Never Blame the Umpire (10 page)

Adventure Land was so much fun I bet I went an hour or two at a time without thinking of Mama. Of course, then I felt guilty when I remembered her at home, sick and in pain.

Now Ginny and I are out by the swimming pool at the motel where we’re going to stay tonight. For the first half hour or so Ginny and I had the pool all to ourselves. We could dive and have races without worrying about other people getting in our way.

Then a bunch of other people jumped into the pool, so Ginny and I got out and sprawled out on deck chairs. Ginny brought along a book to read, and I have my journal with me.

I’ve been writing in my journal almost every
day since Mr. Gallagher’s class. He told us that most writers, and people who want to be writers, keep daily journals to help them remember ideas that might become stories and poems. He said that writing every day and keeping journals helps a writer develop a personal style. He told us that the best advice he ever got was that if he wanted to be a writer he must first write a million words. After someone writes a million words they start to develop a personal style.

A million words. He must have been kidding. I’m pretty sure that’s more than I’ll ever be able to write. But who knows. If I can write a few hundred words a week they’ll start to add up.

Another thing Mr. Gallagher said is that keeping a journal can be like therapy. It can help a person sort through all their confusing feelings.

I’ve had a lot of them this summer.

Now that I’ve gotten in the habit of keeping a journal, I can’t imagine not keeping one. I know there won’t probably be a lot of time to write when Ginny and I get back to our room, so I decide to write now, while Ginny is reading her book.

Something I’ve been trying to do lately is try to write my journal entries as poems. At least I’m trying to make them look like poems. Most of the time I don’t even plan what I’m going to write. I just let the thoughts come.

I had fun today.

I didn’t realize that having fun

Could make a person feel bad.

I don’t have the right to have fun

When Mama is so sick.

I’ve phoned her a few times every day.

She always tells me that she hopes

I’m having a good time.

“I am, Mama,” I tell her.

When I hang up, I feel guilty

That I didn’t even have to lie to her.

I guess I’d feel guilty no matter what

Because I should be home with her

Even though I’m glad I’m here.

You’d say I’m being silly, wouldn’t you, Mama,

Even though I don’t feel at all silly.

Her pain seems to be worse.

I can see it in her face. I can see it

In the way she turns away to hide her pain from me.

Even the pain medication Dad gives her

Doesn’t seem to help.

I think maybe Mama wanted me to come with Ginny

Not just because it would be fun for me.

I think another reason was so

She wouldn’t have to work so hard

To hide her pain from me these past three days.

I’m sorry, Mama, for having such a good time.

I close my notebook. It’s a beautiful day. The water in the pool is the perfect temperature. I don’t want to be sad anymore. Not today. I know Mama wouldn’t want me to be sad.

“Want to swim some more?” I ask Ginny.

“Sure,” she says. “Just let me finish this chapter. I’m in a really exciting part.”

I open my notebook again. I want to write about something happy. The first thing that pops into my head is the two boys we met yesterday.

Waiting in line for the Monster Coaster ride.

Ginny and me.

Giggling and not paying attention

To anyone around us until someone says,

“You have a nice giggle.”

There were two boys right behind us.

Two cute boys. Our age, I think.

Maybe a year older.

I don’t know if it was Ginny or me

Who he thought had a nice giggle.

We talked to them for the ten minutes or so

We stood in line for our ride.

We found out they live about six hours from us.

We found out they love baseball.

Ginny told them that we do too. A white lie

(about her loving baseball). She glared at me

so I knew enough to not tell them the truth.

They sat right behind us on the Monster Coaster.

But we didn’t even get their names.

And they didn’t get ours.

After we all left the Monster Coaster

We never saw them again.

Somebody just jumped from the diving board and made a splash so big a few drops of water land on my journal. I look up. I can’t believe it. One of the boys in the pool looks like one of the guys I’ve been writing about from the Monster Coaster.

“Ginny!” I whisper.

But then I take a closer look and see it’s not him after all.

For a second there I thought I might have a more interesting poem to write.

I remember Mr. Gallagher telling us we can change reality when we write a poem. We don’t have to stick to the truth.

