Chapter Twelve
Nathan kept his promise: his double-play pickoff move was the last time he played in a major league baseball game. For a whole year afterward, he received a blitzkrieg of calls from sports networks and sports magazine. Before he would go off to yet another interview, he would always tell Suella the same thing: “We didn’t even win the series. Nobody’s going to remember this next year.”
The next inning after Nathan’s great play, Chester the manager brought in Terry Hartwig, one of the other relievers, to close out the game. Terry struck out a batter, walked one, got another to pop out, and the next batter blooped one over the shortstop. That brought Chicago’s best hitter to home plate with a chance to win the series. That player drove one of Terry’s pitches onto the restaurant area above the bullpen, where Natalie had been dangled.
They called it “The Shot Heard Around the World, Part 2.”
Two years later, Suella still got the chills whenever she thought about that baseball game. Natalie turned seven years old. Someone had once told Suella that seven was the age of reason. In Natalie’s case, it was the age of inquisitiveness. When Natalie came home from school one day, and Suella was making tortellini in the kitchen, Natalie asked “Mom, why do people have different colored skin?”
Without missing a beat, Suella replied “Because that’s the way God made them. Just like he made you with light skin and blond hair. He made some little girls with dark skin and dark hair and some with light skin and freckles and red hair.”
Natalie giggled. “Like Cindy?”
“Yes, like Cindy.”
Natalie watched her mother cut up red peppers and onions for the sauce.
What she asked next was the defining moment in a parent and child’s life. “Mom, where did I come from?”
Suella was prepared, though. She took a deep breath and put down her knives. “Sweetheart, your father and I love each other very much. We love each other so much, that God decided we should have a child we could love, too. So he fixed that a baby grew inside me. That baby was you.” She let her sentences hang in the air for a moment while Natalie glanced at the ceiling at her mother, and down at the floor.
“Oh.”
A lie, Suella knew. There would come a time when Natalie would find out the truth. Dr. Allende and Dr. Pollidore thought it would be best to wait until she was around fifteen or so, when her developing mind could handle the information.
A week later, they took their yearly trip to the desert for Natalie’s medical appointment at the center. As they drove through the desert and looked at all the familiar scenery, Natalie started asking questions. “Why do we have to go so far away for my doctor’s appointment? Becca gets to go to a really nice doctor in a building right near the school. She gets a toy every time she goes. Why can’t we go to that doctor?”
Suella was prepared for this, too. She had lain awake many nights thinking of her daughter and how she would develop, what kinds of questions she would ask. “Because Dr. Allende is the best. She’s so good that she has to have an office way out in the desert or else crowds of people would come to her and that would be bad.”
Natalie nodded, causing her mother to pray that this meant she accepted this.
As they drove up to the center, Natalie remarked “The doctors are like rabbits.”
“Rabbits?” Suella asked. “What do you mean?”
“They have their office in a hole in the ground, like a rabbit lives in a hole in the ground.”
“Oh.” Suella laughed.
As always, Suella waited in the lobby for two hours while the doctors saw Natalie. She clicked on her viewer so she could keep up with her business while she waited. Since the implantables became more and more popular, less and less people bothered her when she was online. They recognized the straight-ahead stare, married with a look of concentration. It reminded her of when she was in college, and they came out with Bluetooth for cell phones. People appeared to be walking around talking to themselves at first.
Right in the middle of a system sweep, Natalie jumped to her side, holding something. Annoyed, she aborted and clicked off. When she turned toward Natalie, she saw Dr. Allende with her, holding her hand. Natalie carried a small, beautiful little porcelain doll in the other hand.
“All finished,” Dr. Allende said, letting go of Natalie.
“Look what Dr. A gave me, mommy,” Natalie said, holding up the gingham-clothed doll.
“That’s wonderful, sweetie,” Suella said. “She’s so pretty.”
Suella was glad her daughter seemed cheerful and knew this would help them enjoy the long ride home. Once they made it to the car and entered the freeway, Natalie slumped in her seat and stared straight ahead, at the dashboard. Had they done something different this time? Suella wondered. Another part of her still did not want to know what went on in the examination room. “We can stop off and get a chiliburger,” Suella said. This was Natalie’s favorite treat.
