Casey's Home (5 page)

“You
know, Case…” Ben fingered the sharp edge of the can. “There’s a hell of a lot more
to life than ball. I know that sounds like I’m telling you that you can’t do
it, which I’m not, but I’m just saying… maybe you ought to consider everything
that’s out there.”

“You
didn’t,” I pointed out.

“No,”
he agreed, taking another sip. “God, this stuff is awful.” I smiled and he
continued. “But you know, maybe I should have.”

“Why?”
I asked. He seemed sad, his face held very still. It was the way adults looked
when they felt the subject of their misery was beyond my comprehension. And
perhaps it was, though I would have argued that point fiercely. No one in my
family ever seemed to think I was old enough to understand anything. My father
was still fond of introducing me to people as: “...My daughter, Casey. She’s a
tall five.” It went beyond not wanting to see their little girl grow up into a
frustrating state of perpetual denial. I desperately wanted Ben to trust me
enough to confide in me.

“Let’s
just say that no one’s career lasts forever.”

I
wasn’t sure what he meant, exactly, as the statement itself seemed obvious. Did
he plan to quit? Was he injured? Or was this simply one of those moments of
self-pity that seemed to affect all pro-ball players, confronted with the
already limited span of their careers? I hesitated and searched for the right thing
to say.

“You’re
a great pitcher,” I told him at last. “The best ever. You’ll be okay.”

He
smiled at me, wistfully. “Thanks, Case. You’ll always be my little cheering
section.” Pausing, he rested his arms on the counter in front of me and studied
my face. I couldn’t help but blush. He licked his lips and spoke. “You know
what, Casey? I’m going to tell you something now, so listen up, because this is
the truth.”

I
nodded. Everything Ben said was The Truth to me.

“Don’t
ever fall in love with something, Casey, that you aren’t strong enough to let
go when it disappoints you.” I was silent. I already loved the game, too deeply
to extract any part of myself. I’d always believed this was true for Ben, as
well. It was an essential part of his appeal. He stretched and regarded the
filthy kitchen for a moment. “God, I’m a melancholy drunk,” he said, suddenly
smiling. “What’s there to be sad about, anyway? I’m here with my intended
bride, after all.”

Immediately,
I could feel a rush of heat to my cheeks. The excitement of being alone with
him shrank like an imploding building, sucking the air from my lungs.

“I’m
gonna kill Lee!” I managed to gasp out, intent on leaving immediately to pursue
my sister’s death. The fact that this would remove me from what I already saw
as the most embarrassing moment of my life was a major plus.

Ben
grinned, oblivious, and poured the Fresca down the sink. “Now, that wouldn’t be
fair. Lee didn’t tell me.”

Horribly
shamed, I whispered: “Dad.”

I
couldn’t kill my father, couldn’t even yell at him. Would it be enough to hate
him secretly? It seemed unlikely that he would actually be affected by my
radiating anger. My father lived in the impenetrable bubble of his own
self-confidence. Possibly I could not speak to him for a week. That might be
punishment enough. Maybe.

“Might
have been. Aren’t you even going to ask what I think of your little plan to
drag me to the altar?” I shook my head miserably, nearly in tears. Ben went on,
smiling. If I had ever needed proof that I was just a kid in his eyes, I now
had it. “Well, I’d be all for it, Casey, you know that. But I do believe I’m a
little young to get married, even to you.”

He
waggled his eyebrows. I sniffled slightly, barely able to wave him away with my
hand.

“You
just came in here to be mean to me.”

Only
slightly repentant, he pouted until I looked briefly his way. “Come on, Casey.
I’m just poking fun. You know I don’t mean it.”

He
probably didn’t, but that didn’t matter. My perceived reputation as a
near-teenager was now shot to hell. I acted completely uninterested, playing
with the edge of the Fresca can. Ben watched me; I could practically feel him
smiling. Then he played the trump card, at least in this hand. “Your mom know
you’re up?”

My
head shot up. It was the final indignity, as well as being a powerful
scare-tactic. “You gonna tell her?”

“Not
if I can get you to go back upstairs before she sees you. Now scoot.”

