Binding Arbitration (18 page)

“You could’ve stayed with Amanda after graduation.”

“I stayed with her for a while.” I looked away abruptly. “But we weren’t having a physical relationship, and she couldn’t understand why. The only girl I wanted wasn’t interested in me. Amanda knew something was going on, but I couldn’t share you with her. Then, she found some evidence, and she left me.”

“Evidence?”

“Some letters. Amanda asked what had happened between us, and at that point I owed her the truth.”

“I never wrote you any letters.”

I arched a brow. “I can write you know.”

Her hand was over her mouth. “That must have killed her.”

“She was outraged that I’d abandoned you pregnant. She was more furious about that than my neglecting her.”

“A girl in law school bragged she’d spent the night with you.” Libby’s expression became grim. “Cass was only nine months old, and I hadn’t thought of being with anyone. It reminded me that I was alive, but you were the one who was living.”

“Does that mean you were watching?”

“I heard things, and I was at a party you attended two years ago. You seemed content.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“For the same reasons you never came looking for me.”

“Whatever else you think, I believed you gave the baby up. And while I was initially relieved, by the second day I was furious that you could give a piece of me away like that.”

“Compared to the way you gave us away?”

“I didn’t say it was right. It was just how I felt. So when are you going to answer the question, counselor?”

“Which question is that?”

“We’re both adults. You had a right to find someone else.”

“Who says I didn’t?”

I jerked, as if she had slapped me. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine but don’t yank my chain.” I got up and had started toward the closet, when she grabbed my wrist to stop me.

She looked from her fingers to my face. “Only a few,” the words so faint, I almost didn’t hear them.

I continued a step before asking. “Is there someone now?”

Neither of our eyes sought the others. “No. My life is much too complicated for that now.”

“Then we agree,” I said.

“I’m glad we’re clear on all of that.”

“Yes we’re clear.” I pushed open the door, and Cass’ voice roared up the stairs, asking when we were going to leave.

“I’ve grown up, but I haven’t changed that much.”

“I’m counting on that.” She smiled smugly.

“I’ve always done whatever it takes to have my way.”

The ump who hadn’t said a word all day grumbled.
All’s fair in love and war, kid
.

I made a disparaging hand sign into the mirror. Let him learn to call that play.

14

PLAIN VIEW

A location or field of perception in which something is plainly apparent.

Elizabeth

“This was the hood, when I was growing up.” Aidan said pointing toward the tree lined parkway. “My
bushia
used to tell my mother to stay out of this ‘Beatnik Neighborhood’.”

“If it was a bad neighborhood, why did you come?”

“My mother volunteered at the Chicago Historical Society. She helped the neighborhood ladies, giving away clothes, food and occasionally money.”

It was the first thing he’d ever told me about his mother, but I had already seen her photo at his house. She reminded me of Jackie Kennedy, petite, dark, and perfect, with a kind smile.

I heard a snort and turned around to find Cass with his head slumped back against the headrest asleep with his mouth agape. “He was up at the crack of dawn.” Aidan chuckled.

“He’s an early bird. But then ten minutes before we arrive somewhere, he conks out on me.”

“We’ll wake him up when we get to the ball field.”

Lincoln Park was to my right and on the left, some of the best real estate in Chicago. The architecture was as diverse as the city. Tall high-rises, soaring glass and metal remnants from the sixties, gleaming back water and sunlight. These were interspersed with shorter facades from a bygone era. Richardson arches rested on columns over entranceways. Red brick beauties showed off Italianate trims and moldings. They all stood along the Parkway, each one so different from the next, but united along the street front.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Aidan said.

“Did you know Lincoln Park was once the city cemetery?”

“It was an army post first, then the city cemetery and then a small pox hospital. Before that, it was a remote swampland of muddy forest. About 1860, some of the city’s leaders decided it should be Lake Park. They dug ten miles of ditches to drain the lowland into the lagoons that are sprinkled through the park now. It was based on Haussman’s Park in Paris.”

“Are you planning a career as a tour guide?”
Or did he remember my love of history?

