Home Run: A Novel (23 page)

Of all the things she’d expected to hear—excuses and apologies and admissions—Emma had never expected this.

“So your only choice was to write us off.” Her voice now was weak and soft.

“That’s not true. I never wrote you off. I was coming back, but by the time I got my guts up to call you, you were married.”

She had never heard this.

It doesn’t matter.

This was all new to her and—

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change a thing.

It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

She glanced at him and hoped he fully saw her staring at him.

“Whatever is broken in you, Cory … whatever your dad did or didn’t do, I can’t fix it. And neither can Tyler. And that hurt in you will hurt Tyler. It already has.”

Cory looked defeated. Crushed. “He needs a dad.”

“He had a dad. He died. James was there for us when you left. And that amazing, unselfish man is the only father Tyler has ever known. And for now, that’s how it stays.”

She was done here. She had said enough—probably way too much—and it was time to leave. Emma turned around for the third time and began walking. This time, Cory didn’t call or run after her.

As she walked under a dark sky full of a thousand shimmering stars, she began to cry.

Tears could be stored up and poured out at any perfectly awful moment. She didn’t realize she still felt this way inside. Yet speaking those words to Cory—they broke her heart again.

The world feels a little better when you have a little help.

He’s no different from all the others who have felt the same way.

Centuries of people who have needed a little help. Just a little help to get through those dog days.

People who end up realizing that others don’t understand and don’t get it and don’t fathom all the things on your plate.

You stand here every day, and the world watches.

You need a little help ’cause God knows nobody’s gonna give you any.

You take a little, and it’s okay.

You take a little more, and you think it’s all right.

The world is crazy busy and you have to make sure you cope and you are finally able to rise above the noise.

With a little help.

Just a little.

And a little more.

And a little more.

Because that’s what you need.

And there’s nothing wrong with it. Because everybody’s doing it and everybody’s done it and everybody will keep doing it.

Nobody understands your life.

A little help isn’t going to hurt anybody.

So you pour the bottle and find the help and pour a little more and keep hoping to find that help. Over and over and over again.

Chapter Thirty-five

Bases Empty

There’d been hundreds of mornings that felt like this. Maybe even a thousand.

It wasn’t just feeling hungover. Cory didn’t really get hungover in the traditional sense, like a teenager might after downing his father’s whiskey. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone a couple of days without drinking. It wasn’t just about feeling sluggish and scrambled. It was that empty feeling, like something wasn’t right and shouldn’t be this way. The hole inside of him stayed there until he could fill it again.

That’s what he did, over and over and over again, regardless of where he was or what he was doing. Playing ball, dating models, filming an ad, working out at the gym, taking a vacation. Or in this case, coaching Little League and trying to celebrate some recovery.

The same old story followed him every time. A shadow that once resembled him, looking smaller each day. Soon there wouldn’t be a shadow left.

He remembered everything Emma said. Whatever happened in his life, he would know that it was too late. Too late for him to suddenly turn into some magical prince and save the princess. The storybook ending had been out of reach for some time.

The first thing he saw when he climbed out of bed was the mini-fridge. He was beginning to hate seeing that thing. Every night it looked like the smile of his best buddy. Every morning it resembled the disappointed face of—well, of everybody in his life.

Wearing only boxers and a T-shirt, Cory unplugged the half-full fridge and pushed it outside the door. Chad could have the rest of the contents. Cory was finished.

He needed to get his act together. He had only been here for two long and endless weeks, and there were six more to go.

I might die in this sad little motel room if I don’t watch out.

The restless feeling stayed with him. He knew he had to do something about it. Go find a place to work out or go jogging. He could sweat off all the beer he’d had last night.

Then he thought of something better.

The swing never got old.

The batting machine launched the ball, and Cory hit it with perfect form. He would’ve felt a little better with a few beers in his system to get rid of that unsteady feeling. But it was time for him to try, and he could do anything he wanted to. Well, pretty much anything.

He was in the old barn hitting away, just like he used to do during high school. It was always better practicing with this machine than taking wild pitches from his father. Cory had knocked on the door of the farmhouse, but nobody was home. That was fine by him.

With each ball coming his way, Cory hit harder.

