees felt one of the upholstered chairs he had in his living room, and he sat.

“Order of protection,” Nelson said. He moved unsteadily around the couch until he was on the other side and sank into it, sitting, dangling the gun between his knees. “I would never hurt Cindy or … My God. My kids. Why would she say something like that?”

Because you’re crazy, Edward Everett thought. Because you’re in my house with a gun. He said nothing, pretending to study the document. He could comprehend nothing on the page now, not even individual letters; they were squiggles, circles and slashes.

“F*ck, Skip. I really screwed things up,” Nelson said.

“I don’t know, Nelson,” he said, talking quietly. “What did you do?”

“I went to her dad’s house. He said, ‘She doesn’t want to see you.’ ‘Like hell,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t want to see you. You need to leave.’ Then he f*cking closed the door.”

“What did you do then?”

“I didn’t f*cking leave, that’s what I did. I stayed on their f*cking porch and he called the cops. They came and took me away and next day, order of protection.” He moved abruptly toward Edward Everett, making him flinch, snatched the document out of his hand and ripped it into two pieces, then ripped it again, until it was too thick for him to tear easily and he flung the pieces around the room. “I wish I’d had the gun then. I’d’ve f*cking shot him, right there on his f*cking porch.”

“I don’t think you would do that, Ross,” Edward Everett said. “I don’t think you’re the kind of person who could shoot someone.”

“You think so?” Nelson said. He raised the gun and eyed along the barrel, squinting. “If he was here, I would so pull the f*cking trigger.”

“We can fix this, Ross,” Edward Everett said.

“I’d say we’re pretty far past the fixing stage.”

Was he going to shoot them both or just himself? Edward Everett wondered. Maybe someone would come by. Meg. Surprise! I missed you, honey. Or maybe Vincent, who wanted to pay more of the money he owed for his girlfriend’s root canal. I’m a good person, Edward Everett thought. The kind of person who lends a thousand dollars to someone and doesn’t pester him to pay it back. He thought, It’s entirely possible that Vincent will choose this moment to come by. When he knocked, Nelson would say, Don’t.

If I don’t answer, he’ll know something is wrong.

Okay, but no funny business, Nelson would say.

At the door, Edward Everett would find a word that Vincent would understand but Nelson wouldn’t. Vincent would leave and call the police. But, Edward Everett realized, that was only something that happened in movies so that someone could save the day at the last instant.

“Let’s talk about how to fix this,” Edward Everett said.

“Just shut up for a minute, Skip. I have a headache.” He rubbed his temples.

It must be past ten o’clock, Edward Everett thought. Meg would not be on her way here but at her house, having a cup of coffee, no idea of what was happening to him. Vincent and Dominici would be at St. Aloysius, the rest of the team coming in, the players jittery with the idea of winning a professional title, none knowing the decision that the organization had made already; you stay, you go. The ones going didn’t know yet that the game wasn’t interested in them anymore, that they had only filled a role, shadows in the background for players like Sandford, and like Webber should have become. They all hated Nelson, he thought, but they were more like him than they realized.

The game had told Edward Everett the same thing thirty years ago, had tried to throw him out, but he’d come back and come back and come back and was on the edge of reward for his tenacity. I don’t deserve this, he thought. I deserve Costa Rica and the four years’ pay for three years’ work and the cheap real estate that could make it a good place to retire.

“Skip,” Nelson said, his voice quiet, almost a little boy’s voice—the boy that Nelson would have been when Edward Everett first came to Perabo City. Back then, Nelson had been, what? Ten, a child with a soprano voice that was still several years from changing, a boy nursing an inkling that, yes, maybe, yes, he could do something with a baseball other boys couldn’t. But not enough. Most of them could never do enough.

“Skip,” Nelson said again. “I can’t lose my family.” He was playing with a small switch on the gun, flicking it one way and then the other: the safety, Edward Everett realized. One way, the other, one way, the other, clicking it, clicking it. Which was on and which was off?

“I know how you feel,” he said, his eyes on the switch Nelson was flicking.

“Yeah, Skip?” One way, the other, one way, the other. “I had a boy. Like your boy,” he said, not certain what he would say next.

“I didn’t know, Skip.” One way, the other. One way, the other.

“But his mother—she took him away.” He shook his head. “Before I had a chance to meet him.” In the closet, Grizzly was quieter, his seizure nearly over. Soon, he would fully come out of it, start barking and lunging at the door. It would set Nelson off again. How long until then? One minute? Five? “See, I know what you’re going through.”

