Page 30 of The Do-Over

But Billy hadn’t changed much about his life. He kept going to tryouts. Kept all his focus on his baseball career. Jenna had signed onto his baseball dreams. They’d both agreed that it was the best way to support the family. If he got a contract, they’d all benefit. In those days, she’d been one hundred percent in his corner.

It had been wonderful, glorious.

But now that a few years had passed, he could see that it hadn’t been balanced. Everything had been about him. What about Jenna’s wishes and desires? He hadn’t paid enough attention to that, and so he hadn’t deserved her love, and bit by bit, late night by hungover morning, her love had slipped away.

“Dad! Can we skate yet?”

He jerked back to attention. Lacey was looking at him strangely. “Sorry,” he said quickly as he jerked his laces tight. “Just remembering how beautiful the wedding was.”

“Who chose the ballfield as a wedding venue?”

“Jenna, actually. She, uh, we wanted to save money. It only cost twenty bucks to rent for an hour. We almost went over, but the minister rushed the vows and squeaked it in just in time.”

They’d raced through their vows and coughed on infield dust when a wind had come through. Damnit, if he could do that wedding over, but better, he would.

“We were young,” he explained to her as he got to his feet. “No money. I hadn’t gotten my first major league contract yet. Those early years were pretty tough. Young and broke.”

“And in love.”

“Well, yeah. Very much in love. No question about that.”

Okay, enough fucking wedding talk. He rose to his feet and stumped his way across the frozen ground to the ice pond. Frozen marsh grass was embedded in the crusty ice at the edge. He could see bubbles under the clear surface. Methane, probably. He and his brothers used to light those methane bubbles on fire.

He stepped onto the ice. Rock solid. Gingerly at first, he stroked across the surface. Then he picked up speed and raced across to the other side, his whoops of joy echoing across the pond and off the tall pines standing guard around the edge. The pond was frozen almost solid.

“Come on in, the water’s fine!” he called to the kids and Lacey. The boys whooped along with him and a minute later, the three of them were spinning and racing and playing tag. Zack found a chunk of ice and they kicked it back and forth like a hockey puck.

“Next time, we bring sticks,” Billy promised. “We need to get you guys ready for hockey season.”

“There’s a girl at school who wants me to learn ice dancing with her. I told her no way,” said Zack.

“Why would you say that?”

“I don’t know. I just like going fast. I said we could just skate together sometime.”

Did Zack really have to be so much like him? “Going fast is always fun, but it’s not the only way to have fun, right?”

“Like what else?”

“Like trying something new for a friend. Maybe you’ll like it better than going fast. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?”

“You don’t think it would be, you know, weird?”

Ugh, was Zack already worried about what other boys thought? He never had before. Galen had taught him how to knit a couple years ago. Billy had been thrilled that maybe all the unwritten rules that hemmed guys in were starting to fade away.

“You mean, girly?”

“Yeah.”

“Zack, some of the best things in life are girly.”

Zack made a face and skated backwards away from him. “Whatever.”

Billy followed. “I don’t want you to miss out on something fun just because another kid doesn’t get it. I never would have become a baseball player if I’d done that.”

“What do you mean?”

Billy skated fast around him. “Hockey was the hot sport at the high school back then. I only tried baseball because I started hanging out with Archie. Turned out I was a lot better at it than hockey. Now all those guys who said baseball was boring are giving me shit about missing double plays. People are always going to have something to say. That’s why you have to listen to yourself.”

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