Page 14 of Mine Forever
“Leave it, Nate. You’re right. But I drove Heather to do what she did. It was my fault.”
I look out toward the backyard where the waves are starting to grow and the wind continues to pick up. “Look, I’d love tocontinue spilling my guts to you, but I have work to do before the storm comes in. Plus I gotta get some food.”
I stand and Nate follows.
“I’ll help you.”
I shake my head. I need his help, but I need to have some alone time more.
My head has to be right before Eden arrives. “Nah, it won’t take me long, but I need to get started.”
“You sure? I can work on the garage while you get the guest house. Or I can go pull the boat up out of the water.”
I laugh. “The boat’s on a hydraulic lift, and the guest house has hurricane shutters. All I need to do is the garage, and I think I can handle it. Go home and leave me alone.”
“Fine, fine. Can’t say I didn’t try.”
After he leaves, I get to work covering the windows of the detached garage where I house a couple of toys I still own from my baseball days—my Harley and a 1965 Corvette.
I drive screws into plywood, and the mindless work has me thinking back to what my life was like a few years ago.
It’s fall and if we’re still playing, it means we had a great season and are in the playoffs.
Signing autographs.
Fending off the women.
But in my last year before retiring, it hadn’t been as carefree.
My late wife turned heads, and when I saw guys flirting with her, I’d had my suspicions she hadn’t been fending off the guys at all.
But honestly, I’d been too wrapped up in my career to pay attention.
I had one love at the time, and it wasn’t Heather.
Baseball has always been a demanding and greedy mistress, about as greedy and demanding as Heather had been.
Not to mention I gave my heart away a long time ago and never got it back.
Eden’s face swims into the forefront of my mind’s eye.
She’d been the only woman I’d loved more than baseball.
And yet, that isn’t exactly true either, is it?
I worked my ass off to be the best in the league, one of the best in history some said. Baseball had been the one love that never let me down. It had always been there.
Until it wasn’t.
I have more money than I’ll ever be able to spend, a beautiful house in a small slice of paradise, and my life is my own. Isn’t that what most people would call living your best life?
The reality is those are just things that don’t really matter.
I learned too late that the things that do matter are gone. My wife is dead, the love of my life hates me, and the range of motion in my arm has left me with the ability to swing a hammer—but I’ll never be able to throw my trademark fastball again.
I’d come to Cape Sands to get away from my life and anything that reminded me of what I’d lost. Here, there is peace. No one bothers me for the most part.
My celebrity lost its luster about six months after I moved here. After a while, you just become one of the locals. It’s a small island with some tourism, but mostly, it’s quiet.