“What do you mean, Skip?” One way. The other.

Edward Everett told him about Julie, about Montreal and getting hurt, about asking her to marry him, about the woman, Estelle. He remembered her name when he hadn’t in a long time. Herron. Two “r’s,” not like the bird. About Julie finding him with Estelle and leaving him there, his not knowing about the boy until he got the first photograph and then the next and the next. “I spent years looking for that boy,” he said, telling him about the towns and the phone calls, but telling it so quickly, he had no idea if his story made sense. He paused, listening for signs of Grizzly’s waking, wondering if that was the moment it would all come crashing down, the dog fully aware and barking, Nelson hysterical again. He had stopped flicking the lever, Edward Everett realized. Was it on or off?

“So, you see,” he said. “I’ve been where you are.”

Nelson sat up, the gun still dangling between his knees. “You’re nothing like me.”

“What?” Edward Everett said.

“I never cheated on my family,” Nelson said.

Edward Everett was confused. This was not what he intended. They were brothers, of a sort. “We’re brothers, of a sort,” he said.

“You did a terrible thing,” Nelson said. “We’re not brothers.”

“No, wait,” Edward Everett said, frantic, the story he thought would lull Nelson only making things worse. “We worked things out.”

“You worked things out?” Nelson asked, leaning forward, cocking his head.

“I found him,” Edward Everett said cautiously, having the sense of being a man creeping across a frozen pond, the ice groaning and popping with each step, no going back, the only choice to keep on toward the far bank. “Just this summer. It was the craziest thing. I looked up his name in the phone book and called and it was him.”

Hi, this is a billion-to-one shot, but is your mother named Julie?

Dad? Oh, my God! Dad! Wait until I tell Mom.

“I found him,” Edward Everett said. “I screwed up, I admit it, worse than anything, worse than you, but I found him and worked things out.”

“That’s a helluva tale,” Nelson said, but in a way that Edward Everett couldn’t read: did he believe him or did he not believe him?

“We’ve become close,” Edward Everett said, closing his eyes, straining to conjure what occurred next in the story he was telling. “Everything’s fine. He became a pediatrician. He saved so many lives. Maybe he helped your kids.” The images came to him as clearly as the photographs of the boy-stranger he had carried around for so long: himself and the boy-stranger-now-man-son drinking beer, watching a ball game, Edward Everett saying, Look where the second baseman is playing. Here’s what’s going to happen. His son saying, You really know a lot about this. A picnic they went on, Edward Everett and the boy-now-man. As he told the story, the park where they picnicked grew around him, becoming as vivid as if he had been there: near their table, a rusted barbecue grill caked with ash that drifted over them in a breeze, specks settling onto their sandwiches. The heat of the sun warming his back. Then a new boy appeared. The boy-now-man’s own son. Edward Everett’s grandson. His name is Edward. I had no idea that was your name when he was born but it came to me the first time I held him. “You’re Edward.” It must have been in the stars. Mustard spotting his chin, the boy smiled up at Edward Everett, the man from whom he’d gotten his name.

Nelson tilted his head to the side in a manner that suggested he was weighing the story that Edward Everett had told. It was, he knew, a fantastic story.

“In fact, he’s on his way here now,” Edward Everett said. He saw a red Prius moving between sunlight and shadow as it passed beneath the trees lining the street. No, not a Prius. That was Renee’s car in her new circumstances. The car approaching was a Maverick, like the one he drove when he sold flour. “I was just waiting to take him to the game. Him and his son. My grandson. He’s never been before but he’s going today. His first game.”

In the closet, the dog was stirring. Edward Everett could hear the hangers clanging as Grizzly got to his feet, rustling the coats.

He saw the Maverick slowing outside, the driver—someone who had been there countless times by then and so knew all of the neighbors, and they knew him—rolling down his window, waving at Mrs. Greiner, who was digging in her flower bed, waving at Ron Dubois next door, setting up a ladder to paint his fascia board. They knew his grandson, too, the boy waving from the passenger seat. I’m going to see my grandpa!

Your grandpa is such a lucky man!

Edward Everett stood up and moved toward the door. “I think I hear him coming up the steps.” Nelson leaned forward and they both looked toward the door, listening for footsteps on the stone stairs.

It could happen, Edward Everett thought. It could happen. My son is going to knock on the door. He’s going to knock on the door right now.

I’m so glad to see you, he would say when he opened the door. I’m so happy you’re finally here.