Ryan hiccups, then laughs. “I don’t usually …”
“Cry,” he says, smiling. “I know. I’ve heard.”
She wipes her face with the back of her sleeve, taking a deep breath. When is the time to ask questions? she wonders. They’ve never spoken much about the specifics of the cancer, preferring to tread in other waters, sometimes safer, sometimes not. But now, Ryan feels like she’s moving with blinders on, unsure where her next footstep might fall, not knowing whether she’ll hit solid ground or not.
“Are you okay?” she asks, wanting to know exactly what they saw on the scans, the story behind the films she’d seen the doctors studying, the black-and-white tracings of bones and lungs. She’d like to know when they’ll hear back about the biopsy, what happens after that, a rundown of all the medical possibilities, and within those possibilities, a list of anything unforeseen that might still occur, and on and on until there are no dark corners, nothing left on which to shed any more light.
Nick lifts his shoulders. “Hard to tell,” he says. “We’ll see, I guess.”
Ryan stares at him, stricken by his voice, which sounds so empty of hope in the quiet of the hospital room. She’s reminded of his words from the summer, which come back to her now with renewed meaning. Do you really think they’ll win? he’d asked about the Cubs, looking doubtful as they lay sprawled outside on the grass that night. Ryan couldn’t understand then how it was possible to watch every game, to cheer as though it mattered, and to do all this without truly believing. Isn’t that a requirement in this unreliable pastime? she had wondered. A certain amount of faith that things will work out in the end?
But now that she, too, has given up on their team, Ryan sees that she’s gone through life in the very same way: moving forward without conviction that it’s going to take her anywhere. She stands and walks to the window, letting the silence between them grow. The truth is that she has little to offer him right now. In a way, she realizes, she’s been no better than he has.
Nick’s hair is uncombed and his eyes are glassy from lack of sleep, a paler shade of green in the brightness of the room. Ryan flips the switch, and the room goes from white to gray, a wedge of light from the window stamped across the end of the bed.
Her eyes fall to his Cubs hat, which sits on the bedside table, and out the window just beyond it, she sees the scattered pinpricks of light that mark the harbor below. When she closes her eyes, she can almost imagine they’re elsewhere—on the lawn beneath a nighttime sky, or lying on the couch in her basement—but the high sound of a beeping machine goes off behind the curtain that separates the room, and there’s a flurry of footsteps as the doctors and nurses move in and then back out.
“Do you know who it is?” Ryan asks after a moment, her eyes on the curtain.
Nick shakes his head. “It was somebody different this morning.”
She’s about to ask something more, but he’s watching her with pleading eyes, a look that suggests just how little it would take to topple whatever composure he’s managed to cobble together. And Ryan knows how that feels. So she does the only thing she can.
“Hey,” she says, her voice gruff. “How many games back are we now? For the wild-card spot?”
Nick looks visibly relieved. “We’re only one behind Houston,” he says. “So the St. Louis series is really important. But it’s definitely doable.”
“As long as we don’t start acting like the Cubs.”
“True,” he says, smiling. “There’s a game on tomorrow night. Would you want to come down here after school to watch?”
Ryan hesitates, glancing up at the little television suspended from the ceiling and angled toward his bed. She’s not sure how to answer the question, designed to be easy, but now suddenly a challenge.
“I could try,” she says, feeling like a fraud, because you don’t try to make it to the hospital when someone you know is sick. You just do it. And perhaps even more important, you don’t just try to make it when someone invites you to watch a Cubs game. You put on your cap, ready yourself for battle, and you cheer until your voice has left you. There should be no such thing as trying in either of these propositions, but for Ryan, all the rules have recently changed, and now she feels turned inside out. She stands from the chair and paces the room while Nick watches, frowning and confused.
“You don’t have to,” he says, not bothering to hide his disappointment. He shakes his head and looks at the ceiling. “I just figured you’d want to.”