The bat hitting the ball wasn’t just practice. It was a connection. It helped fill the vacancy inside. Little by little.

There weren’t enough balls in the world to completely fill that hole. But it helped. Just a bit.

Whatever is broken in you …

Emma’s voice interrupted his father’s orders.

He swung faster. Gripped the bat tighter. Smacked the ball harder.

I can’t fix it.

Nobody can, Emma. Nobody.

“I thought meth could just be like a fun thing. And I could stop anytime. I wasn’t a tweaker or nothing.”

Cory sat in the circle of men inside the small room in the church. This was what J. T. referred to as the men’s step study. Each of them, including Cory, held a workbook in his hands. The kid talking was skinny and scraggly with piercings and an old cap over his head. He looked like the oldest twentysomething Cory had ever seen.

“But coming down was hard. And then I had to have it. Stole money from my grandma’s purse to get it. I couldn’t stop. I wanted to numb out. I forced myself to start answering these dang questions.”

He smiled as he pointed to his workbook. Cory listened to the young guy and knew what he was talking about.

“Doing these books, I found out why I used.”

Cory glanced at the white space in his book. He hadn’t even opened it except at these meetings. He didn’t want to feel like he was back in school again.

“I still struggle,” the guy said. “But I don’t feel hopeless. It’s getting better. I’m changing. I feel myself changing.”

He thanked everybody for letting him share. Cory knew that this kid wasn’t talking just to talk. He probably didn’t want to be there, just like Cory. But he wasn’t making this up either.

Cory scanned the question at the top of the page.

How do you handle pain and disappointment?

Cory thought about how he’d ended up here. Knocking over Carlos and giving him a bloody nose. The incident with Pajersky. The whole meltdown over the baseball cards.

And yeah, then there’s the all-star snub.

Cory knew how he handled pain and disappointment. He lashed out, then tried to find a way to numb back up.

He could answer these questions. But what then? That didn’t mean he would magically be fixed.

If you bother reading through the booklet maybe you’ll see.

He still had plenty of time to do so. Plenty of time.

He stares at the picture Clay sent him.

Emma looks the same. She still looks beautiful and happy. He misses that smile of hers and those bright eyes. Eyes that told him he was going to make it, that she knew he was going to make it.

But the boy next to Emma—Cory can’t believe his eyes.

He knows he probably shouldn’t ask Clay to send him these pics, but he’s curious.

Yet, holding this picture in his hands, he’s no longer curious.

Something deep inside feels cut and bleeding.

He still can’t believe they’re out there somewhere, living a life that he doesn’t belong in. Living a life he chose to forget.

Tyler is five, and he has his mother’s smile.

A part of Cory wonders if he’ll ever meet him. But he knows there’s no reason to. All he’d do is make a mess of things if he ever went back home and saw Emma again.

Emma is married and has her own life and that’s good. He’s happy for her, for them.

A part of him knows they’re far better off being far away from him. That’s just the cold, brutal truth.

Chapter Thirty-six

Cycle

The next time Emma saw Cory on the field, he gave her a polite nod and said a polite good afternoon and then proceeded to coach the Bulldogs. There were no high fives or shared glances. Cory kept his distance.

The camaraderie that had started to build had washed back out to sea.

Emma was cautious, knowing he could be doing this for attention, sulking like he used to so she would come back around and tend to him. But when the afternoon practice ended and the kids left and Cory said good-bye to Tyler, Emma knew he wasn’t sulking.

He was just keeping his distance.

As he should be.

She saw him get in the old pickup truck and leave the parking lot. Alone.

Cory realized he was still only halfway through Celebrate Recovery’s eight weeks when he tried to start taking better care of himself. This began with getting back into shape and starting to exercise.

Sometimes he would jog in the middle of the night on a back road going nowhere. The night stars reminded him of all those times when he was young, looking at these same stars and believing he could be something when he left this place behind.

Those same stars were still there, even when the bright lights of the big city and the big stadiums drowned them out.

It was the third time he’d tried calling Cory, and this time his brother answered.

“Do you want to come over for dinner?”

“No, it’s okay, thanks.”

Clay stared at the picture of Karen and him standing next to Carlos. It was the first official family picture they had taken.

