Two hours later, Craig and Paws watched Zach rake one last edge of dirt smooth, flattening the last of the wheel tracks. He turned the rake upside-down, pushed the dirt, and pulled it back, leveling the small hills and dips. Thankfully, most of the muddy motorbike tracks stretching across the baseball field had dried back into workable soil, making the job easier than it might have been.
Craig's eyes swept across the outfield grass as he leaned on the handle of a flat-bladed shovel. The field was much improved, though still scarred. "Maybe the grass will grow back."
"What if it doesn't?" Zach inquired.
"Then Derek and I will reseed it after the season is done, I suppose."
Zach set his rake teeth-down on the grass and leaned on the handle in imitation of Craig.
"You've been a lot of help this morning, Zach," Craig complimented him. "Want to play some catch before we head home?"
"Sure," the youngster replied. "But you didn't bring a ball."
"The good coach never leaves home unprepared," Craig answered. He trotted the hundred feet to the pickup and laid his shovel in the bed, then opened the cab and fished around behind the passenger seat as Zach stowed the rake. Under the seat he found what he sought: two gloves and a baseball.
He tossed a glove to Zach. "Know how to use one of these?"
"A little," Zach replied. "We play baseball at school sometimes." He turned the glove this way and that, trying—and failing—to get his right hand inside it properly. "I'm left-handed," he reminded Craig, giving up on the glove and offering it back.
"I forgot. Let me see if Kara's old glove is in here." Craig delved back under the seat.
"Mom is left-handed, too?" Zach asked.
"Sure is," Craig said, coming back out and tossing Zach a left-hander's glove this time. Zach slipped it on easily and flipped it open and closed a few times, testing it.
"I knew it."
"Knew what?"
"That she really is my mom." Zach opened the glove and punched it, loosening its pocket. "We're both left-handed."
"Lots of people are left-handed."
"But I'm left-handed like her and I look like you," Zach contended.
"You look like me because you come from my side of the family. The left-handed thing is coincidence."
Zach held the glove up to his face, peering between the fingers at Craig. "I like oatmeal with raisins, too."
Craig shook his head. "The only thing that means, Zechariah, is that you're nuts."
Zach grinned.
"But if you can catch and throw a baseball, there's still hope for you. Run out there." Craig waved the youngster out into the grass. Paws scampered out of the way and sat down to watch.
"I'll start you with easy ones," Craig announced, tossing a soft lob that the youngster snatched fluidly out of the air. "Nice grab. Now, can you throw?"
Zach replied with a decent toss back.
"Not bad." He threw several more lobs, and Zach tracked each one down without trouble. "All right, it looks like you're ready for some harder stuff."
He sent Zach a faster, flatter throw. The youngster put his glove out to catch it, but also jumped to the side to dodge it. The ball flew past him and came to rest under a tree ten yards away. Paws leapt up and chased it down before Zach could. He brought it to Zach's feet and dropped it with pride.
"Thanks, Paws," Zach told him, rubbing the dog's yellow head as he snatched the ball up with his glove.
"So, do you watch the Mariners much?" Craig asked him.
Zach paused in mid-throw, arm cocked so that the ball in his hand hung beside his left ear. He tipped his head to one side. "You're checking to see if I was telling the truth, aren't you?"
Craig laughed. "You're good, Zach," he admitted. "You're right, I'm checking to see if your story is consistent. You have to admit, it's pretty strange—no TV, no video games, no toys, no going outside… Then again, your whole being here right now is crazy."
"I've had a strange life," Zach said, nodding in agreement.
"What do you mean?"
The youngster tossed the ball back to Craig, another good throw. "All my friends get to do stuff. I have to stay home, stay inside. They get to watch TV, play games. I only get to read books and listen to Mariners games on the radio—after I do my homework."
"At least you get to listen to them on the radio," Craig observed. "What else is strange about your life?"
"Nannies," Zach replied, watching another ball sail past his glove. He waited as Paws ran to fetch it for him. "No one else at my school has a nanny. I've had fourteen of them since Grandmother moved away."
"Fourteen?" Craig repeated with astonishment.
"Yeah. At first Grandfather said I would have a nanny just until Grandmother came back, but she died. So then I always had a nanny."
"Why so many? Did you have several at a time?" The ball flew back and forth between them. Zach was either getting braver as he spoke or was distracted enough not to notice that Craig was still throwing the ball rather hard. He actually began to catch about half of Craig's throws, Paws getting his exercise on the other half.
"No, only one at a time," he answered. "Three of them were named Maria. One was Rosa, another was Elena, and—and I can't remember the other ones' names. Most of them didn't stay very long. But the first one was the best. She stayed for two years!"
Craig continued to probe as he tossed the ball. "Why was she the best?"
