Iris had suffered a sugar crash. She had undiagnosed diabetes, which explained the incontinence and constant exhaustion. It explained her rabid addiction to my bowl of apples.
Iris cried when they put in the IV catheter, squeezing my hand weakly. But it took exactly three seconds for her to wake up completely. She smiled and devoured the applesauce the nurse put in front of her.
Suddenly, I didn’t care if I lost my precious job.
“No han llegado, I’ll watch. Don’t worry,” I told Iris’s mother when I finally got her on the phone. Her employment situation was so precarious that leaving to see her daughter in the hospital would lose her hours of pay at best and get her fired at worst. All she needed was a time buffer.
I stayed and tried to contact Iris’s aunt and grandmother. All it would take was a few hours of my time, and I had a few hours. I was already slated to leave school early, so it didn’t matter.
Not really.
Except it did.
Her aunt showed up at the hospital at seven o’clock, all apologies and tears, rattling off complex explanations and thank yous. My Spanish was good but not that good. I kissed Iris and her aunt and ran out.
I crossed the waiting room early in the ninth inning. The TV had earned a few new viewers. One out. Bases loaded. Dodgers up by one.
Rodriguez at bat.
“That guy’s a clutch homer waiting to happen,” said a middle-aged man with his arm under an ice pack.
Jesus! And three balls. No strikes. He’d be crazy not to swing at anything near the strike zone. If he touched the ball with the bat and it stayed fair, one man was coming home. If he got behind it, two men home. If he got it to the outfield, sac fly brought one man home. Which would put the home team in a terrible position in the bottom of the ninth.
Dash was a speck between second and third, hopping right then taking half a step forward.
I didn’t know what kind of game he’d had. I’d only seen one strikeout. If it was bad, I would feel as if it was my fault, and he might act as if it was too. I felt as though our whole relationship pivoted on this play.
I hated that. As much as I loved him, I hated that.
Rodriguez swung. Everyone in the waiting room held their breath.
Line drive to left. Hard and high. Gorgeous Dash Wallace leapt for it, stretching the length of his body, turning in the air, catching the drive, and landing hard on his right arm.
Everyone in the room gasped.
Dash rolled and held up his left arm, serving the caught ball like an apple in a bowl. Youder, the second baseman, was already there. He grabbed the ball from Dash’s glove and drove it home.
The runner was out.
Side retired.
Game over.
The sick fans in the emergency room at Sequoia Hospital cheered, but my eyes were glued to the TV.
Men were running onto the field.
Dash wasn’t getting up.
He needed me.
fifty-six
Dash
The pain was broken apart by region. My fingers were numb, and my shoulder felt as if a blade had been wedged in the joint. Everything between those two points felt as if it had been twisted loose and rearranged.
“I need my phone,” I said through my teeth.
I’d walked off the field after I was offered a stretcher. My arm was fucked, but my legs were fine. And Vivian hadn’t shown up. It wasn’t like her to be late, much less a no-show.
“Gonna call your mama?” Youder’s voice came from the doorway of the training room, where I was getting a workover from three guys in white shirts.
“Vivian,” I growled. “I don’t know what happened to her.”
“Does this hurt?” a voice asked right before a shooting pain went up my arm.
“Yes!”
“Where’s the phone?” Youder asked.
“Locker.”
“We’re sending you to Sequoia,” Marv said. He was the veteran trainer. A medic in Vietnam.
I looked down at my arm, but it was covered with cold compresses. “Fine.”
“We’re going to pull the stretcher into a gurney. It might jog a little.”
“No fucking way. My feet are fine.” I tried to get up using my good arm, and I had to ignore the pain in my other shoulder.
Marv pushed me down. “But your shoulder needs support. The ambulance is waiting.”
“Overkill, Marv! Total fucking overkill.”
“The team’s paying for it. Might as well use it.”
They wheeled me out the door. I didn’t forget Youder was supposed to get my phone, but it wasn’t until we were outside and the flashing red lights of an ambulance lit the side of the stadium that I realized he still hadn’t come back with it.
“Wait.”
“What now?” Marv asked, not waiting at all.
I grabbed the edge of the ambulance with my left arm. For the first time since I was wheeled out, I heard the sounds of the parking lot. Horns, shouts, and cheers that got louder when I stopped the progression of the gurney. Fans waited for me behind sawhorses, and men with big network cameras stood in a special closer area.
“Youder has my phone,” I said quietly to Marv. I didn’t want the mics to pick up what I was saying.
“Probably.”
“We have to wait.”