Conviction

Copyright © 2015 by Kelly Loy Gilbert
Cover illustration and lettering (car) © 2015 by Chris Silas Neal
Cover design by Maria Elias

All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 125 West End
Avenue, New York, New York 10023.

ISBN 978-1-4847-1943-5

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1. Title Page
   
2. Copyright
   
3. Dedication
   
4. Epigraph
   
5. Prologue
   
6. One
   
7. Two
   
8. Three
   
9. Four
   
10. Five
    
11. Six
    
12. Seven
    
13. Eight
    
14. Nine
    
15. Ten
    
16. Eleven
    
17. Twelve
    
18. Thirteen
    
19. Fourteen
    
20. Fifteen
    
21. Sixteen
    
22. Seventeen
    
23. Eighteen
    
24. Nineteen
    
25. Twenty
    
26. Twenty-one
    
27. Twenty-two
    
28. Twenty-three
    
29. Twenty-four
    
30. Twenty-five
    
31. Twenty-six
    
32. Twenty-seven
    
33. Twenty-eight
    
34. Twenty-nine
    
35. Thirty
    
36. Thirty-one
    
37. Thirty-two
    
38. Thirty-three
    
39. Thirty-four
    
40. Thirty-five
    
41. Thirty-six
    
42. Thirty-seven
    
43. Thirty-eight
    
44. Thirty-nine
    
45. Forty
    
46. Acknowledgments
    
47. About the Author
    

For my family, and most of all for Jesse

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

T
he San Francisco Giants took the St. Louis Cardinals 8–3 in a Saturday game at AT&T Park ten years ago, and that was the last time my
family—my dad, my older brother Trey, and me—all went to a game together. I was in first grade then, and that was before I knew too much about all the different ways your life can fall
apart, but still, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that most of what I believe now is because of what happened that day between me and God.

The game was the first time in forever that the three of us had done anything as a family, and it was a big deal to me because the way you hear how other families are into things like Christmas
or relatives or whatever, baseball’s always been the thing my family’s had. I’m a pitcher—I’m expected to go out as a first-round draft pick when I graduate next
year—and back then baseball was my whole life already. I’d been lying awake in bed thinking about the game for weeks beforehand, and when the night before finally came, I knelt on my
bedroom carpet and rested my forehead on my bed and asked God to give me some kind of sign. I know it’s not like if you come up with the magic combination of words to pray he’ll spit
out whatever crap you ask him to, like your own personal vending machine, but all week I’d put my best into my pitching and I’d been extra careful to obey my dad, and so this was the
deal I made with God: if he would give me some unmistakable sign, one that could only come from him, then I would take it as a promise that everything would be all right between my dad and
Trey.

It’s about two and a half hours west to San Francisco from Ornette, where we live in the Central Valley—all long, flat roads where the tule fog rises from the ground and pools at the
bottom of the valley against the foothills, a place that back then I always thought was so safe. We drove out through the country club by our house and past the vineyards and the huge ranch homes
up in the hills, past one of the giant billboards with my dad’s face on it, and as orchards of almond trees flicked by outside the window, I kept watch for what might be my sign.

Trey was graduating from high school that year, and the whole drive to San Francisco, my dad was teasing him about proposing to his girlfriend, Emily. Well, half teasing, because my dad always
wanted them to get married. He’d said more than once that she was Trey’s biggest accomplishment in life.

“You want a crazy way to propose?” he said when we were passing through La Abra and he’d locked the car doors and sped up. La Abra’s our rival, and every year when we go
there to play them we might as well be crossing an invisible border into some third world country: small faded homes and rundown apartments all crammed together with barred windows, dirt yards with
chain-link fences and vicious-looking pit bulls, a twenty-four-hour bail-bond place. We used to stop in La Abra once in a while to eat at this place my dad liked, but then he found out the owners
were illegals, and we quit going. My dad’s lived here long enough to remember when La Abra was still a safe, quiet farming town full of the same kind of people you’d find in Ornette,
families who’ve been around for generations, and he’s always going on about how now La Abra’s proof that we’re letting the country fall apart. All I know is you
couldn’t pay me to walk around there after dark.

“This one’s in the Bible, swear to God. Go bring Em’s dad a hundred Philistine foreskins. That’s what King David did when he wanted King Saul’s daughter as a wife.
That’s what Saul made him do. Except then David got two hundred.” He’d winked at me in the rearview mirror and turned his eyes from the road to grin at Trey. “Michal
must’ve been a real looker, huh?”

In the passenger seat, Trey adjusted the headphones he was wearing. He stared out the window. When the mounting silence in the car felt too thick to breathe through, I said, brightly, “Ha,
good one, Dad. Good advice.”

