Page 52 of Heavy Hitter

“No, I just—” Jimmy blows a breath out. “Can I come in?”

Rachel hesitates. “Sure,” she says finally, and opens the screen door so he can step inside. He brushes his cheek against hers by way of greeting, quick and polite, and the smell of her perfume makes him time travel.

The house is clean and quiet inside, with one of those big wooden signs that says HOME hanging on the wall in the foyer. Through the door of the den he briefly sees the profile of a toddler sitting on the carpet in front of the TV, something with blue cartoon dogs flickering jauntily across the screen. It turned out it wasn’t that she didn’t want to have kids, Rachel. She just didn’t want to have them with him. Jimmy guesses he doesn’t blame her for that.

“Can I get you anything?” she asks, once he’s followed her into the kitchen. “A beer?”

“No,” he says. “No, I’m not going to stay, I won’t keep you.” He tried to time this so her husband wouldn’t be here; Jimmy doesn’t particularly want the guy to walk in while he’s standing here trying to do whatever he’s trying to do here, and he can tell by the look on Rachel’s face that she doesn’t particularly want that, either.

“Okay.” She stands on the other side of the breakfast bar, flattening her hands against the granite. “So what’s up?”

Jimmy takes a deep breath. He had the whole ride over here to figure out what he was going to say to her. Fuck, he had four full years to figure out what he was going to say to her, but now—“How are you?”

Rachel quirks an eyebrow. “I’m good, thanks,” she says slowly. “I’m really good.”

“Good,” he agrees. “I mean. I figured you were, I just—” He breaks off. “I’m sorry,” he tries. “It’s just I—I mean—” He blows out a breath. “I met someone.”

“Yeah,” Rachel says—and she’s smirking at him openly now, though not unkindly. “I think I might have heard something about that.” She straightens up. “Did you come all the way out here to let me down easy? Because I gotta tell you, buddy, it’s a little late for—”

“No,” he interrupts. “No, of course not.” He laughs. “I guess I just—I met someone, and then I turned around and immediately fucked it up, which won’t be super surprising to you, I’m sure, but the point is, it made me remember that I owed you an apology for fucking our thing up that I had never actually gotten around to delivering, so. I wanted to finally nut up and do that.” He clears his throat. “I’m really sorry about all of it, Rach.”

Rachel is quiet for a long moment, looking at him across the breakfast bar. Sometimes Jimmy used to think she could see the bones underneath his skin. “How’d you fuck it up?” she asks finally, tilting her head to the side with an expression on her face like she’s expecting this to be amusing. “With your, ah. New someone.”

Jimmy laughs again, yanking at his beard a little. “I don’t know,” he says, glancing past her. “By being myself, probably.”

Right away, Rachel shakes her head. “Uh-uh,” she says flatly. “That’s a bullshit answer.”

“It’s—” Jimmy startles. “What?”

“It’s a bullshit answer,” she repeats, “on top of which it begs a kind of blanket absolution I have to tell you I’m not necessarily inclined to provide.”

Oh, this very well may have been a big mistake. “Rach—”

“Don’t Rach me, Jimmy.” Rachel’s voice is perfectly even. “You drop in out of the blue after literal years and tell me you ruined your new thing by being yourself; I tell you no, yourself was never that bad, at which point we hug it out and you go on your merry way feeling confident that whatever actually happened between you and that woman not only couldn’t have been your fault but also couldn’t have possibly been prevented? Is that what you were picturing when you came over here?”

“I—” Jimmy snaps his mouth shut. It kind of was what he was picturing, if he’s being completely honest with himself, but hearing it out loud makes him feel like a psychopath. “I—”

“Well?” Rachel raises an eyebrow.

Jimmy swallows hard. “On second thought,” he tells her sheepishly, “I think I actually will take that beer.”

That makes her smile, just a little. “I only have the douchey kind.”

“The douchey kind is great.”

Rachel pulls a bottle from the fridge and holds it out in his direction, but when he moves to take it from her hand she holds on an extra second. “I chased you our entire marriage, Jimmy,” she says quietly. “I was desperate for you to come to me, do you understand that? To trust me, to tell me things, to show me you loved me as much as you loved baseball. That’s the thing I want you to apologize for. Not for all of it; not for your whole personality. I want you to apologize for never chasing me back.”

Jimmy takes the beer and sets it down on the counter without opening it—absorbing her words in silence, looking at her here in her lovely new life. “I can see that,” he tells her truthfully. “I’m so sorry, Rach.”

Rachel holds his gaze for another moment, then shrugs and clears her throat. “Well,” she says. “For the record: yourself was never that bad.”

“Okay.” Jimmy feels himself smiling at her: her slightly exasperated expression, her hair falling in her face. Rachel was the first woman he ever loved, and standing here he can feel a satisfying ache in his chest, a longing not for the past he might have had but for the future that might still be in front of him, one full of adventure and high drama and the sound of someone singing old rock and roll songs on weekend mornings. He feels abruptly certain of what he wants, here in this kitchen. He feels suddenly sure.

“Mommy!” comes a small voice just then, drifting in from down the hallway. “Can I watch another one?”

“You may not,” Rachel calls back. “I’ll be there in one second.” She looks at Jimmy. “I should probably—”

“Yeah,” he says quickly, “yeah, I’ll leave you to it. Thank you, for this. For talking to me.”

---