Read Alive on Opening Day Page 9

CHAPTER NINE

  Starting Over

  Dan looked back and forth from Gabbie to the bundle in her arms, unable to fully comprehend what he was seeing. There was his high school girlfriend, whom he remembered as the slender young lady behind third base cheering him on just the night before. Now here she was, maybe 15 pounds heavier and much curvier, holding a baby who couldn’t have been any more than a few weeks old.

  “Gabbie …” was all he could say.

  Clara laid a hand on her son’s shoulder and said quietly in his ear, “This is what I was trying to tell you, honey.” Dan brushed his mother’s lips away like he was swatting a fly and squinted at Gabbie.

  She was wearing an orange polyester skirt with a light jacket to match, covering a flowered blouse. Her blond hair was pulled back into a pony tail, and her blue eyes glimmered in the spring sunshine.

  She smiled softly and said, “Dan, I can’t believe you’re awake!” She brought a hand to her mouth, shooting a surprised glance to Clara.

  Clara nodded at the girl. “It’s OK, Gabbie,” she said. “I’ve told him most of the story. Dan knows he has been hibernating for the last nine months.”

  Dan watched the two women speak as if he were at a tennis match, head bobbing back and forth. His mother’s words seemed to turn on a light bulb, and he gasped out, “Nine months!”.

  Gabbie smiled and bowed her head, casting a knowing but demure gaze his way. Dan placed a gentle left hand on Gabbie’s shoulder as if she were a fragile porcelain doll and stuttered, “Is … is … is th-that a b-b-baby?”.

  He was craning his neck forward gawking at the babe in Gabbie’s crooked left arm. He pulled back and looked into Gabbie’s eyes.

  She nodded, then said, “Yes, Dan, this is your son … Troy.”

  “Troy?” Dan let the name bounce around his head and heart for a few seconds. “Troy … Troy …”.

  “Is that all you have to say, Dan?” Gabbie asked, teasing her boyfriend, who was clearly near shock.

  “Um … uh … no,” Dan sputtered.

  He did have something else to ask, but he didn’t know how to say it. Didn’t know if he could say it.

  Gabbie saved him from his dilemma. “Look, Dan, I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “Is Troy even yours, right?”

  Dan shook his head, but felt like he had been caught committing a crime, because Gabbie had guessed exactly what he had been thinking.

  “It’s OK,” Gabbie went on. “It’s natural, and I’ve thought about this a lot while you were … ‘away’. I don’t blame you at all for having that question, but I promise Troy is yours and that I’ve never even kissed another boy. You know I never had a boyfriend before you, right?”

  That was certainly Gabbie’s reputation in high school: that of a prude. She never went on a date, so far as Dan could tell, through the beginning of her sophomore year. That semester, though, Dan and Gabbie found themselves in Theater class together, and they were soon studying Shakespeare after school. Dan eventually asked her out to see a movie, and he had been somewhat surprised when she said yes, but he was thrilled. After just a few weeks of dating, it was apparent to Dan that he was falling for Gabbie, and by the time he was a senior, it was widely assumed they would get married — someday.

  So, yes, Dan believed Gabbie when she said she had not dated before him, and had not cheated on him. But that didn’t necessarily account for the last nine months.

  “Yes, I know,” he said, finally.

  “And I’ve been waiting for you since last June. You can even ask your mother about that, Dan.” They both turned to Clara, who nodded.

  Gabbie placed her fingers on Dan’s jawbone and drew his gaze back to her. “Dan, I found out I was pregnant the weekend before your sectional game. Remember the date we went on?”

  Dan squinted again, trying to remember the days before his memory went blank, and then he said, “Yes, I remember. We went out for pizza and then were going to go to a movie, but you said you weren’t feeling well. You were in the bathroom for a long time, then asked me to take you home.”

  She watched him with raised eyebrows, waiting for the pieces to click for him, and then they did.

  “You were sick from the baby?”

  Gabbie nodded. “Yes, I think so,” she said. “I had been having trouble in the mornings all that last week of school — before Senior Week — and had already gone to the doctor. I didn’t say anything to you because I thought I just had a bug. The doctor’s office called my mom on Monday morning, though, and told her I was pregnant. I was going to tell you that night after the game … but I never got the chance.”

