by R.H. Nicholson
Molly paced up and down the chain-link fence, her heart racing, palms sweaty, fingers crossed on both hands. “Please don’t get out,” she whispered to the batter. But he reached for a ridiculously outside pitch and popped up above second base, the aluminum bat reverberating with a tinny ping. “That’s okay,” she yelled as Ry approached the plate and set himself for the next pitch, his right leg cocked at a weird angle no batting coach could break him from. “Two outs; let’s get a hit, Ry!” she hollered at her son as if he didn’t know his predicament. “My God, I can’t look,” she muttered to Brigid, who stood beside her little sister in slender white shorts and a soft pink top, her eyes hidden behind chic oversized sunglasses. Molly plastered her hands on her face and spread her fingers for maximum coverage.
“It’s just a game, Molly,” Brigid remarked. “Relax.”
“I can’t help it. I get so nervous,” Molly confessed as she twisted the bottom of her gray Eagles tee shirt with a stylized, majestic eagle swooping across her chest, the back emblazoned with the club’s slogan “We Soar” and the names of all the players printed in small, neat black letters. Brigid shook her head and found herself remembering so many times she had navigated these waters with Molly in their childhood. The spiders, the knicks and cuts and bruises, that time at the lake house when a snake found its way into the kitchen and Molly had spent the better part of a lovely afternoon balled up on the counter afraid the creature would somehow devour her. As children, Brigid had lived so many nights in their bedroom calming Molly’s nerves, talking her through problems with classmates, boyfriends, school dramas, and how to tell their parents she had caused a fender-bender with the Corolla. Once Molly had broken down in uncontrollable tears during the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw when a story about starving children in Ethiopia aired. While their mother comforted her youngest child, the task of saving dinner from burnt ruin fell to Brigid, a duty she resented as she always did when she felt slighted by her sister’s emotional needs. But eventually, when Brigid left for college, she freed herself of Molly’s excitability and sensitivity. She remembered how liberating it was to be rid of the burden, and yet continued to feel guilty about it, even now, well into her adult years.
Molly dipped her head and intoned, “Oh, sweet Baby Jesus, please let him get a hit.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Brigid asked.
“There are scouts here from a Triple A team. Ry needs to show them how good he is.”
“He’s ten,” Brigid’s voice sounded judgmental.
“He’s worked so hard for this. It’s his life,” Molly defended herself. Ry swung and missed a wicked pitch. He stepped out of the box and composed himself. “Wait for it,” Molly telepathically told himself. “Relax, see the ball. Don’t rush.”
Another pitch rocketed into the strike zone. Ry leveled a swing that corralled everything he’d learned during batting practice, private lessons, and camps. He locked his arms for a moment and felt the connection. He must have closed his eyes because he did not see the ball launch.
“Go, go, go” the coached shouted. The crowd erupted. “Look, Molly, it’s a hit!” Brigid nudged her near look-a-like.
Ry rounded first and was waved on to second. A double. A solid, impressive double. Molly placed her hands on her cheeks and exhaled, “I can’t take all this stress.”
On the very next pitch Ry’s teammate, Aiden Lopez, lined straight to first base and the inning concluded.
Ry, a solidly built boy of average height and seemingly good health, grabbed his mitt, and bounded to his position at second base. A consummate optimist, he called out to his team, “Let’s go, guys, three up and three down,” because that is what a field leader says in these moments. He punched his fist into his glove three times, his ritual.
“Better now?” Brigid queried her sister.
“Yes, I’m less nervous when he’s in the field,” she admitted. “There’s less pressure.”
The July sun beat down on the diamond like lava. No amount of shade or water gave respite to anyone. Finally, the sisters sat down in their camp chairs and took a moment of rest.
“Thank you so much for coming to the game today. I know it’s a long drive. With Chase in San Francisco, I don’t think I could handle it by myself,” Molly said.
“I’m just glad Casey could stay home with my crazy crew for a day. Besides, I needed a little “me” time. Things at the firm have been nuts. I’ve got a case right now I desperately want to win, but I won’t.”
“Oh, you’ll figure it out. You always do,” Molly assured her.
The inning progressed with a walk, a strikeout, and a single to left field. The next batter, a large, mature-looking boy, lumbered into the batter’s box. “Do you suppose that kid drives himself to the games?” Brigid joked.
Molly chuckled, “The parents talk about that all the time. Is anyone checking these kids’ birth certificates?”