“No, I’m considering a much more domestic position.”

“Hiring out for stud services?”

He laughed as he continued on with historical tidbits for a few minutes. “When my great-great grandfather started his business here, land was only one-hundred-and-twenty dollars an acre. His slaughterhouse was at Archibald and Clybourne, and he had several breweries down at this end of the park. All the cheap labor he could afford to employ was living in the neighborhood in between.”

“Beer and Brats? I thought your family was affluent.”

“Beer and Kielbasa. Brats are German. Kielbasa is Polish. They were prosperous, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t work. The first Polish immigrants to Chicago were nobles who fled after the Polish-Russian War of 1830-1831.”

I looked at him over my rimless glasses with an air of disbelief. “That explains the noble arrogance.”

“I’ve missed you busting my chops. Your mom’s a little wacky and your dad skipped out on you. But I’d bet my signing bonus you’re related to the Queen of England.”

I twisted in my seat and glared at him.

“What? You were always so proper.” His face brightened. “You were an English major.”

I expelled a breath toward the steamed up windshield. We had pulled into a parking spot, and I could see two baseball fields. One of which was occupied by a group of kids. “English was my major, took you only eight years to figure that one out.” I looked at my watch gauging how much longer I’d have to spend in the Polish Prince’s chariot.

Aidan pulled his right hand through his thick hair, resting his open hand on the back of his headrest stretching. The corded muscles of his chest flexed beneath his tight, long sleeve T-shirt. He watched me, as I watched him, before he moved his hand to graze my hair. “We could make out, if you’re not into family history?”

“What little I know of my father’s side, English Quakers that came to America in the early 1700's. My mother’s side is German; my fifth great-grandfather came during the Revolution.”

“That makes you about as American as apple pie.”

“He was a Hessian soldier who fought on the British side. He was marched up and down the colonies before being captured near Philadelphia. When the war ended, he was to be shipped back to Germany, but he didn’t have the money for transport, so he indentured himself to a South Carolina Quaker. After two years, he ran off with the man’s twenty-six-year-old daughter and a cow. They were married and had thirteen kids.”

“You have a fertile family. No wonder I got you pregnant the first time.”

I glanced back at Cass to make sure he was still asleep before I gave Aidan my best lawyers glare. “Proud of that, are you?”

“Just goes to show I'm extremely good at everything I do.”

I slapped his leg so hard the whack of it stung my hand. “I’m surprised you remember with all the lovely ladies that have fallen at your cleats since.” I looked away.

“I remember the night we spent together more clearly than any of the women in the last eight years.” His fingertips brushed aside the curtain of hair I was hiding behind. “Why haven’t you gotten married and had more kids?”

“I was working on becoming a partner.”

Cass’s voice pulled me from the game and questions I had no answers for. “Mommy promised me a brother when she found the right Mister. I want a brother, Mr. Pole-ow-ski, you know why?”

Aidan didn’t seem surprised by his voice. “No, why?”

“Cause then I won’t be the baby no more,” he said with a harrumph of a six-year-old.

“Seems like a reasonable request to me.” Aidan shrugged.

I turned away and opened the car door, letting the brisk breeze in. “Let’s go do what you do best, Palowski. Play games.”

He came around the car to help me, but I already landed on firm ground. “I think, with all our successes what we’ve done best is sitting in this car.” He touched the end of my nose with his chilled fingers. “And that, cutter, is no game.”

I walked toward the fields, watching the dust kick up as the runners wound their way around toward home. Aidan came up behind me, as I stood holding onto the chain link fence. He dropped the gear. “All I want is a chance to make Cass”—he stared off into the distance as if weighing each and every word he plucked from the swirling dust and leaves—“happy.”

He wants a chance to make mince meat out of my heart again?

Cass wandered toward the other field where the kids were playing a highly contested game. I looked back and forth between father and son, again struck by the similarities between them.

