Long Ball(18)

Cora must run straight back to the window, because she’s waving to me from behind the curtains again. We start making faces at each other, me thinking of the silliest things that used to make Camila laugh, when Megan opens the door.

I try to look serious, but her lips twitch upwards.

“My roommate is watching Cora for me. Let’s take a walk.”

My face cracks wide open into a grin. “I’d love that.” I think about offering my arm, but I don’t. I’m sure she’s already terrified of me for randomly showing up on her doorstep.

“So.” We turn down her street.

“So.”

It’s a crappy little neighborhood. My truck is the cleanest, nicest vehicle probably in the whole neighborhood, and it makes me feel a little uncomfortable. If I had known, I could have helped. They wouldn’t be living here.

“Yes, to answer your earlier question.” I decide to start first, nearly swallowing my tongue in the process. “I’ve been with the Royals for about four years now.”

“Congratulations.” She smiles, but it’s guarded. It’s still beautiful. She is still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. “I guess you weren’t around Omaha for much longer after… we last met.”

“The rest of the season and a little of the next.” We get quiet for a moment. “I used to look for you.”

Megan offers a tight smile. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d ever want to see me again.”

“Why not?” I can’t take my eyes off of her, like if I look away for a minute, she’ll be gone. “I never stopped thinking about you. Not really.”

“I left in the middle of the night. I was scared, really. Thought you’d be upset if I were still there in the morning, so I ran off.”

“I wish you hadn’t.”

Megan doesn’t say anything and walks around the other side of a car parked in the street, temporarily separating us. “To answer your question, yes. Cora is… well, Cora is mine. But you are the other half of her DNA.”

I try to keep my face calm, but inside I feel like crying like a baby. “I don’t mean to sound awful, but… you’re sure?”

Megan stops in the middle of the street, arms covering her chest, and looks down the road. She looks everywhere else but at me. “Listen, I didn’t know you were a big time baseball player, okay? My roommate sometimes watches Cora for me and they do the bus thing a lot because Kate knows someone who knows someone who started it and it’s free. I never looked you up because I don’t want your money.”

“I never said— “

“I know what we look like, especially next to all the things you’re used to. Tiny house, crummy neighborhood, old cars. We don’t need your pity and we don’t need your money. We don’t need you and I wasn’t going to find you, if that’s why you’re here. You can just pretend you never saw us and go on with your big life, because we don’t need you.”

Her words are like knives and there are tears in her eyes. Suddenly, I feel like a f*cking idiot. Suddenly, I realize how hard this must have been for her, raising a kid all by herself. She never called me again, but I got to live out my wildest dreams in a big apartment and travel the world, while Megan looks like she hasn’t caught a break in as many years.

“That’s not why I’m here.” I want to take her hand, but she doesn’t look like she trusts me as far as she could throw me. “I’m here because… because Cora? She looks like my sister, Camila. I’m here because I thought about you every single day for a year, and sometimes even after, wondering where you were or what I did to run you off. I’m here because Cora is an amazing little girl and all I want, all I want, is the chance to get to know her. And you.”

Megan’s lips purse together and it looks like she swallows down tears. She keeps walking. “I planned on giving her up for adoption. I was only 19 and didn’t know a damn thing about anything, much less how to raise a baby. I was so scared. I thought about going to see you play baseball after I found out, but I figured you’d think I was just trying to use you for money.”

“There was no one else?” I don’t know how else to ask. “No other possibilities?”

Megan smiles. It’s tight, a little sour, and she still won’t look at me, but at least she smiles. “You were my first.”

I pause. “Your first?”

She nods. “I carried that virgin card proudly until that night. I was so worried I’d feel like a slut; I didn’t try anything again for… a long time. Of course, some of that I was pregnant and then had a newborn, but…”

I take her hand. I can’t help myself. I take it and I press my lips to it. “I never thought ill of you, not once. That night, in the back of my truck, is one of my most treasured memories. You were incredible and you haunted me.”

Our eyes meet again, and I want to say I see something in her unlocking, but she pulls away. “Well, thank you. Anyway, there was literally no one else. It was only ever… you.” Her voice softens and she sneaks a glance at me.

“What made you decide to keep her?”

Megan clears her throat and walks around another car. All I want is to have her hand back in mine. “My younger brother was actually adopted, the one who was there— “