Home Field (9 page)

“Are you still subbing?” Stephanie asked, just to be polite.

“Actually, I got a job at the middle school as a guidance counselor.”

“That's where my brother Robbie's going to be,” Stephanie said. “He's starting sixth grade this year.”

“You didn't mention that!” Ms. Lanning said, turning to her father.

“I guess I forgot. I still think of him as being at the elementary school.”

“Forgot your own son!” Ms. Lanning laughed. Stephanie was alarmed. Was going to college in the fall really the right thing to do? Aunt Joelle had hinted to her that it might be better if she deferred her acceptance. But her father had already said no, that he didn't want her “backsliding” because of her mother.

A tall, thin man approached. He was young, with a scraggly goatee and wire-rimmed glasses. On his left wrist were a large black digital watch and two faded friendship bracelets, the kind that little kids make at camp. Stephanie knew he had to be Ms. Lanning's boyfriend because he looked like her: a little different, a hint of sophistication. Like he was possibly connected to some nearby urban center—D.C. or Baltimore or even just one of the wealthier suburbs like Chevy Chase
or Falls Church. After a minute or two of small talk, he said they had to leave for a picnic and the two of them were off. Her father stared after them for a moment and then mumbled that it was always awkward to see people from work out of context.

“Does she go to this church now?” Stephanie asked.

“She's just here for today, for the baptism. That guy she's dating is the godfather.”

“Oh, yeah.” Stephanie remembered him, now. He had stood up front while the baby wailed in her white dress, offended and confused by the drops of water on her head. Stephanie's own baptism had yielded the one and only photo of her entire biological family: her mother and her father and both sets of grandparents. It was disconcerting to look at it now, to see the Shanks standing so close to her mother.

Once, driving home after a night at the Baltimore Opera, Mrs. Shank had attempted to apologize for her absence in Stephanie's life.

“I think I resented that your mother could have more children. That she could start over. I know that's petty. I don't expect you to understand.”

Stephanie didn't know what to say.

“The irony is that I've always been grateful to your mother for having you,” Mrs. Shank said, that same night. “I know she pushed Sam to start a family.”

Stephanie wanted to ask,
If you're so grateful, why did it take you fifteen years to get to know me?

“Are Robbie and Bry still outside?” her father asked. He didn't wait for an answer, leading Stephanie toward the door. But they were intercepted by Ms. Lanning, who had come
back to ask Dean about a referral for a good sports doctor. Apparently Tim was having trouble with his knee.

Stephanie left them and went to find Robbie and Bry. When she found the lot empty, she looked immediately toward the road, her heart pounding. But then she heard them calling to her. Their voices came from the pines. They had climbed one of the trees.

“Steffy!” Bry waved from a surprisingly high branch. Robbie was lower down; she could see the white of his button-down shirt.

“Get down before you hurt yourself!” Stephanie wasn't actually worried. Pine trees were easy to climb, with their evenly spaced branches. The only danger was how spindly the branches were near the crown.

“I can see Dad from here! He's talking to some lady!”

“Be careful,” Stephanie said, knowing the boys wouldn't listen but feeling the need to pester them anyway. She was only going to be here for a few more days. And then they would be on their own, with no one to warn them of anything.

N
ICOLE'S YOUNGER SISTER,
Joelle, lived in the turn-of-the-century farmhouse where she and Nicole had grown up. It was made from fieldstone. The roof, recently replaced with expensive copper, had been purchased with Joelle's inheritance after her father's death. The copper was beautiful, especially in the late afternoon, when it turned a peachy-gold color. Inside, the house was dingier, with wall-to-wall carpeting and a mishmash of furniture: the very old, very simple chairs and crates, faded with use; the heavy-looking inherited pieces, made of dark lacquered woods; and the newest purchases, puffy chairs
and sofas, chosen for comfort and upholstered in faux leather. There were knickknacks, framed craft projects, and family photos everywhere, arranged in no particular way. It was chaotic but also cozy.