I think about how I can change my poem. I can pretend they got our names and email addresses and promised to write. I can even write about how they ended up moving to our town and going to the same school. About how we ended up dating them in high school and going to the prom with them.

You can do anything you want in a poem.

When I got home last night, Ken said our team had its best practice of the summer. He thinks it’s because I wasn’t there. He was just joking, though. I think.

I asked him about Mama, and he said she didn’t seem to be hurting as much.

I’m glad she feels well enough to come to our game today.

It’s the last inning. At least it should be. We’re ahead 9 – 3, so unless we fall apart in the last of the sixth and give up enough runs for the Tigers to tie the score, it will be our final inning.

The best thing about playing baseball this summer is that Mama and Dad have come to a lot of our
games. They missed one other when Mama had a real bad spell and almost had to go to the hospital.

Ginny’s even come to a few of my games.

The bad thing about summer baseball is that I used up all my hero time in that first game.

I’m not the worst hitter on the team, but I’m only average. Okay, maybe not even as good as average. I’ve gotten a few hits this summer, just none that have won games for us since that first one. My fielding is the best part of my game. I think that’s because I’ve played so much tennis. I have quick hands and strong wrists and good hand-eye coordination. I have strong legs, too, so I can move quick. I can catch the ball most of the time, and I can throw pretty hard. I know those things that make me a good fielder should make me a better hitter, too. It’s just that it’s easier for me to hit a tennis ball with a big racquet than it is to hit a baseball with that skinny bat.

Ken, on the other hand, is a great hitter. Even though he’s one of the youngest players on the team, he’s one of the team’s three best hitters. I’m glad, because Mama and Dad really get excited when he comes to bat and gets a hit. And he gets a bunch of them.

We have runners on second and third and one out, so unless there’s a double play I’ll get one more at-bat. I’d love to finish the season with a good hit. It would be nice to score a couple more runs, too, just
in case the Tigers rally in their half. Like Coach says, no lead is ever too big. Baseball isn’t like basketball or football or soccer, where you can run out of time. A baseball game is never over until you get the other team to make that final out.

The batter ahead of me doesn’t hit into a double play, but we still have runners on second and third, and now there are two outs. I can drive in two runs with a base hit.

I’m hoping the pitcher will throw me one waist high, right across the plate. That’s the pitch I can hit best. But the pitch is at my knees and I take it for a strike. He throws two high pitches and the ump calls them balls.

The next pitch is right where I want it, but I hit under it and foul it back into the screen. I don’t want to strike out, so I’m ready to swing at anything close.

It’s not close. It’s about two feet over my head. Somehow the catcher catches it, so our runner has to stay at third. The count is three and two. I wouldn’t mind walking. Reaching base in my last at-bat would be almost as good as getting a hit. People always say, “A walk is as good as hit.” Ken doesn’t believe it. He always says, “I don’t want to walk, I want to swing the bat.”

But I’m not that good a hitter. I’ll be happy with a walk.

The pitcher throws the ball so low the ball bounces
on the plate. I toss down my bat and start toward first base. I take about three steps before I hear the ump yell, “Strike three! You’re out!” I look back. The catcher is holding the ball. It must have bounced right into his mitt.

I stare at the ump. How could he call it a strike? It hit the plate! Then I think, their catcher is a big guy, about as wide as he is tall, maybe the ump got blocked out and he didn’t see it hit the plate.

There’s a lot of shouting from the bleachers and from our dugout. “It hit the plate, ump!” and “Get some help from the base umpire!”

The ump must have heard them, but he just bends down and brushes the dirt off home plate with a little broom. It’s bad enough to strike out in my last at-bat, but to strike out because the umpire made one of the most terrible calls I’ve ever seen…that’s just not fair.

I have to walk past him to get to the dugout. I’m trying to figure out what to say to him. Then I remember Mama is watching from the bleachers. I glance toward her. Dad is shouting something, but Mama’s just sitting there, smiling. I wonder why she’s smiling. What happened isn’t funny.

Suddenly I remember what Mama told me about umpires. I glance toward the umpire and think, “You’re not God. You make mistakes, and you sure made a whopper this time. But you’re the authority. I
might not agree with you, but I’ll accept your judgment.”