  For the first time, Gabbie looked sad, and tears glimmered in her eyes.

  Dan shook his head and pulled her close. “I’m sorry, Gabbie. Sorry for leaving you, and sorry for doubting you.”

  Dan and the two women hugged for a minute or so, and then he pulled away and looked at Gabbie.

  “Gabbie,” he said. “What are we going to do?”

  She shifted Troy in her arms and nestled the tiny bundle against Dan’s chest.

  “We can figure that out later, Dan,” she told him. “Right now, you’re going to hold your son.”

  —

  Dan spent the rest of the afternoon catching up with Gabbie and Clara, but most of all cuddling and playing with Troy. Dan had always thought babies were cute enough, but he didn’t have any younger siblings — or any siblings at all, for that matter — so he never really spent much time around them. It was surreal to think he was now a father, responsible for another human life.

  In this case, that human life was all of six weeks old, one of the few Aquarians born in Pickens County in 1974. Dan wasn’t much into horoscopes, but he knew that he himself was a Gemini. But, in Dan’s world, everything could be related to baseball, and he realized February 13, when Troy was born, was just about the time pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training each year. And Dan’s own birthday — June 15 — was the Major League Baseball trade deadline. They may not have shared a Zodiac sign, but Dan and his son would forever bonded through the diamond. Beyond that, Dan enjoyed holding the baby but didn’t see much commonality between them. In fact, Troy looked nothing like Dan, though, to be fair, he didn’t look like Gabbie, either.

  Nevertheless, Troy was their son, and they had to figure out how to take care of him. During her pregnancy, Gabbie lived at home with her parents, Meg and Al. Al was understandably furious when he first found out Gabbie was going to have a baby, but he soon softened, declaring he was still her father and would provide a safe environment for her. That was especially true since the baby’s father was not able to help, and so the Jordan’s had agreed to let her stay home and even to help care for the baby.

  Of course, the Hodges had stepped up, too, and Clara spent a big chunk of most weekdays with Gabbie and Meg, taking care of Troy and also forging a friendship. Gabbie and Clara told Dan how the three (four, if you count Troy) liked to go bargain-hunting at garage sales and were thinking about writing a recipe book together. That surprised Troy because he didn’t know Gabbie could cook and because he wasn’t particularly fond of his own mother’s cooking — aside from her topnotch breakfast skills. Still, it was great to know the three women could get along and that Troy had had a safe and happy place to start out his life.

  But if David had taught Dan anything, it was that a father takes care of his children and his spouse. Now that Dan was awake, it was time to figure out how he was going to support Gabbie and Troy, and himself. The problem was, he had never really even considered what kind of work he might do, so focused was he on landing a scholarship from Coach Harris at IWU.

  College! How could he have forgotten?

  Interrupting a conversation about what they were all going to have for supper that night, Dan blurted out, “Hey, whatever happened to coach Harris? Did he give away that scholarship?”

  Gabbie and Clara exchanged uncomfortable glances before Clara finally spoke. “Honey, h
e had to fill out his team, and no one knew what your long-term status was. Coach Harris called your father two weeks after your accident and told him he was giving the scholarship to Elmer Deskins. He did say you should feel free to call him and catch up when you came back to us.”

  Dan was wounded and lashed out at his mother. “I don’t want to ‘catch up,’ Mom. I should be playing third base for the Redhawks right now!”

  A few moments later, when he’d calmed down, he added, “I’m sorry, Mom. It’s just frustrating losing all this time and not knowing what to do next. Did I at least graduate from high school?”

  “Well, you weren’t at the ceremony, of course, but Principal Stetson hand-delivered your diploma to you the Monday after graduation,” Clara said. “He came to see you in the hospital and brought it with him. It’s in your top desk drawer if you want to see it.”

  Dan nodded and walked from the kitchen, down the hall, and into his room. A minute later he returned, holding his diploma stretched out in front of him.

  “Well, that’s pretty neat,” he said. “Think I can get a job with that?”

  “I don’t see why not, Dan, but what would you want to do?” his mother asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” he said, then, looking at Gabbie and Troy, he added, “but I have to do something … soon.”