“And what does a woman from Cal-I-forn-I-A know? You probably spend your days spending his money. He could be here, where he belongs, raising a family with a good girl, going to a respectable job five days a week. Instead, he’s out there raising hell and doing drugs. Look where that got the other guy. It got him buried six feet under before the age of thirty.”
My heart thumps heavy in my chest, my head filling with the bad or what Holliday calls the demons, I fight. I’ve been good over the last few months. I can’t let him drag me back under—the undertow is too hard to fight a second time. She stands in front of me, her hands on my chest. “Don’t listen to him. He’s trying to provoke you. Don’t let him win.”
“Listen to her new age crap,” he says. “And run back to Pretend Land. The rest of us will be here.”
“What is your problem?” Holliday asks. “Why are you doing this?”
“A real woman knows her place,” he says, turning on Holliday.
“Don’t, Dad. I’m warning you.”
“You’re warning me?” He laughs. “You’re a fool. You had everything here and you let it slip away. That family of Patty’s could’ve been yours. The coaching job, this place when I die, but no, you left, proving me right about you all along. You’re weak.”
“I left so I wouldn’t end up like you.” I feel the pressure of Holliday’s hands holding me back when I say, “So if you think that makes me weak, so be it. But what you think of me doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is what this woman thinks. She not only loves me for who I am, but believes in me, something you never really did.”
“You lost your roots along the way to La La Land, Junior,” he says, snidely.
“You act like you’re mad because I left, but you’re the one who drove me to the county line and dropped me off at the bus stop. So I didn’t lose my roots, I had them ripped out from under me because I ruined your dreams of playing pro ball.”
“You were great. The greatest. You had a billboard in the center of town your senior year. You could have been someone, a real player. Instead, you decided to sulk in your room and listen to that noisy music. Your mind was made up and your bag was already packed. I just saved you the trouble of walking the eight miles.”
Looking down into Holliday’s eyes, her eyebrows together in worry, I say, “This was a mistake. We shouldn’t have come.”
“No, honey,” my mom says, letting the door slam behind her. “I’m glad you did. I’ve missed you terribly.” She hugs me. “I had no idea you were planning on leaving for good and even less of an idea that your dad drove you.”
“He drove me away is what you mean—literally and figuratively,” I say, my bitterness coming back. My mom has tears in her eyes, so I hug her even tighter, thinking it might be the last time I ever do. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I never meant for you to leave,” she says, “I love you.”
“Love you too, Mom.” I turn, and leave, rushing to the field I used to play ball in, the one I once loved. My dad used his best crop field to make that baseball field, to learn, to make him proud of me one day. Like the field, I’ve outgrown it, him, this life. I run through the tall grass to a log I dragged out here after the injury. It’s where home plate once was, it’s where I came to think, where I was when I decided I needed to leave, and where I sit now, knowing I’ll never return.
Lying down, I stare up at the blue sky, a few clouds drifting by in the unseasonal breeze. I close my eyes and try to remember all the good I had here. A shadow darkens my eyelids. When I open my eyes, Holliday is standing over me, blocking the sun, a halo around her. My angel.
“Why’d I come back?” I ask, sitting up, so she can sit down.
She sits close to me, leaning forward and pulling tall blades of grass in thought. Then she says, “We’re told that dealing with our past will free our futures. But I call bullshit. It’s never as easy as it’s sold to us.”
Staring out into the distance, I say, “It doesn’t matter what I accomplish. He’ll only see my failures.”
“His perspective is screwed up. You getting injured and not being able to play baseball is not a failure, Dalton.”
“What is it then?”
Taking a moment to think about it, she looks me in the eyes, then says, “Destiny. You were never meant to be a professional baseball player or you would be.”
I smile because she has enough faith for the both of us. “Does that make you a part of my destiny?”