Page 100 of An Unfinished Story
“Public speaking is basically throwing fastballs with your mouth.”
Oliver rolled his eyes.
“Seriously.” Claire wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead. “I know you’d be good at it.”
“Can I think about it?”
“Of course you can. There’s no pressure. It was just something I thought you might enjoy.”
He stopped moving his feet. “I guess you’re right. I do need to get over the public speaking thing at some point.”
“We can take baby steps,” Claire said. “You don’t have to go address Congress. I was thinking we could visit some of the other foster homes to start out. I bet some of the kids newer to the system would love to hear how you’ve figured out your way. It could make a big difference. They’d look up to you.”
A thread of excitement ran through his words as he said, “Yeah, I could do that.”
Claire pushed up from the sand and offered him a hand. “Let’s get dried off and go do something fun.”
As she pulled him up, he asked, “Like what?”
“We could go annoy Whitaker while he’s trying to write.”
Oliver snorted. “That sounds kind of fun.”
Chapter 39
LET’SGO, YANKEES
Two months later and the Florida sun had officially baptized August with its first one-hundred-degree day. The humidity hung thick in the air, slowing everything and everyone down.
Whitaker and Claire had been spending a lot of quality time with Oliver, visiting his foster family’s house, taking him on adventures, even slowly introducing him to the Grant family, starting with Jack and Sadie—who’d welcomed him with open arms (or, as Whitaker had halfway joked, welcomed him with the Grant family’s vampiric bite). Oliver was not nearly as reserved as he had been when they’d first met him at the park. There were still hints of skepticism in his eyes and body language, but he’d come a long, long way.
Whitaker had secretly been writing, but he wasn’t worried about word count or delivering the perfect ending. He was having fun, writing from the heart. He wrote when the moment moved him, and he went where the story pulled him. But the pressure wasn’t there. He didn’t wake feeling the need to impress anyone. He didn’t wake feeling constrained by his ego.
He woke excited about telling the story that was coming alive before his very eyes, the breakthroughs of an egocentric man and the waking of a boy who has every reason in the world to keep on sleeping.
It wasn’t hard to put that on paper.
When Claire asked how things were going, he’d say with a grin, “I’m getting there.”
When she’d asked him this morning, he didn’t admit that he was only paragraphs away from typing “The End.” What only he and other writers could know was that typing those two words was the same as a mountaineer stabbing his flag into the peak of the mountain he’d just traversed, and he felt it coming.
Regarding that brunette librarian with a sword and shield that he called the muse, he’d been reminded of the most important lesson in writing. She certainly rewarded those writers who found the discipline to sit in the chair every single day, but she most rewarded those who remembered that there was life outside of a story, that a true writer must find his awakening in the real world.
Namely, Whitaker was in love, having found his real-life muse. Never had he cared for a woman as much as he did for Claire. He often caught himself watching her sleep or doing a task as mundane as putting away the dishes, losing himself in her movements and her facial expressions. She was a wonder that never ceased to tingle his senses. He still craved to hear her speak, especially as her voice rang with more cheeriness and positivity with each passing day.
And Oliver. One thing Whitaker knew for sure. David hadn’t done the boy justice inSaving Orlando. And absolutely no words could. Not even if Whitaker knew every language in the world could he describe the beauty and resilience of Oliver. He was one of a kind.
That was why when Jack Grant had surprised them all a week ago, telling them he’d bought additional tickets to go with his two season tickets for the series opener of the Yankees–Rays game, Whitaker’s heart had nearly burst out of his chest. Not only had his father bought the tickets as a way to officially accept Claire and Oliver into their lives, which was enough of a powerful message in and of itself. But Jack was continuing to contribute to the loving cocoon wrapping around Oliver, and that was what the boy needed: people in his corner, caring for him.
Claire was perhaps even more active than Whitaker in building this circle of love. Whitaker had seen the mother in her come alive, and she was there for him all the time, working closely with Jacky and Oliver’s case manager, making sure he had everything he needed, thinking of the things that only a woman with motherly instincts was able.
Due to the migration of the snowbirds and the century-long history St. Pete and Tampa Bay had with the New York Yankees, Tropicana Field in downtown St. Pete came alive when the Yankees came to town. Though the covered, air-conditioned stadium was home to the Tampa Bay Rays, Yankees fans often outnumbered the frustrated Rays fans, who wanted new management and a new stadium. It didn’t help that many in the Rays administration had been doing everything they could to move the stadium out of St. Pete.
It was a damn fine day to go to a baseball game. And an even finer day to take Oliver to thefirstregular-season game of his life. Whitaker, Claire, and Oliver climbed out of their Uber at the front door and quickly found some shade under an oak tree to wait on Whitaker’s parents. When the Yankees came to town, it was always a packed house. Decked-out Rays and Yankees fans moved in hordes toward the stadium, an occasional chant rising up from the excitement.
Oliver was wearing a white Yankees jersey with black stripes and the hat Claire had given him, and he looked to be bursting at the seams, ready to get inside and take his seat. Claire and Oliver were joking with each other as Whitaker scanned the crowd for his parents.
There they were.
