Page 10 of Wild Hit (Wild Baseball Romance #3)
MIGUEL
“ W ill you be okay while I’m gone?”
Marty sighs like she’s seventy-years-old and has already lived a life, even though she’s just zipping up her sparkly black backpack for school. “You always ask that.”
I’m also zipping up my bag—the duffel one I pack as carryon for away series. Departure today is at a reasonable hour, so I didn’t have to ask Consuelo to come over early to get my daughter fed and delivered to her school bus safely. I’m taking care of it before I go.
“That’s because I always wonder the same,” I explain before pointing at her plate. “Finish your breakfast.”
This is a household that breaks its fast on arepa with cheese and eggs.
Marty’s plate is complimented by orange juice and mine by a green protein shake that tastes like death compared to the corn dough sandwich of my native country.
Marty twists on her chair back to focus on the food, her now fully loaded backpack sitting next to her on my spot.
Leaving my bags at the door, I return to the kitchen to finish drinking my swamp shake.
Yesterday Marty was the most excited I’ve seen her in a long time after hanging out with our neighbor.
I didn’t think it was the right time to bring up whatever’s going on at school.
But my kid isn’t a morning person, so asking her right now isn’t going to make her morning any worse than it always is.
“So…” It’s funny how I have to gather my nerve for something like this. “How are things going on at school?”
She lifts her head from the arepa in her hands, watching me as I round the kitchen island. “School is okay.”
“Are you making new friends?”
She shrugs.
“Give it time. Sometimes it takes a while for people to open up to you.”
Shit. I walked myself into a conversational wall.
I let her munch for a while, buying myself some time to devise a new approach.
But even though my brain races with possibilities, I’m modest enough to admit that I’m only really smart at the game of baseball and nothing else, and finesse requires wits that I just don’t have.
I end up going for the very direct approach.
“Anything difficult at school?”
She gives another long suffering sigh and sets the last of her food down on the plate. “Did she tell you?”
“Tell me what?” I tilt my head, a moment later realizing that if I really wanted to seem innocent, what I should’ve questioned was the who and not the what.
Her little mouth arcs with displeasure. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Do you not know me?” I cross my arms over the counter, lowering myself closer to her eye level. “All I ever do is worry about you, chiquita.”
It embarrasses her when I call her little one , especially because she’s always the tallest girl in her classroom—even over the boys, since they’re still not teens. But what can I say? She’s always going to be the tiny bundle of farts and puke I used to hold in my arms.
She pokes at her food with her finger, avoiding my eyes as she speaks. “There’s going to be this thing at school that I’d like to go to…”
“Hmm?” My shoulders relax. That doesn’t sound like much trouble at all. Of course I’ll let her go to a school day trip or a pajama party with responsible parents or?—
“But I can’t, because I don’t have a mom.”
I freeze. You could hear a pin drop.
Finally I break. “Wait, what?”
“It’s a mom and daughter tea party at the start of the new year. It’s a school tradition,” she says, her voice softer, like she’s about to cry.
The swamp protein shake in my stomach threatens to spill over.
Marty has a mom—she’s just in Doctors Without Borders, and last I checked was based out of Cambodia.
Lauren Smith showed up as a beautiful and fun woman at a nightclub.
She was with other med school friends and I was with some teammates in the minors, riding a high after a commanding win against another team.
One thing led to the next, and by morning we had no idea that we had just made the best mistake of our lives.
We agreed to see each other again casually until she was supposed to travel abroad for a semester, except that the morning sickness started hitting pretty early.
That changed everything. I considered giving up my baseball career, and the reason that didn’t happen is because I’m not very good at anything else. There was a better chance of me being able to support my new family if I stuck to it.
Meanwhile, Lauren made the difficult decision to stay home rather than pursue her assignment abroad, and we settled into a somewhat domestic life for roughly a year, through the delivery, and the first few months of Marty’s life.
We had to start on the rotation of nannies since then so Lauren could return to med school in Denver, and so I could travel with with team.
Everything seemed to be working at first. Yes, we were chronically tired from bad sleep, my performance at games wasn’t the best, and Lauren was exhausted all the time.
We started considering marriage, even though I was just twenty-one and Lauren three years older, and we probably would’ve gone through with it if it wasn’t for a big elephant in the room.
Lauren’s post-partum depression.
She hid it from me at first, which was probably a sign that a marriage between us wouldn’t have worked.
The truth outed itself gradually—or perhaps I was too dense to notice it quickly enough.
We had to call it quits when it became clear that she couldn’t carry on with this life that she hadn’t chosen.
Anyone would argue that I also hadn’t, but I did recognize that I had it easier.
I was still doing what I did best, traveling with the team and growing my career—even getting a lucrative first chance at the majors.
Lauren was just as ambitious, but all her plans were stalling.
She wasn’t a silver spoon and all the debt she had already accumulated at med school was going to sit on her shoulders unrewarded.
So the marriage plans fell through, I let Lauren go for her own health. I figured that would be a better example of caring about others for our daughter down the line.
I became Marty’s only parent, and my support system has consisted of a steady rotation of paid nannies and occasional visits from her grandparents from Venezuela.
I don’t really regret being irresponsible during a night at a club where I met the mother of my daughter, because otherwise I wouldn’t have the best thing in my entire life.
But I do constantly beat myself over the fact that I alone am not enough for Marty.
I can’t fill Lauren’s hole. And I can’t spend as much time with her as she deserves when I’m too busy making sure that she lacks nothing.
I’m simultaneously a decent father and a failure.
Right now, the pendulum swings hard toward the second one.
I try to temper myself and not show any reaction, but on the inside all I feel is a cold hand squeezing my stomach and pushing my breakfast up my throat.
“What if I go as your mom?” I ask with a thick voice.
She shakes her head, eyes cast down. “It’s supposed to be girls only.”
“And Consuelo?” I insist with a smidge of hope.
Marty shrugs. “Maybe? But she’s just my nanny. I’m still going to be the only one without a mom.”
I doubt it. I’m sure there’s at least one more kid who is an orphan or with divorced parents and a mom who lives across the country. But even when that can be true, it doesn’t negate my daughter’s hurt.
What I’m about to ask is just a Band-Aid, but that’s all I can offer her. “Isn’t that better than missing out altogether?”
A.k.a. isn’t settling better than nothing?
That’s not one of the life lessons I ever wanted to pass along to my daughter. I don’t play at the top of elite big leaguers just for my own self satisfaction. Yet it’s not like I can produce a new mom for Marty out of the woodwork.
She lifts her little shoulders again and they stay quite high the whole time as I walk her to the bus. “I’ll call the school and make the arrangements, okay?” I promise her as we wait by the curb, her tiny hand in mine. I pat it with my other hand, like I’m making an arepa.
“Okay…” she says, her usual grumpiness missing in action. I give her a big, sloppy kiss on the top of her head that would normally send her kicking and shrieking away from me, and she even lets me stay with her until she climbs aboard the bus.
I watch as it drives away, my heart hammering painfully just as I pull out my cellphone to call the school.
It takes a while to connect with someone, maybe because it’s still too early, or simply because I’m being impatient, or simply because one can’t always get what one wants.
But my mood comes crashing down even further when, instead of hearing an easy yes, what I get instead is, “I’m so sorry, but our policy for safety reasons is that only women with a proven kinship can join this event.”