Page 29 of Running Home to You
Kate flipped open her LSAT book and didn’t look up. “Berkeley.”
“Wow, from Bible school to Berkeley. You really are a badass, Hutch.” Abby smirked.
“Don’t call me that,” she said.
“A badass?”
“No, Hutch. I like that you call me Kate.” Her eyes met Abby’s in a shock of color.
“Okay, Kate,” she whispered.
Abby dreamed of her mother again before their first game. She launched herself awake with a gasp. She wasn’t sure if she’d been shouting as she had in her dream, but when she glanced around the hotel room, her teammates slept soundly. Mick and T.K. shared one bed; Kate and Jill were in the other. Abby slept on a rollaway, the springs digging into her back.
She checked her phone. A quarter to five. Their game wasn’t until nine, but with her mother in her head, with her heart in a knot, tears building an army in her throat, she knew sleep wouldn’t come. Instead, she got out of bed, slipped on a hoodie, and left the room as quietly as possible.
The team stayed at a hotel on the edge of the city, closer to the tournament fields than downtown. Abby worked in from the outskirts, slinking under dark overpasses, avoiding used needles and people sleeping on the sidewalk. She stopped only to buy cigarettes.
Not an hour passed before Kate called. Abby ignored it but texted her to avoid alerting Coach Whitley.
I’m fine. Don’t worry.
Where are you?
I’ll be back in a little bit.
Abby smoked and roamed. The Arizona landscape, flat and desolate, suited her mood. She plopped on a bench near Sky Harbor as the sun rose and planes glided to the runway. With each puff and landing, she contemplated taking the field.
She’d spent months practicing for this moment, but it never occurred to her that it wouldn’t be the same. But of course it wasn’t. She’d been going through the motions. She hadn’t really felt the game since that terrible night almost a year ago. Since she lost sight of it in grief.
Abby returned to the field anyway, like a lapsed Catholic dragged themselves to Easter Sunday—it was simply what you did, no matter how much you’d changed. Even when you weren’t certain you believed. In that way, the game had been her religion. The one thing she understood, not just physically, but in her soul. The last true and safe place. Now she wondered if simply playing could be enough. If she could bear to come back to the game but not herself.
She returned to the hotel room twenty minutes before team breakfast.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Mick asked. “We’ve been freaking out.”
“I went for a walk,” Abby said as the door slammed behind her.
“Are you okay?” Kate asked.
Abby didn’t look at her. “I’m good.”
“We need to be downstairs in ten,” Mick said.
“I’ll be ready.”
While sleep-deprived and a touch anxious, she set her gears to autopilot. Fortunately, softball was part of her default settings. She didn’t speak at breakfast, not in the van, or when she warmed up with Kate, but her vision sharpened, her body loosened, and the ballpark fizzled into focus as Coach Whitley read the starting lineup in the dugout.
“Hutchins, Aalberg, Seaborn. Cruz, McMechan, Hightower. Shupe, Crosby, DeHaven. Let’s jump on them early. Hutchins, give us a good look.” Coach Whitley patted Kate’s shoulder before heading out to coach third.
The team clapped when the umpire shouted, “Play ball!” and Kate stepped into the box.
“Come on, Hutch! Get us started, Three!”
Kate roosted on the left side of the plate, nimbly perched, batpoised, shoulders so slackened that the three on her jersey stayed perfectly still. Leadoff hitter suited her. They typically weren’t the biggest on the team, but the most consistent and fastest. The person you relied on to get on base so your power hitters could knock them in.
Kate didn’t swing at the first strike. She took two balls, faked a bunt, then fouled off another. 2–2. Abby had observed her during practice but underestimated this part of her game. Disciplined in working the count, squeezing extra pitches to wear down the pitcher.
“Let’s go, Kate!” Abby yelled.