Ryan rubs her eyes, not sure how to fix this. But something inside of her has shifted, and the team that has carried her through so much has now let her down. And not because of the tally of losses, the endless blunders, the perennial disappointment. But because she’d been foolish enough to bet against them, to play a dangerous game with stakes she had no business setting, and however illogically, she now feels let down. And it’s nobody’s fault but her own.
But maybe even worse is the thought that strikes her now: if she’s given up on them, and if Nick never believed in the first place, then what’s the point? If neither one of them cares anymore, if neither can muster up the kind of enthusiasm that first brought them together, then what’s the point of any of this?
“Why do you cheer for them?” she asks quietly, and Nick looks over, surprised. “If you really don’t think they’ll ever win, why bother watching at all?”
She can tell he’s annoyed with her by the way he’s scowling at his hands, but the question seems important somehow.
“What does it matter?” he asks, shrugging. “You already made it pretty clear you don’t want to come watch anyway.”
“It just does,” she says. “It matters.”
“Why?” he asks, but Ryan isn’t sure how to answer. Right now, she feels further away from him than ever before, just a few feet between them in the tiny room.
“I’m sorry,” she says, unsure what she means exactly, though it feels like there’s plenty to be sorry about. And then, because it’s the only thought that keeps persisting, and because it’s the only thing she knows with any certainty, she says, “I just want for you to be okay.”
Nick shrugs, punching at the remote control to the bed, which whirs up and down beneath him until, satisfied, he leans back.
“You don’t have to come tomorrow,” he says. “It’s just a ball game.”
“I’ll be here,” she tells him, a hollow note to her voice.
“Sure,” Nick says, then rolls over so that his back is to her, and there’s nothing left for Ryan to do but walk back out into the bright yellow hallway alone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
* * *
IT’S RAINING WHEN THEY EMERGE FROM THE HOSPITAL later, a shower with a hint of autumn to it, chilly and biting in the gray dusk. Ryan follows Nick’s parents to their car, her backpack hanging off one shoulder and her collar pulled up to her ears in a useless attempt to ward off the rain. Her stomach is churning as they pass out of the hospital parking lot, the full weight of the situation only now hitting her.
She knows that Mrs. Crowley called her mother while she’d been in with Nick, and everything before her now seems suddenly daunting: the long car ride home, the discussions to follow, the slight shifting of those around her in response to this new information. How Nick must feel, Ryan can’t even begin to guess. Because even her tangential role in this new turn of events makes her want to run, to bolt, to crawl into a hole and fall asleep and not wake up until—when? When they find out he’s okay? When they find out he’s not? When the ending to his story has already unfolded, for better or worse, and whatever might befall him—tragedy or triumph—has made itself known?
They drive home in silence, Ryan huddled in the backseat near the window, her knees close and her head low as they pass beneath a bruised and purpled sky, the rain loud on the windshield and the wipers singing out in the growing darkness. A few times, Mrs. Crowley swings her head around between the seats as if to offer a few words of reassurance, but it’s a h
ard thing to break a silence that thick, and so she turns back again and again without speaking. Ryan breathes a circle of fog onto the window, then rubs at it with her thumb, unable to bring herself to voice any of the questions that are clouding her head.
By the time they pull off the highway, the headlights do little more than illuminate the layers of rain, and Mr. Crowley’s back is curved as he hunches over the steering wheel. Without the rush of the expressway, the world around the car has fallen silent, and Mrs. Crowley turns the radio to the first clear station, a too-cheery oldies song that quickly fills the car.
“This isn’t an easy thing,” Mr. Crowley says over the music, and Ryan sits up in the backseat. “But we’ve gotten through it before, so …”
Mrs. Crowley lays a hand on his arm, but his eyes stay focused on the blurry road ahead as they turn off into their neighborhood. She leans between the seats again, and this time, clears her throat. “It’s okay if you’re worried,” she says to Ryan. “And it’s okay if you have questions or don’t understand all of it.”