He took his leather jacket off, shoving it into my arms. “Put it on. It’s cold out here.” He pulled a Hoosier sweatshirt out of his duffle bag and once his head popped through the hole he started winding up his arms as he approached Cass, who smiled. “We’ll start with this glove. We need to break it in.” Aidan pulled out a can of shaving cream and sprayed a mound of foam on the glove, and Cass’s eyes expanded at the same rate.

“Tonight before you go to sleep, we’ll do it again. Put the ball in the pocket and tie some string around it so you can sleep with it under your mattress. That will help loosen it up.”

Cass giggled as Aidan bent the leather, making it more pliable. “See how this feels on your hand.” Aidan slipped the soft and shiny glove over Cass’ hand.

Cass slapped at his palm with his fist. “It feels good.”

“What position do you want to learn to play?”

“You’re a pitcher, right?”

“That’s the hardest position. Are you sure?”

Cass smiled a crooked smile. “Yep,” he said definitely.

“Okay, I’m going over to home plate. I just want to see your natural throwing.”

Aidan barely got there when Cass launched a cannonball that flew past his ducked head and ricocheted off the chain link back board. Aidan picked up the ball and smiled broadly. “I thought you never played before.” He arched a brow.

Cass snickered, before peering at me under hooded lids.

“You’ve got some gas, but it doesn’t matter how fast you can throw it, if you can’t get it in the strike zone.”

“Control the ball,” Cass parroted, “got it.”

Aidan went back to the pitching mound with Cass. “You’ve got a lot of raw talent, but let’s see what you can do if I teach you some form.” Aidan tossed him the ball.

“Index finger and middle fingers across the seams,” Cass repeated holding the ball as instructed.

“Now step with the opposite foot toward the target, which is your mom in this case.”

“The opposite foot pointed toward the target, got it.”

“You need to have your shoulders closed Cass.”

“Huh?”

“Your shoulders should be pointed toward your target. Now extend your throwing arm back behind you parallel to the ground, that’s called the long lever. The throwing motion begins by rotating your upper body and your hips, while your arm makes an L shape at your elbow. Release the ball snapping your wrist while your arm follows through toward the opposite hip.” Aidan maneuvered Cass’ limbs to complete the movement. “Okay, do the whole motion for me without the ball.”

Cass was concentrating on controlling all his appendages.

Aidan said, ‘again’ every time he wanted Cass to go through the movement from the start. They must have done it at least twenty times before Aidan put the ball in Cass glove.

I stood through Cass’s first lesson with my fingers wrapped around the metal chain links, and my mind wrapped around the fact that Cass’ had a father, one who had things to teach him. One who probably had answers to questions I’d been asking myself my entire life—‘Why’d you leave me?’

The kids playing at the adjacent field were edging closer to our field. They were varying shades of tan, from light caramel to rich chocolate. Each speaking in rapid fire Spanish, the gist of the conversation revolved around whether Aidan was a ‘real’ baseball player, and who was ‘man or woman’ enough, one of the two little girls pointed out, to find out.

Aidan and Cass lobbed the ball back and forth for a few rotations before Aidan looked at me. “You going to hold up the fence, babe, or are you going to catch for us?”

“Me?” I squeaked.

“You can catch, can’t you?” He tossed a glove at me when I came around the fence. I tested the mitt. It was broken in already, and I hated that I wondered how many girls had worn it.

“Okay, killer, let’s see if your bazooka can get the ball to Miss Priss over there.”

I got down in the catchers squat as Cass wound up and threw the ball, it smacked the center of my glove effortlessly. Cass jumped up and down. “I got it, oh yeah!”

I tossed the ball up into the air a few times, catching it easily while the two males congratulated each other, one on his coaching and the other on his ‘natural’ talents. Then I wound up myself—“Aidan.”—and threw the ball.

He barely got his hand up in time to catch it, before he took off his glove shaking the sting out of it. He started toward me. “You’ve got some ‘splaining to do.” He was about a yard shy of me when he stopped. “Well?”

I put my hand on my hip and gave him a dismissive once over. “Indiana State softball champions, two years at French Lick High.” Then I made my thumb and index finger into a gun and blew on the tip, I waited a moment before holstering it.

“By the time I figure you out, I’ll be dead.”