Leaving
the Fresca, I slipped down from the stool and stood in front of Ben, wondering
if there was still some way to salvage the situation. Ben looked down at me and
patted my cheek, his large hand completely filling the space between my jaw and
shoulder.

Well,
I reasoned in a moment of desperate inspiration, if he wanted a kid, I could be
a kid.

“Can
you walk me up? I don’t like trying to get through all those people.”

He
nodded, clearly amused. “Sure, Sport. I’ll tuck you back in.”

Sport.
Humiliated but ever-willing to compromise, I followed him out.

The
lights and roiling music absorbed us as we passed through the doorway into the
crush of bodies. Ben shielded me and pushed me gently forward at the same time.
His hands rested on my shoulders, his fingers curved around to touch my
collarbones. The abandonment of my bid for maturity suddenly seemed to have an
up-side.

Upstairs,
Lee was asleep again, apparently not terribly concerned with my foray into
danger. I climbed into bed as Ben knelt down beside me and tucked the covers up
around me as if I really were five. I was already learning to take what I could
get. We whispered.

“Show
me a curveball.”

I
held up my fingers around an invisible ball, demonstrating the pitch.

“Fastball.”

I
changed my finger position.

“Knuckleball…
Slider… Spitball.”

“I’m
not gonna spit on my hand. Besides, that’s illegal.”

Ben
nodded and patted the covers down around my waist, clearly trying not to laugh.
“You think you can go to sleep now?” he asked me.

“Maybe.”

Leaning
over, he kissed me on the forehead, his lips as soft to me as my mother’s
fingertips during a fever. Overcome by him, I whispered: “You smell good.”

He
shook his head, still hovering above me. Still vaguely drunk.

“Listen,
now. I know it’s noisy, but if you just settle in here, I promise you’ll dream
of good things, okay?” He stood, stretched his muscles, wincing briefly, and
towered over my bed. He was glorious, all sinew and strength. “I’ll see you in
a couple weeks, when the Series is over.”

“Ben?”

He
nodded, his hand on the door. For me, my skin still throbbing, my heart
pounding, reassurance seemed as far away as he now stood.

“Who’s
gonna win?”

Shrugging,
he opened the door and then shut it again at the burst of noise.

“It’s
not supposed to matter, Casey. It’s all just for fun.”

“Matters
to me.”

“Me
too.” Ben smiled and left then, shutting the door behind him. From across the
room, Lee opened her eyes.

“Oooo,
I’m gonna tell you had a boy in the room.”

I
threw a pillow at my sister and rolled over on my back. Across the room was a
poster of the 1976 Atlantics, with Ben standing in the middle, elbow to elbow
with my father.

1998

The
night my father died, I answered the phone with my bare leg thrown carelessly
over Mark’s chalky cast. This should, certainly, have made me feel guilty. I
hadn’t exactly carded him at the door. It wasn’t until I heard my sister’s
barely restrained grief, sharp despite the rattle of the cell phone, that I
remembered I was still accountable for anything at all.

By
the time I’d reached SeaTac, I was running on a sort of exhausted shock. The
woman who checked me in reached across her gray laminate counter and touched my
hand as she handed me my boarding pass. “Are you okay, Sweetie?” she asked. She
could not have been more than five years my senior.

“My
father died yesterday,” I answered. “I’m going to Florida for the funeral.” She
shook her head mournfully. My mouth continued to run. “To be honest, I’m not
sure what I’m looking forward to the least: the funeral, or staying with my
sister.”

She
retracted her hand and smiled weakly at me.

“Have
a nice flight.”

I
decided right there not to talk to anyone else until I reached Tampa. It wasn’t
difficult. The black eyeliner-coated teenage girl sitting next to me listened
to her Walkman the entire way, while reading some sort of gross-out teen horror
novel about a convent school and psychotic nuns. I’m not sure who kept the
stewardesses away, me or my little Goth seating companion.

Lee met me in the muggy, well-conditioned air of the
Tampa airport, wearing a beautiful black silk pants suit that reeked of far
more money than I earned in a month, even with overtime. Her nails were
polished a deep, dark crimson, and she wore little jewelry. I suspected it
might be her form of mourning, like a blazer-wrapped Queen Victoria, but
couldn’t be sure. She always wanted to be chic, and black was chic. Perhaps
that was all it was. Or perhaps she too, like the teenage girl from the plane,
was sending the world the not-so-subtle message to just leave her alone. Seeing
her was making me absolutely crazy and I was barely off the plane.