Ryan nods, but she wants to tell them that the problem isn’t that. The problem is that she does understand. The problem is that Nick is there and she’s here, and that none of this is how anything is supposed to happen. Nobody has said any of the usual things—he’ll be just fine or don’t worry or he’ll be better soon—and this is what Ryan is thinking about as they pull into her driveway. She can see Mom’s face peering anxiously through the kitchen window, and she puts a hand on the car door, unsure what should happen next. Should she thank them for the ride? Do such rote manners still apply in times like this, when the world is crumbling to pieces all around you?
She runs up to the house beneath a ragged curtain of rain. Inside, it’s strangely quiet for this time of evening—the hour of clanging forks and noisy television, the daily recounting of stories at high volume—and when Mom moves swiftly around the corner and sweeps her into a hug, Ryan has to remind herself to breathe.
“I’m so sorry,” Mom says, murmuring into her neck. “We didn’t know.”
“Don’t,” Ryan says, and Mom pulls back, bringing both hands to the curve of her stomach. They stand studying each other, only the welcome mat between them, until Ryan notices Emily hanging over the banister at the top of the stairs. Kevin pokes his head out of the bedroom and motions her back inside, and Emily—close-lipped and distressingly obedient—disappears from the hallway.
Ryan fixes her eyes on Mom, who shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I just thought maybe you and I could talk alone.”
“I don’t really want to,” she says, shrugging her backpack to the floor where it lands with a wet thump. This is not true in the least, but the theatrics of it all—the careful choreography of the moment—make Ryan feel somehow worse. Nothing has happened to me, she wants to shout. No need to tiptoe around me. No need to feel sorry for me.
But instead, she ambles off toward the kitchen with Mom following at a safe distance, and pulls a tin of cocoa from the pantry. Mom sets a kettle boiling on the stove, and Ryan takes a sweatshirt from a pile of laundry and pulls it on over her damp clothes. The lights in the kitchen flicker from yellow to brown then back again, and the house sighs at the drum roll of thunder out beyond the windows.
When it’s ready, they take the cocoa into the den, where they sit on opposite ends of the same couch listening as the windows tremble against the weather.
“You didn’t tell me,” Mom says, lowering her mug. “How come?”
“You’re busy,” Ryan says, looking away. “There’s the new baby and everything.” They both know this isn’t the reason, but neither makes a move to say anything further. Ryan stares hard at the mug in her hand.
“Is it because you didn’t want it to be true?” Mom asks gently, and there’s nothing left to do but nod, a miserable, weary little tilt of her head. Rather than move to hug her, rather than close the space between them on the couch, Mom looks thoughtfully out the window at the storm, and Ryan is grateful for this. She feels dangerously unglued, mere inches from falling to pieces. Outside, a jagged fork of lightning brightens the sky, and at the exact same moment—as if by some previous agreement—the lights in the house fall suddenly dark.
“Mom?” Ryan says, her voice small in the blackness, and then there are a few confused moments as they feel their way to the kitchen and fumble through the drawers to find a matchbook and a few candles. When they manage to get them lit, their fingers slow in the absence of light, the flames are close and orange, and Mom’s face is wavery behind them. Every so often, the room flashes white and the thunder makes them draw closer to the candles. Ryan hugs her knees and shivers.
“Well,” Mom says, laughing softly. “This isn’t dramatic at all.”
The comment sounds so much like Nick’s pronouncement that day at the game—the day of the last big storm and the even bigger announcement—that Ryan has to blink fast, working to stop the tears that are hot against the backs of her eyes. She wipes her nose and sniffles.
Mom scoots over on the couch and rubs her back. “It’s okay to be scared.”
“I’m not,” Ryan says, staring ferociously at her lap.
“Then it’s okay to be upset.”
She shakes her head.
“You’re just like your father,” Mom says eventually, and Ryan’s jaw tightens. How can she explain that it’s too much to live up to, this weighty comparison between them? Even after all that he’d been, all that he’d stood for, all that he’d taught her, Ryan now stands before a trial greater than any ball game, not tall and straight and ready, but cold and scared and alone.