“Okay.”
It wasn’t quite the response Suella expected so she began to rack her brains for a way to get through. Natalie’s little doll sat on the console between them and gave her an idea. “That was awfully nice of Dr. Allende to give you such a pretty little doll. Do you have a name for her yet?”
“I don’t know.” She still stared at the dashboard, causing Suella even more anxiety.
“I think Jessica is a nice name. How about we call her Jessica?’
Instead, Natalie turned toward her, nudging the doll with her wrist. “Mom, is there something wrong with me?”
Suella lost her grip on the steering wheel for a moment and the car veered across the double yellow line. Thank goodness nothing was coming from the other way. When she had collected herself, she said. “Why, no Natalie. What would give you that idea?”
“Because a boy in my class has to go to a special doctor, too. He has diabattys.”
“Oh, diabetes. The poor little boy. He has to see the doctor very often, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, and he gets shots just like they give me.”
That worried Suella. None of the doctors had ever said anything about injections. She would have to have a talk with Dr. Allende about that. “Well, we like Dr. Allende. And you only have to see her once a year.” That seemed to satisfy Natalie. As they entered the Valley and the more populated areas, Suella saw the chiliburger place. She turned there and together they ate a nice lunch and Natalie smiled and giggled a lot as she ate her meal. The moment they returned home, Suella called Dr. Allende’s office, content this time to simply leave a message.
The doctor called her later. After their pleasantries, Suella jumped in with the reason for her call: “Natalie said she got a couple of injections?”
“Uh, yeah. The usual: influenza, TB, and immune booster.”
Suella knew that Natalie had to receive her shots, as all children did, even though there were factions of people who were against it, forever saying that it was a sign of a government “control” conspiracy. But, immune boosters? “Why an immune booster.”
“To add quality to and prolong Natalie’s life,” the doctor said.
“Is there something wrong with Natalie’s immune system?”
Dr. Allende sighed slightly from the other end of the line. “No, Suella. There’s nothing wrong with Natalie. We like to include the injection as a precaution. You can think of it the same way you would as taking vitamin or food supplements.”
“Well, Nat was quite concerned about it.” She told the doctor about their conversation in the car.
“Some kids are going to be inquisitive,” Dr. Allende said. “It’s just one of the ways she’s learning about her place in the world.”
The conversation satisfied Suella. A couple of days later, though, she received another shock, this time at the hands of Nathan. She had been out grocery shopping and had been pleased to see Nathan’s car in the driveway.
When she parked and brought in the first bag of groceries, she expected that Nathan and even Natalie would come outside and help her with the rest. Yet the house was empty and quiet. Could they be in the back yard? She checked the window in the den and saw Nathan wearing a baseball glove. He had just thrown a baseball to someone, lobbing it softly.
She walked through the breezeway to the door outside and there found Nathan.
He was tossing the baseball to Natalie, who’d dressed in one of her blue jean overalls with a pink blouse underneath. Nathan had bought her a navy blue baseball cap with LA at the front. Natalie caught Nathan’s lobbed throw. She took the ball out of her small mitt and cocked her arm back to throw, grimacing as she unleashed her arm forward to toss the ball back. Her erratic movement launched the ball nearly straight up into the air, so that it fell with a thud on the grass. Nathan laughed. “Hey, that’s pretty good for a first try!”
Suella glared at him. She had folded her arms across her chest. “What’s going on out here?”
Nathan gazed back at her blankly, as if she had just asked him for the shape of a full moon. “I got her some baseball stuff this morning. We’re just tossing a few.”
“But she’s a girl, Nathan!”
He blinked. “Yeah, so?”
“She should be doing ‘girl’ things. This is completely inappropriate.”
Nathan rolled his eyes upward. “You mean there’s some kind of a law that girls can’t play catch with their daddies? I missed that memo.”
“Besides,” Suella went on, “you might hurt her, if she misses one of your throws.”
Nathan nodded, closing his eyes for a moment. “I promise I’ll be gentle. Honey, are you having a good time?”
