Page 39 of The Fall Classic

Almost.

“I’d like that,” she says.

“Me too.”

***

The drive to the stadium takes six minutes—almost as long as it takes to walk—and I spend five and a half of them thinking about how Georgie was holding something back.

The other half a minute was me yelling at a possum to cross the road.

She wasn’t holding back in some secretive way, but more like she knows what it’s like to run out of gas and would rather stop and walk rather than risk being stranded again.

Meanwhile, I hold on until the tank is empty because I’m afraid I’ll get gas at the wrong station, leaving me stranded and walking, anyway. Different method, same result.

I know something, though. Georgie made that Little Free Library. She went pink when I called whoever built it a stud and said it’s a bit lopsided. She would never criticize someone else’s work.

She built it herself and didn’t want me to know.

Maybe she was waiting to see how I’d react, and by then, she felt silly about it.

Or maybe she doesn’t want anyone knowing.

I hope she did it just for her.

***

I’m not pitching today, but I do get some practice in before the game. Fletch finds me in the middle of my flat-ground session and watches for a minute without speaking.

“Doug’s eager about Tuesday’s game,” he says finally. “You’re starting again.”

I swallow and wind up and release toward the net, keeping it easy, nothing on the ball. “Okay.”

“He watched tape of your game Thursday,” Fletch says. “Whatever was different then, we want it to still be different Tuesday.”

“You and me both.”

“And Doug.”

There’s nothing at stake during this particular drill, but Fletch isn’t trying to keep me steady. I think he wants me to feel the weight of what he’s saying.

I try the thing from the tank—expanding my awareness out past my skin to where the air starts, blurring the line between where I end and the afternoon begins. But then my mind jumps to Georgie’s hands on my chest this morning.

“I’m working on it,” I tell him, winding up and releasing.

The ball hits exactly where I wanted it.

“Good,” Fletch says, a ghost of a smile on his face.

I watch him walk off, and for a moment, I debate asking him to come back, asking him if it’s okay that “whatever was different” is because of a girl.

But I already know the answer. I know what Fletch would say, I know what Dr. Chang would say, and I know what I should say, even if I don’t believe it.

No.

I can imagine all the objections. It’s not going to last. It’s not fair to put that on her. Change has to come from within.

And I think about the brat in The Giving Tree, how he took and took, expecting the Tree to do all the work for him⁠—