The look my dad gave me in the rearview mirror was half warning, half plea:
Don’t you turn out like your brother.
Trey was always his cautionary tale about what happened if you
threw away your potential, if you were lazy and didn’t have integrity in how you did things. It hadn’t been a great couple of months at home, but this time all he said to Trey was,
“You’ll regret it if you don’t lock her down before you leave for college.” He pressed on the word
college
like a bruise; he wasn’t happy Trey was going to a
school with no baseball team and a reputation for smoking pot. “I mean it,” he added. “I’m just trying to help.” Trey tilted his head back against the headrest and
closed his eyes like he was trying to sleep.

Back then, before New York and before his restaurant, Trey was a catcher. He was good, too, which made it all the worse that he was never willing to give the game very much of himself. It killed
my dad the way Trey just never cared.

We were at the park early so we could watch batting practice before the game. We bought hot dogs for all of us and a pretzel for me and a beer for my dad, and on our way down to the field level,
my dad took us the long way around the concourse to point out all the retired jersey numbers on display. Trey made it a point to look as bored as possible, and my dad, who’d been talking
about the game for weeks, was disappointed. He’s always liked stuff like that, and I have, too; baseball’s nothing if not proof of all the ways history matters to you. That’s why
the stats get so specific, like a guy’s batting average with two men on base, a guy’s pitching record against left-handed hitters in games at home when the team’s up by three runs
or more—that kind of thing. You’re always playing against the past.

I’d brought my glove just in case, and when we made our way down the stadium steps behind home plate, I got that anxious, rattling feeling in my heart I still get sometimes when I take the
mound before an important game, and just like that, I knew what I was supposed to ask for: that I would catch a foul ball today at the park. That would be my sign from God.

Where our seats were in right field you wouldn’t get foul balls, so it would have to be now during batting practice. I drifted away a few steps from Trey and my dad and angled myself just
behind the dugout where the protective fence dropped off, the best place to catch a ball. We stood there a while, watching the balls fly out across the field.

I was nervous. My hand was sweaty inside my glove. To distract myself, I asked Trey, “Who’s your favorite player?”

“My favorite?” Trey considered it, like he figured I deserved some kind of actual, thoughtful answer. I know there’s a lot you could say against my brother, but back then he
was always nice like that with me. “Probably Hummer.”

“Hummer?”
my dad repeated. “Trey. You’re killing me. Stab me in the heart, why don’t you. That kid looks like a fairy. And he plays like a humpback whale who
swallowed a whole cow.” I giggled, and my dad wrapped his arm around me. “The heck do you like about
Hummer
?”

“I’ve always liked him,” Trey said. “Maybe I’ll get a jersey.”

My dad snorted. “Be a cold day in hell before I buy
that
for you.” He’s always said you should never wear a jersey with another guy’s name on it, because
it’s weak and unambitious to only want to be as good as someone else who’s done it already. Trey knew that, obviously; he said it just to get at my dad. I agreed it’s weird to
wear someone else’s name across your back, but I also kind of felt like if you were going to, you might as well pick someone as terrible as Hummer, because then you still know you’re
better.

“I’ll buy one myself, then,” Trey said. Then he added, pretend-casually, “Who needs your money.”

I tensed. But this time all my dad said was, “Hummer, huh. Trey, that’s just embarrassing. You could kick his ass.”

Trey considered that, started to say something, then changed his mind. “Yeah, well, Braden could probably kick his ass.”

My dad had just bit into his hot dog, and he spit it out into his cup of beer because that made him laugh, and I felt better then. He held out his spit-in beer to Trey, the half-chewed chunk of
hot dog at the bottom.

“Here,” he said, grinning. “Drink this. It’s yours now. You earned it.”

“No, you did that. You drink it,” Trey said, but he started up the stairs and came back a few minutes later with another beer for my dad, and no Hummer jersey. I guess he
didn’t get carded; Trey always looked older, and anyway, people usually kind of go along with what he says.

“You didn’t have to,” my dad said. “Here. I’ll pay you back.” Trey waved off the bill my dad tried to give him until my dad folded it in half and slipped it
in Trey’s back pocket. Then my dad looked down at me and squeezed my shoulder. “So how about you, B? Tell me I’ve at least raised
you
right. Who’s your favorite
player?”

I knew it wasn’t just any question; it was a test. He’d take it as evidence that I was or wasn’t going to be like Trey. So I thought a little while, and it didn’t count
exactly, because it had been years since he played, but I said, “You.” It caught him by surprise, but it also made him happy, just like I’d known it would, and the way he squeezed
my shoulder made me feel like I was maybe a step closer to getting my sign from God.