“I’m not,” Ryan mumbles. “I’m not as much like him as you think.”
Mom smiles faintly. “You are.”
“Then I don’t want to be,” she says, and the words come out with a force she hadn’t expected. But somewhere inside of her a small knot of anger is twisting itself tighter. All she could think when she saw Nick in the hospital earlier was how could you? and why him? and it’s not fair, over and over and over until she was no longer certain who she was even talking about. It was Nick she was looking at, but a part of her thoughts were—as they always are and ever will be—on her dad.
The branches of a tree scrape at the window, and Ryan watches the shadows across the ceiling. Mom dangles a hand over one of the candles, her fingers waving like a magician’s, scattering smoke and splitting flame. When the light is steady again, she looks up at Ryan. “I remember your father used to have this horseshoe hanging above the garage door,” she says, shaking her head at the very idea of it.
“What for?”
“For luck.” Mom smiles from behind distant eyes. “He had it hanging upside down to catch as much of it as possible. Then one day, he shut the door too hard and the thing fell right off. Your poor dad looked like a kid whose last cookie just hit the floor. But he bent down, picked it up, and brushed it off. Then he went right out to get his toolbox so he could hang it up again. And you know what he said?”
Ryan shakes her head.
“He said that it’s not a bad thing to have to start from scratch every now and then.”
“With the luck?”
Mom nods. “That’s what he meant when he told you to always keep moving forward. It didn’t mean you always have to know exactly what to do or where to go. All he meant was that when your luck runs out, you just have to pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and make some new luck for yourself.”
“But how?” Ryan asks.
“Listen,” Mom says, moving closer to her on the couch. “Nobody’s asking you to be Dad. But you should know that you are like him in the ways that are important. Don’t confuse baseball with life, okay? When Dad said to be brave and keep your chin up and always keep moving, he didn’t mean you can’t ever be scared. And when he said everything works out in the end, he didn’t mean it would come easily. And he didn’t mean it wouldn’t be tough.”
Ryan’s voice, when she speaks, is
very small. “I’m not sure …” she begins, then breathes in and starts again. “What if it’s not enough?”
Mom wrinkles her forehead, waiting.
“What if I can’t hope enough for us both?”
Even in the dark, she can see Mom’s face change, the lines around her eyes going soft and slack, the shape of her mouth loosening. There’s a long silence. The wind rattles the beams of the house with a rhythm of its own that blends with the rain.
“You don’t have to,” Mom says, placing a closed hand against her heart. “You don’t have to do anything alone, and you don’t have to be so brave.”
Ryan bows her head but doesn’t say anything. After a moment, she looks up. “Where is it now?” she asks.
“What?”
“The horseshoe.”
Mom smiles through the dark. “He gave it away years ago.”
“To who?”
“Someone who needed more luck than he did.”
“Who?” Ryan insists.
“Who do you think?” Mom says, her smile widening. “He left it at Wrigley.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
* * *
IN THE MORNING, RYAN STANDS BEFORE HER CLOSET for a long time. Outside her bedroom window, the sun breaks free of the clouds, and the smell of waffles from the kitchen winds its way up the stairs. The night before, she’d slept fitfully, twisting the covers into knots. She hadn’t meant for her conversation with Nick to snowball the way it did yesterday, to turn into an argument of sorts. But everything had felt so terribly bleak: with Ryan, guilt-stricken over the bargain she’d made, and Nick, so frighteningly void of all hope. She had no idea how to possibly reassure him when she herself was so completely unsure. How would he ever be okay if she couldn’t even find the words to say it?
She bites her lip and stares at her closet door. It takes her a few minutes to finally step forward, standing on her tiptoes to feel along the uppermost shelves. She pushes aside scarves and mittens, shoeboxes full of photographs and sweaters she hasn’t worn in years. When her fingers finally brush the brim of the cap, she closes her hand around it.