Joelle got to live in the house because she was the one who married a farmer. Dean liked her husband, Ed, a big-gutted, easygoing man whose tendency to bullshit about subjects he knew nothing about had earned him the nickname of Cowpie. Over the years he had amassed a number of novelty T-shirts that featured turds in one form or another. He was wearing one today as he grilled burgers and hot dogs.

“Why on earth would you wear a shirt like that if you're going to be serving people food?” asked Geneva, Dean's mother-in-law.

“Never mind Uncle Ed,” Stephanie said. “What is Aunt Joelle wearing?”

Joelle's outfit was perplexing: an oversized white tunic with plastic gems sewn on the collar and down the front, like buttons, and beneath it, purple leggings. It seemed better suited to an elementary-school-aged girl than a short, chesty woman with skinny legs.

“Maybe that's how people dress at her new church,” Geneva said. “Bejeweled for Jesus.”

“Grandma!” Stephanie chided. But she was smiling.

“I finally caved and went with her to a service. I knew it was going to be bad as soon as I saw the church. Have you seen it? It's prefab. Real shoddy construction. I said, ‘Joelle, Jesus was a carpenter!'”

“I bet she loved that,” Dean said.

“You can't joke with her anymore—that's the worst thing.”

Dean had no idea what he'd done to get his mother-in-law on his side, but it felt good to have at least one person in the family rooting for him. She had an independent streak that he admired, one that he felt the rest of the family failed to recognize. They were all shocked when, after her husband, Paul, died, she decided to renovate one of the old outbuildings at the edge of the pasture and live there. Joelle and Ed insisted she continue to live with them in the farmhouse, and even offered to build out an addition, but Geneva said she could smell Paul's death in the rooms.

“Who's ready for a burger?” Ed called from the grill.

“I'm going to go help Aunt Joelle with the salads,” Stephanie said, glaring at Dean before heading into the house.

“What was that about?” Geneva asked.

“She wants me to ask Joelle to help out with her brothers this fall, but I'm not crazy about that idea.”

“I don't blame you,” Geneva said. “Did you know she's going to homeschool Megan and Jenny this year? She doesn't want Megan going to the high school.”

“That's crazy; she won't be able to play sports,” Dean said. Megan was the older of Joelle's two daughters. She was a petite girl, and Dean still thought of her as a little kid around Robbie's age. But now she was moving into Stephanie's world.

“Of course sports are the first thing that comes into your head!” Geneva laughed.

“They give you confidence. I always told Stephanie that. She got her confidence from her grades, but that's not available to everyone.”

“Most people would see it the other way. They think sports take away confidence.”

“Those people are overly competitive. They can't enjoy something they aren't winning.”

“Aren't you that way?”

“I'm a coach,” Dean said. “I'm supposed to want to win. But I don't say you can't enjoy yourself if you don't. Maybe it's harder to. But you still get the physical benefits.”

“I've touched a nerve.”

“I'm just tired of my PE classes getting cut. Or I see a girl who looks athletic and it turns out she's a cheerleader. I told Stephanie I'd break both her legs if she became a cheerleader.”

“Maybe it's good Megan's not going to high school. She won't risk getting her legs broken by her fanatical uncle.”

Dean smiled. “I shouldn't be so hard on cheerleaders. They raise their own money. They can do what they want.”

“I shouldn't be so hard on Jo,” Geneva said. “All this Holy Roller stuff started after Paul passed on.”

Dean took his mother-in-law's hand. It was cool, despite the mugginess of the afternoon—like Nicole's used to be.

“There goes one of my buzzards.” Geneva watched a bulky-looking bird take flight from the pasture adjacent to her little house.

“Are you still encouraging them?” Dean asked.

“I left scraps out this morning.”

Geneva's vulture fixation had started when she noticed the birds were eating the dry mix that she put out for the barn cats. She began leaving meat scraps for them—gristle and poultry gizzards. After a few months, the vultures got accustomed to her treats and would hang out in her yard, waiting. No one could understand why she fed them, and Joelle thought she was just plain losing it. But Dean trusted she had her reasons.