“Sure, daddy,” Natalie said as he bent over to retrieve the ball from the grass. From closer range, she picked up the ball to throw it to her father, and this time it shot from her hand in a straight line, landing in the center of Nathan’s glove.
“Hey, hey,” he said, laughing. “We’ve got a budding superstar here.”
Suella had to turn away and go back inside before she got any more upset. Playing baseball! That just wouldn’t do. She would not have her daughter turning into a tough-talking tomboy. She would have to get her involved in something that would develop her grace and femininity. Ballet lessons! She’d always wanted to take them herself when she was little but had never been able to. That settled it. She would buy her pretty little girl the most beautiful leotards and tutus she could find and enroll her in ballet classes.
She approached it the same way she approached the schools: first she checked online for a good ballet school and the next day she was in the dance accessories store buying glittery pink, red, and teal leotards for Natalie. The day after that, when Natalie arrived home from school, Suella made sure she would find all the glittery and spangly spandex garments draped over her bed. She hoped she would squeal with glee but instead Natalie shuffled out of her bedroom and found her mother in the living room.
“Thank you for the bathing suits mom,” she said. “Are we going to the beach?”
“No, sweetie. I’ve got great news for you! You’re going to be a ballerina!” Suella showed her the glossy dance brochure, which featured a fair skinned and dark haired young dancer girl en pointe.
Natalie looked at the picture and squinted. “But I can’t do that!”
Her mother patted her on the head, smoothing a lock of hair back away from her face. “Well, not now, of course, silly. But you can learn! And after awhile you’ll be dancing as gracefully as the girl in the picture. It’ll be so much fun!” She told Natalie about the dance classes she would attend right after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
For the first ballet class, Suella helped Natalie change into the leotard.
“You step into it, just like it’s a bathing suit or underwear. And you bring the straps up over your shoulders.” She smoothed them into place, stepping back to marvel at how adorable her little girl looked in the teal, rhinestone-spangled garment. Instead of a tutu, she wrapped a matching skirt around Natalie’s waist and gave her the flat little black shoes she would need for class. When they drove to the ballet school, Suella let her wear the Gravas with ground effects that she liked so much.
Suella found that dance studios looked the same as they always did, with the shellacked wooden floors, the mirrors covering the wall, barre bars, and lots of little girls in gaily colored leotards and tutus. The teacher, Nina Espinosa, met Suella in the lobby. She wore a plum colored leotard and wrap skirt that flattered her olive skin very nicely. Her hair had been pinned up in the classic ballerina style. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Worthy,” Nina said. “We’ll be finished in about an hour and you can come back then.” She started to lead Natalie out toward the dance floor and the other little girls.
“But I was going to stay behind and watch,” Suella said.
Nina turned to her as she released Natalie. “I’m afraid that won’t do. We don’t let parents into the studio right away. It tends to inhibit the children.”
Suella did notice that no other parents were around, and not wanting to be a pain in the butt, she window shopped at the plaza near the school. She made herself a mental note that for the next class, she would pin up Natalie’s hair the same as Nina’s and some of the other little girls. By the time Suella returned to the dance studio, she came upon a small crowd of the other parents who arrived for their children. They all watched as Nina led the girls in a skipping and hopping routine around the edges of the floor. Natalie jumped higher and landed harder than the other girls, thudding along with them.
Oh well, Suella resolved, Nina would get her to coast along more lightly and delicately.
Two months later, Suella was dismayed to see Natalie still leaping and thudding. “How are you liking the ballet lessons?” Suella asked her in the car on the way home.
“Okay. Miss Espinosa tells funny stories and makes us laugh.”
Suella left it at that. Her daughter looked so much like the dancer in her collection of shimmery dance attire and her pinned up hair and she seemed to like both the teacher and the other little kids. So what if she never became a prima ballerina for the LA Ballet company? You can’t have everything.
Summer arrived, leaving Suella to revisit the mixed feelings she had about Nathan’s retirement. Playing baseball had given his life structure, a purpose. Every March was like a mini-rebirth for him as he headed off to another spring training session. He always participated in all the weight training sessions and the running the young rookies did. Throughout the summer he also regularly exercised rather than sit in the bullpen idly like most of the other relief pitchers.
She worried that life outside of baseball would slow him down, turn him into a couch jockey, give him love handles and jowls. Instead, Nathan passed the time on household projects like repairing a table or hanging drapes, and he took up gardening and landscaping. Three times a week he met up with his friends, both from baseball and the business world and they played golf or tennis.
At home, sometimes Natalie and Nathan would watch baseball games in the den together, and Nathan would tell her stories about how he used to throw against a pitch-back for hours when he was a child. Mostly, aside from his little errands throughout the day and his trips to the golf course or tennis court, Nathan was around, around, around.
On the days he felt lazy, he would lie around and web surf or yell at the sports channels, especially after he’d had a couple of beers or more. Or he would moan about how much the country was becoming a police state since the Republican congress took back the borders. “A few illegals never hurt anybody,” he would often say. “We still need ditches dug and houses cleaned.”
Nathan also pestered her for sex more. If she tried to beg off, using the classic excuses such as a headache, he would whine in a higher-pitched and very unattractive voice, again, especiall
y if he’d drunk a few. For the sake of their marriage and to guarantee that two parents would raise her little girl, she just gave in. At least he was still quick, no fuss, no muss. Mostly Suella would lie there. Sometimes she would surprise him as he got out of the shower, getting down on her knees to give him a humming suck job that would always make his knees buckle as he moaned. She found that when she did that, he pestered her for straight sex less.
She understood where he’d been. As a major league baseball player, he’d enjoyed adulation from all sides. He admitted that it still gave him a thrill when people recognized him at the grocery store. Getting sex was his way of assuring himself that he still had it, he was still desirable. Suella felt that she was giving him a valuable gift of acquiescence and accommodation. In her late forties now, Suella was married to a gorgeous man who took care of himself and was good to her and she had a wonderful daughter whom she loved. Life was good!
Still, she needed a vacation from Nathan. As the old song went “Everybody needs a little time away, from the one they love.” A great idea quickly occurred to her: years had passed since they’d sold the condo in Cincinnati and she still had yet to return. She missed the quiet meaningful chats she would have with Jillian over steaming cups of tea. At the beginning of August, she and Natalie boarded a Stratojet at Ontario field. “It’s so hot here,” Natalie commented when they arrived at the terminal in Cincinnati and crossed the street in search of their rental car.
Jillian had practically begged her to stay at her condo while they revisited town but Suella chose an executive suite in Lytle Place by the river, instead. The stimulus programs of 2010 had reopened an ancient incline that connected the riverfront to the top of Mt. Adams, where she had lived so many times before. Each morning during their week of vacation, they would board the incline car and watch the city view recede below them as the car chugged upward. An older man who sat beside them grinned at Natalie and said “Isn’t it neat the way this incline car goes sideways up the mountain?”
Natalie shrugged. “We have much bigger mountains in California.”
Jillian’s humble little condo and her bohemian life fascinated Natalie. She stared at the exotic, abstract prints on the walls and the figurines occupying shelves. While Natalie had dabbled in art at school with tempera paints and clay for coffee mugs or coasters, she thought it was “fierce” that someone could actually earn a living that way.
Suella’s heart felt warmed when Jillian brought out the porcelain teapot and cups.
As she poured tea for them, Suella noticed that Jillian held long gazes on Natalie. She remembered something Jillian said around the time she told her about the cloning. “Do you suppose that cloned people have souls?” The realization chilled her.
When the three of them were sitting, Jillian gave her attention to Natalie.
At first she asked her about safe subjects, such as “How do you like school? What is your favorite subject? What do you like to do after school and on the weekends?” This caused Natalie and her mother to go off tangent and tell funny stories about what happened during the school year. From there, Jillian’s queries became more pointed and personal. “Do you dream at night, Natalie?”
In a low, small voice, Natalie said “Sometimes.”
Jillian nodded. “When you see art, like some of the paintings on my walls, what does it make you think of?”