“Cory—it’s been almost four weeks since you came to Okmulgee. You’ve come to the barn half a dozen times, but you still haven’t had dinner with us.”

“I have my reasons.”

“Stop being stubborn.”

There was a pause, and then Cory finally said, “Okay.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

His brother sounded different. The attitude and arrogance were somehow slipping away.

“It’ll be no pressure—promise. Just hanging out. Watching some of the game. If you want.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

“Great.”

“Hey, Clay?”

“Yeah?”

“You mind if I bring a puppy over?”

“A puppy? Uh, yeah, sure.”

“Cool. See you soon.”

Clay stared at another picture hanging on the wall. It was a picture of his brother in his first major-league game after his first home run.

The picture still inspired him. He just wanted that guy on the wall—the wide-eyed baseball wonder who could do no wrong—to come back around.

He wanted that guy to grow up the way the rest of them had.

There’s still hope he can change.

Karen had proven to Clay that hope was real and alive in this world and that anybody—
anybody
—could change.

All this talk of God, yet Cory still wondered if God was paying any attention to them.

He didn’t doubt that there was a God above. His mother’s faith made him realize that there must be something in it. If she could put up with the man she’d married and still try to love and respect him because that’s what God wanted her to do—well, there was something real about that.

Cory watched J. T. and knew the faith this man had was real. He didn’t wear it like a logo on a hat or a shirt. He wore it like a belt buckle, hidden away but necessary ’cause it held him up.

Every day Cory thought about drinking, but a day without it became a week. The two meetings helped. So did seeing Karen and Clay. So did working out. So did coaching the Bulldogs and keeping out of Emma’s hair.

Those empty Celebrate Recovery books started filling up. But he still wondered if this was for him and if he could really change and if he really needed to change.

He’d been doing it alone his whole life. God or not. Emma or not. Clay or not.

The one constant had been Cory stepping up to the plate. Every day.

This plate he was stepping up to, or at least trying to step up to, felt different somehow.

It wasn’t about the crowd out there anymore. It was about him.

And he didn’t know. He just didn’t know.

Emma knew that God said to pray for your enemies, but she wasn’t sure whether Cory was her enemy or her friend. At night, after Tyler went to bed and the stillness of the house greeted her, Emma would think about Cory. He looked lost and confused. She wanted to ask him how he was doing and how the CR meetings were going, but she couldn’t.

You already said enough to him to last a lifetime.

Part of her wanted to apologize for her angry comments, or at least try to reframe them. But she knew she couldn’t.

Maybe those words would make the difference. Ultimately Emma knew that only God could change a person’s heart. She had learned this the hard way years ago. And she continued to learn it on a daily basis.

Cory didn’t realize that every single person living and breathing was broken. Maybe they didn’t carry the weight he did, and they didn’t fracture themselves so much in life, but everybody was lost and in need of saving.

Everybody stumbled and failed.

But oh …

Oh, what joy for those
whose disobedience is forgiven,
whose sins are put out of sight. Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.

Emma hoped and prayed that Cory would realize this. It wasn’t
just
him. He wasn’t the only person down here suffering and stumbling around.

His mistakes and failures had been cleared just like everybody else’s.

Cory just had to make that step and believe that grace could come to someone like him.

All Emma could do was keep praying he would come to understand this. That God would open his eyes.

Time ticked by like a pesky fly buzzing through a room and bouncing off the walls. So slowly. A painful, dreary kind of slow.

The kind that made you dream about drinking.

On his sixth week in Okmulgee, Cory decided to stop at a liquor store. He barely made it back to the pickup before opening the bottle of vodka and chugging it.

He just wanted the emptiness to go away.

Not drinking did nothing except make him think about drinking.

He’d been hearing things that made sense and seeing things that made sense, but he still didn’t share what he was really feeling.

He just closed his eyes and took another drink in the parking lot of the liquor store.

Tomorrow would be another day, and he’d stop drinking again and keep going. Keep doing what he was doing. Keep smiling and listening and keeping his distance from those like Emma who could hurt him. He knew now that anybody in this life close enough to hurt would eventually reach out and strike you down. Even angels like Emma eventually fell.

Everybody did.

The first few drinks didn’t do a thing. But eventually he’d blank out and not feel anything.

That’s what he needed.