The lumbering boy swung and missed the first pitch with an impressive amount of thrust then connected to a pitch with a hit that fired like a missile. In a split second, the ball, now a lethal projectile, struck Ry’s chest. Stunned, he staggered back a step or two, looked up for a moment in dazed wonder, and then dropped like an abandoned marionette onto the ground, a puff of dust exhaling around him as he collapsed. He did not gasp. He did not call out. He did not move. The short stop rushed to him, but the base umpire lunged ahead of the boy and pushed him away. The man tossed his mask and chest protector, looked at Ry, asked, “Can you hear me, son?”, and, appreciating the gravity of the situation, placed his ear onto Ry’s chest.
“Call 911, now!” he called out, “I need a doctor!”
Brigid regarded the commotion from her peripheral vision and grasped Molly’s arm in reflex. “Oh my God,” she called out. “Ry’s been hit!”
Molly rose instantly, her iPhone tumbling from her lap onto the ground. She darted along the fence, looped around, and sprinted onto the field. She ran to her son in strides beyond her ability. “Mark Lopez!” she screamed, and Aiden’s father, an internist who lived down the street and whose son had sat with Ry on the school bus every day for two years, descended the bleachers and rushed onto the field.
As Ry lay motionless in the dirt, the umpire not certain what else he could do, the coaches herding the players into the dugouts, Molly fell to her knees. She rapidly patted his cheeks, “Come on Ry, get up. Shake it off, baby. I’m right here. It’s okay.”
Dr. Lopez knelt on the other side of the boy’s limp body. He felt for a pulse and leaned down to listen for shallow beathing but found none. He prepared to begin CPR, tilted back Ry’s head, pinched his nose, and opened the boy’s mouth. “I need a defibrillator!’ he instructed, and one appeared in the hands of the scorekeeper who had grabbed it from the concession stand because Laurel Grove was a prosperous city that took pride in its up-to-date safety and security measures.
“Talk to him, Molly,” Mark instructed her, their eyes locking just long enough for him to convey the urgency of the situation.
“He has an inverted aortic arch,” she informed him. “It presses up against his esophagus.” She took Ry’s limp wrist and held it to her cheek. “Where’s the damn ambulance?” she worried aloud.
“It’s two minutes out,” Mark replied, “We’ve got this. Keep talking to him.”
Meanwhile, Brigid stood behind her sister, her hand on Molly’s shoulder, pale and afraid. She had never felt more helpless. She couldn’t look away from Ry’s passive, white face except to stare at her sister, kneeling in the dirt, leaning over her child, following Mark’s voice.
Suddenly, Mark called out, “Clear!” and pressed the defibrillator button. Ry’s body leapt up and then fell back like a wet rag.
An ambulance arrived, its siren blaring, driving right onto the field, the sizeable crowd parting for it. Several parents had made their way to the dugouts and wrapped their arms around their children. Some had shepherded their boys, and one spunky girl who played for the opposing team, away from the baseball field to their vehicles, not wanting them to see something potentially horrific, unthinkable. The EMT’s dropped down and rushed to second base and Mark Lopez talked them through the situation as he continued chest compressions. “We’ll shock him again as soon as he’s loaded in the wagon. I go with. Mom goes with,” he spoke like a man of authority who was under a great deal of stress.
Molly trotted along, struggling to keep up as the EMTs loaded Ry, and grunted as she hoisted herself into the ambulance without assistance even though the lip was far too high. En route, the driver radioed dispatch. The vehicle sliced through a dozen city blocks like a knife. Molly felt her insides slosh as she held Ry’s hand. “Mommy’s right here, sweetheart. Don’t be afraid. They will fix this. Stay with me,” she implored her child as his face mutated into shades of blue.
Finally, on the third round of shocks, Ry’s chest moved. “I’ve got a rhythm,” the older of the two paramedics announced.
“He’s back, Molly,” Mark assured her. The vehicle lurched to a stop and Ry was rolled into the emergency department, where all attention seemed focused on him. Doctors and nursing staff moved toward him, some pushing machines, some carrying supplies, and one taking Molly by the arm, calmly cooing, “Come with me. They know what they’re doing. Let’s get you something to drink and cooled down.”
Molly sat like a stone in a small room, a motherly nurse in navy scrubs stroking her arm and assuring her that her son would be fine, that this was the most critical period, that this medical team saves people every day. After a while in which time seemed to simultaneously stand still and accelerate, Brigid appeared in the doorway, tears welling up, as close to cascading as possible but refusing to fall because that’s not what Molly needed. “Any update?” she asked the nurse.
Molly looked up. “They got a rhythm right as we pulled up. They’re stabilizing him now,” she said.
“What do I need to do?” Brigid asked, sitting down next to her sister. “What can I get you? What do you need?”
“Just sit with me,” Molly answered. “It will be okay. We just have to give it time. And pray.”
“Do you want me to call Chase? Mom and Dad?”
“No, no. They can’t do anything. No need to upset them yet. