Heroine(83)

What it doesn’t help with is the guilt. I print out their obituaries and hang them around my mirror. Josie, Luther, and Derrick stare at me every morning. I let them.

I wake up from one of my many midafternoon naps to find Mom sitting at my dresser, looking at the obits.

“I recognize Luther,” she says. “Did you know the others?”

“Yeah, they all went to Baylor,” I say, sitting up and pulling sweaty hair out of my face.

“She was really beautiful,” Mom says, reaching out to touch Josie’s face.

“Supersmart too,” I tell her. “And Derrick . . . he had all this energy.”

“Did he play any sports?” Mom asks. “What did he like?”

“Fashion shows,” I say stupidly, and cry. “They were my friends. Luther maybe something more than that. I don’t know. I fucked it all up.”

Mom stays where she is, folding her hands. “They weren’t really your friends, Mickey. Not if they let you do what you did. Real friends would’ve stopped you.”

Anger soars from a familiar place, the violence of withdrawal still skulking inside me. “And what would a real mom have done, huh? Maybe a real mom would’ve known. Maybe a real mom would’ve stopped me.”

It’s the lowest I can go, one of the worst things I’ve ever said.

“That’s unfair, Mickey,” she says, using the measured tone she’s picked up since going to a support group for parents of addicts. I hate it. I throw myself back down on the bed and cover my head with a pillow.

“Leave me alone,” I say.

I hear her get up and move to the door, but she falters there, and when her words come they’re dulled by the pillow.

“Carolina never got an abortion, did she?” Mom asks. “You used that money for drugs and used a lie about your best friend—a real friend—to cover your ass, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Jesus Christ, Mickey,” Mom says, her voice fading as she leaves my room. “Jesus Christ.”

I cry some more, my tears soaking into the pillow, my breath coming back at me, hot and wet.

Sometimes it’s hard to decide what’s the worst thing I ever did.

I don’t leave the house except to go to the clinic.

My team sweeps regionals. Coach texts Mom the time and date of the first state tournament game in Akron. I don’t go.

Twenty minutes after the first pitch Mom comes in my room and hands me her phone with a little smile. I hold it awkwardly, like I’ve forgotten how.

“Hello?” I say.

“Top of the first,” Nikki says. “We won the coin toss. Carolina put down a nice single. Bella Right is up with a full count—”

I hear a collective groan.

“Scratch that. She struck out.”

I listen to the announcer, his voice heavy and strong as it carries. Bella Left—he actually says her real name—steps into the box.

“Oooh, damn, that one was moving,” Nikki says. “He’s going to call it inside though . . . yep. Ball one.”

“You’re not seriously going to narrate the entire game to me?” I ask.

“Don’t you want me to?”

Nikki’s quiet for a second, and I hear the click of spikes on concrete, a helmet dropping, the ding of a bat hitting another one as someone gets theirs from their rack, Lydia ranking the other team by their attractiveness.

“Yes,” I say.

“Okay. My dad’s in rehab for the third time,” Nikki says, like it’s part of the conversation. “And that’s a walk for Bella Left . . . nice. Runners on first and third. Carolina stole.”

Of course she did.

“Coach’ll send the one on first,” I say. “Try to get the catcher to throw on her, then send the runner on third.”

I hear Nikki spit out a sunflower seed. “Their catcher isn’t fast enough. She’s no Mickey Catalan.”

“Neither am I,” I say.

“Crap, I’m in the hole. I’m handing you off to Lydia, okay?”

“Um, yeah, sure,” I say. I don’t know if Lydia wants to talk to me or if the phone is shoved on her, but suddenly she’s there on the other end.

“Catalan,” she says. “Aw, shit, their catcher just threw on the runner and the second baseman totally fucked it up.”

There’s indiscriminate screaming. Lydia doesn’t bother taking the phone away from her mouth. My eardrum is blasted with the dugout going insane and I know that our runner on third just scored. When she speaks again she’s out of breath.

“Carolina made it in!” she says. “She’s got dirt all the way to the back of her neck. Perfect backdoor slide.”

“I’m sure it was,” I say.

I hear Carolina come into the dugout, can make out the sounds of everyone smacking her on the back, or the ass, whatever they can reach. The sound goes muffled for a minute and I know Lydia is telling her I’m on the phone, but I already know Carolina doesn’t have anything to say to me.

“You’re still my hero, Mickey Catalan,” Lydia says.

“Heroine,” I correct her.

“Yeah, fucking irony, right?”

Something impossible happens. I smile.