I don’t say those words out loud, but just thinking them makes me feel a little better. I look back at Mama. She’s still smiling, and I see her give a little nod of her head. I know just what she’s thinking. I smile back at her because we have our special secret.

About a week after our last baseball game Mama’s pain got so bad that Dad had to take her to the hospital. She stayed for almost ten days. While she was there, each day seemed like it was a hundred hours long. And each day seemed as if it lasted for only a few minutes.

Maybe that doesn’t make sense, but it really does, to me anyway.

The liquid medicine she was hooked up with the tubing in her arm helped with her pain, but it also made her sleep most of the time. When she was awake, it was hard to talk to her because it seemed like what we were saying didn’t make sense to her, or else what she said was hard for us to understand.
I’d sit by her bed for hours, just hoping she might wake up long enough for me to talk to her. I’d pray she would be able to hear me and maybe even say something that let me know she understood me.

What made the days seem short is when I measured them by how much time I really had with her. That time went too fast.

Then, two days ago, it was almost like a miracle. Mama’s terrible pain seemed to go away. Not completely, but enough so she seemed almost like herself again, like she was before she had to go to the hospital. Maybe it was her pain medication. Maybe God had decided she deserved a few days without that hurt. Whatever it was, it was like I finally had my mama back again. She could speak. She could understand. And maybe the best thing of all, she smiled again.

It wasn’t the miracle I had prayed for, though. Mama is still going to die. She might have only a few weeks left, maybe only a few days.

We had three choices: keep Mama in the hospital, bring her home, or take her to a hospice. A hospice is a place where dying people can go to be treated. The workers there are trained to care for people who are dying. That means that the patient gets more care than they get in a hospital. From what I understand, at a hospice the workers help the patient face the fact that they’re going to die and
maybe not be so afraid.

“I want to come home,” Mama said. “I want to spend what time I have in my own home with my family. You’re what I need most. I want to look out at my garden. I want to be surrounded by my own furniture and the pictures on my walls. I want to see the books I’ve loved to read. I want to be in the house where my two children have grown up.”

So Mama’s home now. Unless her pain gets so bad she needs to go back to the hospital, Dad can take care of her. We can all take care of her.

“It might be only days,” the doctor said. “Just try to keep her comfortable.”

One thing Mama’s talked about ever since Ginny got chosen to play Annie is how much she wants to see the play. But the play’s still a few weeks away.

I talked to Ginny yesterday. I asked her if she would do something. I asked her if she would talk to the play’s director for the biggest favor I’ve ever asked, except for the one I asked of God. Ginny called last night after rehearsal with the good news. “She said yes. You can come to our rehearsal tomorrow night. Your whole family.” Before I’d talked to Ginny about my plan, I asked Dad what he thought. Did he think it would be too much for Mama?

He said, “Oh Kate, that’s a wonderful idea. I can’t think of anything she’d like better.”

I pray that Mama feels good enough to go.

We make sure we don’t tire her out during the day by doing a lot of talking or making her talk. We make sure she gets plenty of rest.

When it’s time, Dad helps dress Mama and puts her in her wheelchair. She’s so thin. Her face is pale. But she’s beaming, and her green eyes are twinkling.

It’s less than a ten-minute drive to the theater. We’ve arranged to get there about half an hour after the rehearsal started. Ginny said that would be best. She said that at most rehearsals the first few minutes are spent just taking care of loose ends from the previous rehearsal and setting up the scenes they’ll be working on that night.

They don’t do the whole play. They only work on a couple scenes, going over and over them, working on every little detail. Like where each character should be on stage, even if that character isn’t talking. And what each character should be doing. It surprises me. I didn’t know how much planning was necessary. I guess I figured that all the characters had to do is memorize their lines and get up and say them.

The best thing: the scenes they rehearsed were a couple of Annie’s big scenes. So Mama gets to see Ginny on stage practically the whole time. And she gets to watch and listen to Ginny sing.

I’ve never seen Ginny better. It’s like she’s singing just to Mama. I know Mama has to be tired, but
she stays awake through the whole rehearsal. It’s only when we get her in the car that she finally lets herself fall asleep.