Zach caught the ball and threw it back too hard, so that it sailed over Craig's head. This time Paws retrieved it for Craig, but instead of stopping to deposit it at Craig's feet, he loped all the way back to Zach.
"She liked me," the youngster explained. "She played with me, and she didn't always follow Grandfather's rules. She took me outside sometimes. She even took me to church with her a couple of times. But one day they found out she had been taking me for walks down the street, and she got fired. She cried when she had to pack up her stuff and leave. I cried, too, because I was pretty little then. I was only seven."
Craig reached out to catch the next throw with his bare hand. "So why did you have nannies? Why not just stay with a relative?"
The youngster shrugged. "I don't know. Grandfather always had a nanny come when he left to travel somewhere, and then he always made them be gone when he came back. The nanny would take me to school that morning, and then Grandfather would pick me up when school got out."
Craig fielded a throw on a short hop and zipped it back to Zach, who darted out of the way once again, but miraculously caught the ball in the pocket of the glove anyway. He threw a high one back to Craig.
"So if you always had to stay inside, did you never get to go anywhere?"
Zach shook his head. "Not after the first nanny left."
"Didn't you get to do anything interesting?"
"I read a lot of books. And I got to meet some interesting people."
"Like who?"
"I don't know who they were. People from different countries. I remember a man who wore one of those big things wrapped on his head."
"A turban?"
"I guess. And there were Asian people, too—mostly Asian people. And Africans and other kinds of people. And sometimes Americans. Most of them were polite."
Asian people? Maybe this boy had run across Elliott at times, or maybe Elliott had sent people to check on him. "How did you meet these people?"
"Grandfather brought them. Usually three or four of them. He would always want me to meet them and answer their questions. Then he would send me back to my room, but at least I got to meet them."
"Right." The youngster's stories were consistent, but they grew ever stranger as new details surfaced. "Here, see if you can catch a pop fly," Craig challenged him.
He threw the ball in a high arc that Zach scampered to his left to track down. The boy stationed himself correctly under the ball—good baseball instincts, Craig thought—stretched his glove arm hi
gh, and—
Whack! The ball missed his glove and struck Zach directly on the forehead. He swayed, fell, and landed flat on his back in the grass, arms and legs splayed out.
"Zach!" Craig yelled. A wave of panic washed over him as he ran to the youngster. Not the hospital, please don't have to go to the hospital. Not even a doctor, please, I don't know where you came from…
Paws reached Zach first and licked his arm, but Zach didn't revive. Craig reached him and knelt over him. "Zach—hey, Zach! Are you all right?" The youngster was breathing, but his eyes were closed and he didn't move.
The dog set a paw on Zach's chest and licked his face. The youngster's eyes shot open and he sat straight up. "Paws!" he scolded, pushing the dog away with his glove, wiping his face with his other hand. He was laughing.
Craig sat heavily on the grass and covered his eyes with a hand. "You definitely come from my side of the family," he remarked, shaking his head. "Did you miss the ball on purpose?"
Zach jumped back to his feet. "No, that part was an accident." He grinned at his cleverness until he pulled his cap off and pressed two fingers against his forehead. "Ow!" he exclaimed. "That actually hurts!"
"Serves you right, joker," Craig told him. "Now get that hat back on and I'll teach you how to catch a fly ball properly."
They played a while longer, until the first twinges of hunger prodded them to pack up and head home in search of lunch.
When they arrived, Craig sent Zach to return Paws to the back yard and fetch some water for him. He himself went inside to find Kara and share the further details Zach had revealed to him about his upbringing. Kara listened intently as she sat at the computer.
"I found some interesting information, too," she reported when he was done. Zach returned inside and made his way to the bathroom. Kara waited until he had closed the door, then continued in a low tone. "I tried to think of some way we could get definite information about Zach's parents. And I found something. Look at this," she said, pointing to the computer screen. It displayed a web page concerning birth certificates. "It turns out that Washington State is an open-record state."
"Which means?" Craig prompted.
"It means anyone can get a copy of anyone else's birth certificate."
"So…we can just drop by and request a copy of Zach's birth certificate?"
"Mm-hmm! If he was born in Washington. And," she added, "if we have the proper information."
"Like what?"
"His full name and the city or county of his birth…"
Craig nodded. "We might be able to guess on the county—probably here in King County."
"Mm-hmm. But here's the catch—we have to know his mother's maiden name."
"We only know his father's name."
"Right. Father is helpful, but they have to have the mother."
Craig rubbed his chin. "Would they track down his birth certificate for us if we could only give them Elliott's name?"
"I think we ought to find out."
"Are they open today? We could go right now."
"Nope, not until Monday."
Craig met Kara's eyes with conviction. "First thing Monday, then?"
"First thing Monday."
*****