“Jake wouldn’t let me call
ahead.” Her arms were so fashionably thin I hardly registered her embrace until
she pressed warm, crimson lips to my cheek. She smelled like vanilla, like
cotton candy in the strange sterility of the terminal, and I found myself
wanting to cry for the first time since leaving Seattle. “So of course we’ve
been sitting here in this damn terminal for over an hour. I told him, flights
from the West coast are always delayed, but he just wanted to go. And then, of
course, at least a dozen people recognized him, and we had to stop and sign
every single autograph, as if Jake hasn’t been told a thousand times by his
agent that it devalues the official merchandize.”

Ignoring what must have been a
fairly routine tirade, Lee’s husband, Jake, leaned over and hugged me, nearly
enveloping me in his huge body. I had forgotten the sheer size of men who
played ball professionally. They weren’t basketball players, by any means, but
most players tower over a woman like me. His hands were large, and his arms
felt like stone no matter how I touched them.

“Hey Case,” he said and stepped
back, already choked up.

“Hey Jake,” I answered.

“I’m real sorry,” he told me,
squeezing my shoulder so hard it ached. “Your dad was…” He ran out of words,
standing there awkwardly.

“I know, Jake.”

“I’m just real sorry,” he said
again.

Lee was practically tapping her
foot. I could feel the irritation rising off of her in sticky waves, like a
heat mirage.

“So,” she said, ending the tender
family moment, “did you check any bags?”

Jake drove us home in his new
Lexus, its white leather seats sticky and hot even through the tinted windows.
I tried rolling the rear window down, just to sniff the remembered smells of
the Florida street, but Lee reminded me that they had the air on and for God’s
sake, could I shut that damn thing? Outside the car, it was hot enough to make
it difficult to breathe, as if I was inhaling through a towel. Lee patted down
an imagined flaw in her perfect hair and smiled over the back of the seat at
me.

“How are you doing?”

It was a ridiculous question. We
were both terrible and all right at the same time, as grown-ups are when they
lose a parent. Grief, sharp as a bee, hovered around me, waiting for
inopportune moments to strike.

“I’m ok,” I told her. “How about
you?”

She shrugged and rolled her eyes.
“There are so many arrangements to make. It’s a real pain in the ass. At least
Daddy was here to do it for Mom.”

I nodded. “When are we having the
funeral?”

“I think Friday,” she said,
picking at the edge of one dark nail. “Or Saturday, so people who work can
come.”

“They’ll come anyway,” I said.

“We’re playing the Cards on Saturday,”
Jake noted, as if that would mean something. Lee just stared at him. “They’re
only one game ahead right now.”

“I’m sure,” Lee said coldly,
“that the team can do it without you sitting on the sidelines, ok?”

Jake had just had knee surgery,
or at least the surgery was still recent enough that he wasn’t allowed to play.
He said nothing, steering us out of the city and toward the countryside where
he and Lee had purchased an estate. I lived in an apartment, or if I was
feeling particularly sophisticated and continental, a flat. They lived on an
estate.

“How much is this going to cost?”
I asked, thinking of my family’s penchant for silk-filled coffins as plump and
comfortable as a newly-made bed. There is something about death that makes
normally thrifty Southerners suddenly want to start throwing money at things
like the flower girl at a big wedding. For a moment I wondered if I could talk
my sister into going with simplicity and honesty for once in her life, but the
thought passed as quickly as it had come. My mother’s funeral was a magisterial
thing, complete with a choir and white-gloved pall-bearers. It was like burying
a Kennedy.

“Daddy had insurance,” Lee said.
“It’s covered.”

“So,” Jake began, punching up the
speed now that we had left the city. “How’s teaching?” Beyond my window, the
strip malls and strip joints dissolved into a solid wall of green, dripping
from the trees and sliding along pastures still dotted with humped cattle. Even
the foliage was melting and it was only May.

