Alive on Opening Day (7 page)

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, he 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.”

CHAPTER TEN

Working Man

“
Look, Dan,” David
addressed his son after the shock of seeing him awake had started
to subside that first afternoon. “I’m very proud of you for wanting
to work and be productive. It’s a testament to your character that
you have such a level head even when life is so topsy-turvy, but
there is no need to rush.”

“
I guess so, Dad,” Dan
said.

David went on: “Mr. Jordan
and I both have good jobs, and, between the two of us, we’re doing
fine taking care of Gabbie and Troy.”

“
And
they’re taking care of me, too,” Dan thought to himself. To David,
he said, “I know. I just need to contribute … I have to
do
something
.”

Dan wanted to play
baseball, of course, but without a scholarship and little interest
from the scouts a whole year before, that was nothing but a pipe
dream by the early spring of 1974. No, what Dan needed was a
real
job that would pay
him real money so he could support Troy and Gabbie and hopefully
move out of his parents’ house sooner rather than later.

“
I’ve already lost an
entire year of my life, and I don’t want to sit around waiting or
wondering what the future might bring,” Dan concluded

The conversation had begun
just a few minutes after David came rushing home from work that
Monday, and the topic came up again at dinner and even a couple of
times that evening when various friends from high school and other
family members dropped by the Hodges’ home to welcome Dan back to
the world of the living.

For the most part, though,
David and Clara were able to divert their discussions toward other
talking points until Gabbie and Troy left for the Jordan’s house
around 9 o’clock that night.

“
Are you sure you have to
go?” Dan asked her, not sure where their relationship stood and
uneasy about saying goodbye again so soon.

Gabbie nodded. “I can see
you’re exhausted, Dan, and Troy has had a long day, too. I need to
get him home, bathe him, and get him in his crib. There’s no place
for us to sleep here and, besides, I have school in the
morning.”

They were walking down the
sidewalk toward Gabbie’s car, and Dan stopped when they reached the
driver’s side door. He hugged Gabbie and kissed his sleeping son on
the top of his head.

“
OK,” he said. “But we’re
going to have to figure this out soon. I don’t like telling you
goodnight and having you leave … especially when you’re taking my
son with you.”

“
I know, Dan,” she said,
putting a hand to his face. “It’s all going to be OK. We’ll come
see you again tomorrow, OK?”

Dan nodded, but her words
stung and made him feel like an invalid and a burden. Why should
his girlfriend and son have to “come see” him like he was an old
man in a nursing home?

Gabbie climbed in the car,
pulled the door shut, and spent a few moments situating Troy in the
seat beside her before starting the engine. She waved to him as she
turned onto Deer Run Road and disappeared, and Dan stood watching
the vacant corner for a couple of minutes before heading back
inside.

It was clear to David when
Dan walked through the front door with an almost frantic expression
and fidgeting with his jacket zipper that there was something on
the boy’s mind.

“
Dad,” the boy said,
grabbing David by the elbow, “I need to talk to you …
alone.”

Dan shot a look at his
mother.

“
Oh,” she said, startled.
“I, uh, need to do some, uh, laundry.”

She had been waiting
alongside her husband for Dan, but now she turned and took a couple
of strides toward the back of the house.

“
No, Mom, stay,” Dan said.
Then, turning back to David, “Let’s take a walk outside,
Dad.”

—

The two men strolled
around their block four times that evening, talking about all that
had happened in the last nine months and the uncertainty of the
future. Most of their conversation, as it had been since Dan was a
Little Leaguer, was couched in baseball terms and, in particular,
the fortunes of the Cincinnati Reds.

“
Do you think the Reds can
win the World Series this year, Dad?” Dan asked at one
point.

“
Well,
if the New York Mets can make it to the Series with the team they
fielded
last
year,” David answered, “just about anything is possible. The
Dodgers are going to be tough, though.”