Page 38 of The Foul Out

But Piper thrived on a set schedule, and I didn’t want her fight-or-flight instinct to kick in. For a kid like her, whose body wouldn’t produce the dopamine reaction the ways others did, a small change like this could cause a panicked reaction, and it could be incredibly difficult for her to rein herself in.

I held a hand out to Dylan. “We don’t have to have a snack.” With a look that begged her to hold off for another few minutes before bringing out the cookies, I turned to Piper. “What time did I say I’d take you up to the batting cages?”

The question was simple, but it was a reassurance that we had a schedule and that we’d stick to it.

Piper blinked rapidly, her stress increasing. “You saidwe would leave here at 1:15 becauseyou saidwe could bat at one thirty, since no one else would be there.”

“Yes.” I gave her a succinct nod. “That’s exactly what we’ll do.”

With that, she let out a long breath, and her hands relaxed.

“So we can do this for another ten minutes. Okay?”

She surveyed the dominos, her focus moving over them quickly. “And Mom can see this when she comes because it will stay and she can see it?”

I nodded, glancing at Dylan for backup. Approval, really. I was taking a lot of liberties in her facility.

“We’ll put up the play fence to protect it,” she promised. Dylan was one of the most easy-going people I’d ever met, and her general calm seemed to help Piper. That was a relief, since I was only here until she found more help.

“We should take a video of the whole thing once it’s set up,” Phoebe suggested. “Then we should record it again when it’s falling down.”

Piper blinked, and then she smiled at the blond girl. She didn’t make eye contact, but her focus was fixed somewhere around Phoebe’s neck. Piper’s smiles, I was learning, were few and far between.

“Yes,” she said. “Then we will have it forever.”

“Exactly,” Collette agreed with a proud nod.

When the girls were finished, I used my phone to take a video of the entire run as it stood. Then Dylan got the toddler fence out of the closet and put it up around their creation to protect it. Once Piper was certain it was secure, she and I headed up to the cages.

The vibration of the metal bat against a ball was great sensory input. My hope was that the input, along with the pressure on her joints, would alleviate some of the stress that had built up inside Piper today. If it didn’t help, then I’d take her to the training room and let her jump on the mini trampoline for a while.

“I know you love the Revs, but have you ever played baseball?”

“With Mom sometimes,” she said, her eyes darting around, taking in the details of the space—the netting, the clean white walls with a blue Revs logo in the center of each one, the turf beneath our feet, and the sound-deadening pads hanging around us. “I tried once with Dad, but I don’t like his mitt. It had bumps. He said I had to use it. Then he got frustrated and called Mom so we could go home.”

I winced, and my heart ached for the kid and her dad. Parenting a child on the spectrum wasn’t without its challenges. “How about hitting balls off a tee?”

She shrugged.

Taking that as a sign that she’d be up for trying, I pulled everything we’d need over and set it up. Ten minutes later, as she nailed another ball off the tee, it was clear this had been a great idea.

“Keep your swing level. You’re pulling up after you make contact,” I corrected.

She studied the tee, then the bat, and without looking at me, she nodded. I could see how people who didn’t understand Piper would consider her difficult. She danced along the line of composure and being stressed out all day long. Though the closest thing I’d seen to a meltdown from her today was the aftermath of her argument with Harper this morning, I could imagine how easily these could happen.

But as we worked on hitting off the tee, she was eager to please. Just like with the domino run, she wanted to do it right. She liked the positive reinforcement. Craved it, really, but she was worried about making a mistake. Doing things wrong. Especially new things.

Her bat cracked against the ball and sent it flying hard and high.

“Awesome. That was it.” I smiled, but I didn’t offer her a fist bump or a high five. Although she might oblige, like she had with Phoebe, it was clear she preferred her space.

“How do you like Little Fingers so far?”

With a shrug, she picked up another ball and set it on the tee. “I like the girls with the dominos. They make sense.”

I tried not to chuckle. Phoebe and Collette were definitely organizers. They didn’t play. They created a group of children who could dominate whatever activity they were performing. I appreciated that they were intelligent enough to see potential in Piper.

“I’m going to hit some balls too, if that’s okay.”

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