Natalie glanced at one of the pictures. “It looks like piles of seaweed that we see at the beach sometimes.” That made Suella wince. Jillian nodded knowingly and watched Natalie with an appraising eye, causing Suella to wonder what she’d say the next time they were alone.
But Jillian continued her little interview with Natalie. Suella wondered if she was reading too much into things. Maybe Jillian was genuinely interested in Natalie. Though she sometimes gave talks and exhibitions at elementary schools, Suella knew that ordinarily, Jillian wasn’t in much contact with children Natalie’s age. Jillian said “Do you believe in God?”
Without missing a beat, Natalie replied “Yes, He’s the one who made the world and all the people in it.”
“How did you learn about him?”
Natalie glanced at over at her mother. “Mommy told me.” The Worthy’s had not set foot inside a church the whole time they were married. As a child, Suella was Roman Catholic. When she married Nathan it was a justice of the peace ceremony at her best friend Sandra’s house. It was all over in less than five minutes.
Later, Natalie played with Jillian’s calico cat Josie while both Suella and Jillian stole out onto the soft chairs in the balcony. While the balcony at Suella’s old condo had offered a spectacular view of the city, Jillian’s place faced the opposite direction. They were treated to a view of the Columbia Parkway, with the Ohio River in the distance. As they both settled into their chairs, Suella leaned forward slightly. “Were you getting at what I think you were getting at back there?” she asked.
Jillian shrugged. “I was mostly asking her all the questions to keep her still so that I could look into her eyes and see if I could perceive her aura.”
“What does looking in her eyes do?”
Jillian glanced at her quizzically. Her face was very expressive. Long ago she’d told Suella that after high school she’d wanted to become a nurse or an artist. “Better go to art school,” her mother had said. “Your face is too expressive to be a nurse. You’d walk into the room of someone all broken up in an accident and your expression would say ‘Good God, what on earth happened to you?’” At that moment, she asked Suella, “Haven’t you ever heard of the saying ‘The eyes are the windows of the soul?’”
“Of course. But what about the aura thing? How did it go with that?”
“I don’t know,” Jillian said. It’s too bright in here. It’s easiest if you’re looking at someone against a dark background or if you’re looking at them at night.”
“Well then, you need to come to our executive suite tonight.”
After the visit to Jillian’s, Suella and Natalie rode the incline car back down the hill to the gray and glass residential hall. For their evening entertainment, they visited a nice French restaurant in the downtown area. They also walked through the skyways.
Suella had been dismayed to learn that the baseball team was on the road that week.
If she’d had more time to plan the trip, she could have chosen a week they were in town so she could take Natalie to the luxury box and she would meet Julie (whose husband still played for the club) and some of the newer wives. That was a trip for another time. As things were, the getaway was nice for mother-daughter bonding.
The executive suite contained two bedrooms, with glossy wooden furnishings and scrumptious sheets with an absurdly high thread count. When they returned for the night, Natalie said she was tired and put her pajamas on. After she lay down on the bed in her room, Suella surfed quietly in the living room. After a half hour had gone by she cracked the door open and whispered her daughter’s name. Natalie lay back against the pillow, her blond curls falling away from her face and creating an angelic halo. Certainly Jillian would be able to see something. She called her friend and told her to come down the incline to the suite.
After Jillian arrived, Suella turned off all the screens and the lights in the suite. She nudged the door open so that both women could sneak inside to view Natalie. Suella watched anxiously as her friend squinted, then widened her eyes, her lips parted in concentration. This was all she could make out in the dark, however. Faint street sounds carried up from the city outside the windows, creating a background rhythm for Jillian and Suella’s rite. Suella felt quite spooked by the whole thing, and when Jillian tapped her arm and motioned for them to back out of the room, she felt relieved.
They ventured out onto the balcony of the executive suite, this time closing a sliding glass door behind them. “Well, what did you see?” Suella asked while they stood.
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Jillian smiled with a serenity that matched the matrons in paintings from old masters. “She has a beautiful, cobalt and pink aura.”
Suella felt so overjoyed that tears misted in hers eyes.