More guests had begun to arrive, mostly Ed's family and people from Joelle's church. Stephanie emerged from the farmhouse to greet an older couple that Dean didn't immediately recognize from a distance. Their white-gray hair was cut in similarly short styles and they were dressed somewhat formally in khaki and white, as if they were on safari.

“Is that the Shanks?” Dean said. Even though Stephanie had been spending a lot of time with her grandparents, Dean rarely socialized with them. They usually didn't come to Willowboro. Instead, Stephanie drove to Frederick or Baltimore to meet them. They had stores in both cities and lived outside Baltimore.

“I told Joelle not to invite them but she insisted,” Geneva said. “I've never understood those people. The way they left Nic high and dry after Sam passed on. I think they blamed her. Like he wouldn't have gotten sick if he'd married someone else.”

“That was a long time ago,” Dean said. “They probably just needed someone to blame.”

“Aren't you forgiving.”

“They got Stephanie into a good college.” Dean wasn't in the mood to hate the Shanks. He got up out of his chair. “I'm going to see if the boys are in the barn.”

“You are avoiding the Shanks,” Geneva said, pointing a finger. “The Shanks
and
Joelle.”

He was avoiding everyone. He didn't know what to say about his life anymore. He patted his front pocket, where he'd placed the napkin Laura had given him. She'd written down her number and handed it to him at the end of their conversation about physical therapy (for her boyfriend, who seemed per
fectly healthy). She said to call her if he ever needed someone to talk to. And then she said she was sorry she hadn't gotten in touch after Nicole died, that she didn't know right away, and then when she did know, she didn't know if she should contact him, because what could she say, she hadn't even known Nicole, and anyway it wasn't as if they'd ever had that kind of friendship, the kind that entailed phone calls, and then she had blushed and said again that she was sorry, really so sorry, and Dean had finally interrupted and said it was okay, because it was; in fact, it was a relief to know that she still thought about him, and even more of a relief to know that she wanted to talk to him.

The gravel driveway that led from the farmhouse to the barn and down to the fields was flecked with sharp bits of hay. Dean picked one up and stuck it behind his ear, knowing it would make the boys laugh. But when he got to the barn, there was no sign of them. He stood in the darkened, cool space, savoring the dusklike feeling. Sunlight filtered in where the door was ajar, sending a stripe of gold across the beams. He became aware of the sadness inside him, an ancient, placeless feeling, and at the same time he felt marvelously alive. It had something to do with the smell of the barn, of the hay and the animals that slept there at night. It reminded him of his childhood and of his father, of the sweet through line connecting him to his past and extending to some unknown point in the future.

Dean heard someone behind him and turned to see Joelle standing in the doorway. Her jeweled tunic was even more out of place in the barn's soft light.

“I'm just trying to find my girls.” She began to head back outside.

“Wait, Joelle, I wanted to ask you something.”

“If you're wondering about the Shanks, Stephanie's the one who wanted to invite them, not me.”

“I don't mind the Shanks.” He wanted to say something conciliatory, something to bridge—or at least start to bridge—the divide that separated them. But now that he was face-to-face with his wife's younger sister, he could only think of how old and set in her ways she seemed. There was a hardness to her, a toughness. Maybe that was why Nicole had tried so hard to please her. It was as if Joelle were the older sister and Nicole the vulnerable young one. Their dynamic was such that when they had gone out together, people often assumed that Nicole was the baby of the family. “It's because I have such big boobs,” Joelle once said, to Dean's amusement. But over the years, she had wielded an influence that Dean often resented. Nicole always sought her advice first, weighing it against everyone else's as if it were the sensible standard. She'd even tried to believe in Joelle's version of God.

“Steffy says you're looking for a babysitter,” Joelle said. “I can watch them if need be.”

“Thanks, but we'll be okay.”

“You can't ask my mother, you can't put that on her.”

“I wasn't planning to.”

“What's your plan?”

“For now, the boys can come with me to practices. When school starts, I'll have Monica come over on weeknights when I have to work late.”