The Yips Pt. 02

He would be given final approval rights, he supposed.

"When are we going home, Daddy?" Little Brie asked as she gave her arrangement a few finishing adjustments.

"Tomorrow, Breezer. Daddy has to go back to work."

"At the park?"

"That's right. Back to the park. You want to come and watch?"

"Yes. I like the hot dogs."

Bryan smiled. Easy to please a toddler.

"Daddy?" Little Brie was standing, running her hand over the polished pink granite headstone. "Who is buried here?'

"A friend," he said. "A girl I went to school with."

Little Brie had been in preschool for a year and understood school. She understood graves, but did not understand how a friend of her daddy could end up buried in one. She turned suddenly and ran into his arms.

He dropped the bat and picked her up. And hugged her as though his life depended on her.

He thought about Owen Archer. If it hadn't been for that man's actions, this precious child of his would not exist.

Too bad Archer got nothing from it. Turned out that an NFL quarterback was no good to anyone if he saw double images. Blurry images at that. He was cut during the season. He had no cover, as his injury was not football-related. Baseball-related did not qualify.

He had his guaranteed millions, but the second wife took a huge chunk of it in the divorce. Even after that, he would have had enough to last him a lifetime. But he was a gambler. He lost at the Vegas tables, he lost at the racetrack. He lost on sports book.

Then some bright glib fellows convinced him to invest a huge chunk of what was left in their cryptocurrency, and something Bryan's grandmother always said turned out to be the Gospel truth: A fool and his money will soon part.

At least Lauren had not gone down with him. As she had done with Bryan, she felt the ship strike the iceberg and dove off in search of another lifeboat. The last he had heard from Brie, who of course kept track of the world via her network of witches, Lauren had sold the house and moved in with the founder of one of those biotech startups which were as common in the greater Boston area as discarded Dunkin' coffee cups.

He had called his ex-wife at the New Year and was pleased to hear that she was continuing in therapy. He was also happy to hear that she had plenty in the bank.

She should never have to worry about being poor again. He hoped. But he knew that the image you had of yourself was often radically different than the image others had of you and different yet again from the truth.

He had loved her once, and she was still the woman who had been by his side through the difficult minor league years. She had just finally run hard into that brick wall a little girl had built inside herself.

"We need to get back to Grampy and Grammy's house, Breezer. It's almost pool time."

He tickled her and she giggled. The moment of sorrow was dispelled.

He picked up the bat, carried his daughter over to the headstone, and leaned the old lumber against it.

He touched it for one last time. Probably five or six figures at an auction house, he thought. Three singles, three doubles, one triple. Two home runs. He hadn't learned that it tied the record for hits in a five game Series until two weeks after their raucous Duck Boat parade.

It could never be happy on some wall.

A towering straight hardwood in a Pennsylvania forest. Felled and sawn and seasoned and turned. Swung thousands of times. Stood silent against a desk for five years. Caressed every day.

Time to finish the tale.

Little Brie looked down and narrowed her eyes as she read letters on the bat and letters on the stone.

"Is that the same word?" she said, both proud of her alphabet skills and amazed to see the pattern on two very different surfaces.

"Yes, it is dear little Breezerweezer. Someday I will tell you all about it."

He put her down and they walked hand in hand on the path leading back to the main gate and their car.

The bat remained. He knew that someday, and he hoped that someday was soon, a child would wander through the cemetery and find it. That boy or girl would take the bat home and use it. Hit thousands of balls for years and years until it was worn and broken and its story was done.