Goodnight Beautiful(75)

Sam puts the car into drive and is about to pull out when he sees the green Mini Cooper speeding into the parking lot toward him. The car stops next to his, and Annie rolls down her window.

“What are you doing?” Sam asks. “It’s my day to visit.”

“I know.” She nods at the passenger seat. “Get in.”

“Why? I thought you said I had to meet the movers.”

“I lied. They’re coming tomorrow. Get in.”

Sam does as he’s told. “Where are we going?” he asks, buckling his seat belt.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” she says, plugging in her phone and hitting play on a song list marked “SAM.” Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough” blares as she pulls out of the parking lot. At the bottom of the hill she heads out of town, toward the interstate. He puts it together. It’s the chase.

“We robbed a bank,” he whispers, venturing a guess, adrenaline rushing. “And we’re making a quick getaway.”

“Wrong,” she says.

They drive another few minutes. “You’re an Uber driver, and you’re kidnapping me.”

She shoots him a look. “Too soon, Sam,” she says, turning up the music.

He leans his head back and keeps his eyes on her as she drives. She’s prettier than ever with short hair. She required one hundred and six stitches in her scalp, and suffered a serious concussion, but she’s recovered. As has he—physically, at least. Albert was telling the truth: Sam’s legs weren’t broken. It was eventually determined through security footage obtained by the police that Albert took the supplies to cast Sam’s legs from the closet at the Rushing Waters Elderly Care Center, where he was a volunteer companion at bingo twice a week. It’s how he got the pills, too; swiped them from Margaret’s stash, left unattended on a medical cart in her room. Albert replaced them with uncoated ibuprofen, an infraction that cost the head nurse and two staff members their jobs.

That said, it hasn’t been easy. While his nightmares are decreasing in frequency, the anxiety remains, and he hasn’t returned to seeing patients. His dream office is no longer available, for obvious reasons, and even if that wasn’t the case, he’s been afraid the dynamic would be too disrupted. Every time he’s run into patients, it’s been painfully awkward. But he’s ready to get back to work—in New York. They’re moving back next week. Annie accepted a position at Hunter College, and they’re moving into a two-bedroom in Brooklyn, keeping the house for visits back to see Margaret every few weekends.

They drive west for an hour, listening to the playlist Annie made—Wham!, INXS, Jane’s Addiction—stopping for cheeseburgers and vanilla milkshakes at McDonald’s at the small town of Middleburgh. Annie eventually gets off the interstate and follows the GPS for another thirty miles down a two-lane highway, until they reach a marker announcing “Welcome to Cooperstown, Home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.” Annie gets into line behind a long row of cars headed toward the parking lot. A digital sign flashes: “Parking for ticket holders only!”

Sam reads the flags waving from the streetlight posts. “Hall of Fame weekend.” He looks at her. “Please god, tell me I’m A-Rod coming to get inducted, and you’re JLo.”

Annie finds a spot among the Buicks and minivans. “Come on,” she says, ignoring him and turning off the car. He meets her at the trunk. She opens it, removes a baseball bat, and reaches for his hand, leading him through the crowd. A young man in a museum uniform hands her a map, which she consults before pulling Sam through the building and into a courtyard, past hundreds of people snaked in different lines. Finally she stops in front of a tent in the back. “Here you go,” she says, handing Sam the bat. It’s brand-new. “Go get it signed.”

Sam sees him then. The man sitting at the table under the tent. The one everyone’s waiting to meet. Cal Ripken Jr. Ol’ Iron Man himself. Sam looks at Annie for a long moment, and then touches her belly before getting in line.

When it’s his turn to be called, he steps forward. “Will you sign it to Quinn?” he asks nervously.

“That you?” Cal Ripken asks, taking the bat.

“No,” Sam says. “My kid, due in two months.”

Cal Ripken scrawls his name and hands the bat back with a wink. “Good luck. Hope he’s a ballplayer.”

“Thanks, but it’s a she,” Sam says. “And she’ll be whatever she wants.”

*

It’s not until they’ve left the parking lot that he’s able to speak. “We’re going to be okay?” he asks, his eyes out the window.

“Yes, we are,” she says.

“How do you know?”

“Because it’s how all good stories work out,” she says, reaching for his hand. “With a happy ending.”