Page 17 of Years in the Making

TEDDY

Zoe surprises me by jumping into the passenger seat as I’m about to leave for the game. The minute the seatbelt clicks she throws her head back and sighs dramatically. “I hope you don’t mind me coming with you. I need a fucking break from this place.”

“You know I don’t mind, ZoZo.” I reverse out of the driveway and turn the music down, anticipating my sister needing to chat. Some may call it twin intuition, while others may just recognize it as knowing someone you’ve spent twenty-two years living with.

“I tried to convince Dad to come to your game tonight. Will said he’d come and hang out with Mom so he could go without worrying about her. If it wasn’t such a late game, he could have brought her along.”

My sister is the social butterfly of the family. She supposedly takes after our mom, but it’s been a long time since my mom was someone else, and I think part of me has blocked that person because it’s painful to recall what we had. Dad had been someone else too. He never would have missed a game,probably because he was the one coaching. He coached us all when we were little, in multiple sports too. I didn’t appreciate how busy his life was until he had to take over for a lot of the things Mom did too, and he did it without complaint. But in doing so, he’s become a shadow of who he’d once been.

“She’s his entire world, Zoe. Remember?” I tease, glancing over at her briefly. Her mouth is set in a hard line while she glares out the windshield. “Sometimes I’m envious that by our age he had found his person.”

She looks over, her face still set in a grimace I know all too well. “Well, maybe he needs to broaden his fucking world, Teddy. She’s not going to be here forever, and what’s he going to do then ?”

I shrug. “He’ll figure it out. Besides, she’s not going anywhere for a very long time.” Zoe’s expression changes to one I can only describe as pity before she turns and looks out her window. I’m the one who should be feeling pity for her if anything. Constantly living with this cloud of doom hanging overhead, always prepared for the worst.

“I’m just glad they had so many years together before we came along and everything went to shit.”

Our parents met when they were twelve and thirteen. Mom was the new kid in town, and she and Dad became friends immediately. By the time Dad was seventeen, he had money socked away for a ring, and on Mom’s eighteenth birthday, he proposed. He’d been scouted by a few pro baseball teams and offered spots at training camps, but Mom had dreams of university and a career as a teacher. So Dad put his dreams away and got a job at a plant that made plane engines. I have no idea if he regrets staying here, especially after things took a turn for the worst. I also don’t know if I would ever do the same thing if given the choice. Follow a dream or stay for love. At this moment, I’d follow the dream without a secondthought. But I don’t have the love factor adding weight to the decision.

“Do you think he regrets it?”

“Regrets what?” Zoe asks, turning back to me.

“Not going pro and getting out of here.”

I can feel her eyes boring into the side of my head and resist the urge to turn back to her. “No, not at all. And if he thought it for one second he’d probably internally combust from the guilt he’d feel for thinking it. I think Mom might, though.”

“Might what? Regret him staying?”

“Yeah…” She pauses and takes a deep breath. “Sometimes it seems like she feels bad for him. Just the way she looks at him like she kept him from living his life then and even more now.”

“It’s not like Mom asked for any of this. All she wanted was Dad, and probably us. But she didn’t ask for the rest of it. Who the hell would?”

I take Zoe’s responding grunt as an agreement. I’ve always suspected Zoe resented our mother on occasion, and I think it eats at her a bit. Since she was twelve, she hasn’t got to do the things with our mom like other girls her age. And it wasn’t like our mom wasn’t there—she just couldn’t take Zoe shopping for a bra or give her advice about crushes or whatever else mothers and daughters do together. We learned earlier than most kids that life isn’t fair, but sometimes I feel like Zoe’s experience learning that was harsher than mine and Will’s.

“Listen, my next game is on Saturday and it’s midday, so maybe we can convince Dad to come then. Maybe even bring Mom along.” I know the chances of either happening are slim, but it never hurts to put it out into the universe.

As I put the car into park, my gaze snags on an auburn ponytail as it gets caught in the breeze. “Shit,” I say under my breath.

“What?” Zoe looks at me and follows my gaze. “Who’s that?”

“Who’s who?” I don’t know how I’d forgotten I’d invited Nellie tonight. A busy day taking Mom to various appointments and reading probably had something to do with it.

“No one,” I say quickly before getting out of the car and slamming the door. Zoe follows me to the trunk where I’ve stashed my gear and grabs it before I can. “Give me my stuff, Zoe,” I say between clenched teeth.

“Not until you tell me who Red is.” She swings the bag behind her back. I can easily get it from her but not without drawing attention to us.

“Just a friend, now give me my bag,” I grumble, holding my hand out.

“Wait, is she the ‘just a friend who reads’?” Zoe’s face morphs into that of a villain who just caught the hero. My sister does sinister too well for my liking.

“Yes,” I say, rolling my eyes, exasperated. “But she has a boyfriend, ergo, literally just a friend. Bag. Now.” She hands the bag back to me, still smirking, and then walks beside me towards the stands without further comment. I am officially dreading how the rest of the night is going to go.

I dump my bag in the dugout and say hi to a few of my teammates, most of whom I haven’t seen since last summer when we lost the championship game by one run in extra innings. My last memories of them are hazy at best, swimming beneath way too much alcohol.

“This is our year, boys.”

“Excuse me?” Carol Lawrence calls out.

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