“Fine,” I answered. “I’m really
fond of my students.” I blushed all over. It was amazing how easily I could
embarrass myself in my own head. “I mean, they’re doing some good writing.”
This was a lie. College writing classes were where students learned they were
crappy writers. They wouldn’t be any good until they’d been gone for a while,
immersed in the real world and soaked in the everyday tragedy of bills and
children and work. But by then, of course, it would be too late. They would be
out of time.

“That’s great,” he said and
suddenly we all had nothing to say to one another. Not an hour off the plane
and I was desperately wishing I could somehow bury my father without talking to
my family. Mercifully, the drive was almost over. Jake steered the massive car
through the narrow, kudzu-covered gate that was far too ostentatious for any
house, even that one. “We’re here,” he noted, and indeed we were, arriving into
a grand Gothic novel. Lee lived well, in the family tradition. The house
covered the land like an enormous marshmallow, white and rounded and mushy in
the heat. There were enough Spanish-style roof tiles to pave an entire town.
Jake stopped the car in front of the front door, which was hidden somewhere
behind a massive curved portico complete with eight columns in whatever the
least-decorated style was. My mind supplied “doric,” which just made me feel
overeducated and therefore, poorer. He could have parked the car in one of the
fifteen or so spots in their garage, which was really more of a car warehouse
filled with softly shining antiques lined up like a giant Pez dispenser, but
apparently Lee expected to be dropped at the door.

“Where are the boys?” I asked.
Stepping out into the heat was like walking into a greenhouse.

“At school,” Lee said with the
air of someone being extraordinarily patient with a stupid person.

“Of course.”

Jake heaved my suitcases out of
the back and we scuffled into the cool, dark air of the interior. Leaving my
bags by the door, Jake and I immediately collapsed on opposite couches in the family
room, fanning ourselves like patrons at the opera. Lee stood in the kitchen,
flipping idly through her mail.

“Damn,” she said suddenly. “Jake,
come here please.”

He stared at me for a moment,
perhaps hoping I could save him, but I didn’t know what to say to spare him
from Lee’s wrath, much less did I have the energy to do it after the heat.

“What, honey?”

“Here,” she hissed, pointing to a
spot directly in front of her. I looked away then, listening to them even
though I didn’t really want to any more. “What’s this?”

There was a moment’s silence as
he examined whatever she’d handed him.

“I... I guess I just didn’t
remember to... do it.”

“Clearly,” she spat. “For
heaven’s sake, Jake, do I have to do everything? Do I? You know what this is
doing to me.”

“I know, honey,” he said. “I’m
sorry.” He sounded like he might cry again. I had never liked men who cried.
Never mind that it was a terrible double standard and that I, like all single
women, perpetually bitched about the general lack of sensitivity among today’s
males, but when it came down to it, crying just seemed girly. I stood up and
tried to slip past them.

“Where are you going?” Lee said.
“The boys will be home any minute. Don’t you want to see them?”

“I’m just going to go put my bags
upstairs,” I told her, snatching up the suitcases before either of them could
say anything.

Lee’s house had large, white
bedrooms. Almost every house I’d ever slept in had white bedroom walls, but
nowhere else was everything so snowy, so downy, so obviously opulent. If I had
a guest, they slept on the couch. I sank slowly into the enormous comforter
covering the king bed in one of the two spare rooms – I liked this one for the
veranda, though the other one had a hot tub in the bathroom – and stared up at
the shifting patterns of light on the ceiling. The door slid open almost
silently across the thick carpet and my sister’s nyloned feet padded to the
edge of the bed, then paused.

“Yeah?” I didn’t turn and she
didn’t sit down.

“I thought we could go over
tomorrow and deal with dad’s stuff.” Her voice was the same modulated purr as
when she was talking about new curtains or their summer cabin in Maine.

When I sat up and examined her,
her cheeks and the tip of her narrow nose were a sheer, rubbed pink. She smiled
at me, and though for most people, it would have been more of a grimace, it
seemed as suddenly familiar as my father’s famously toothy grin. “Okay,” I
agreed, and reached out to squeeze one of her brittle hands. “Let’s go home.”
For the first time since I arrived, perhaps even since I had last flown away
from this place, it seemed like an ideal place to be.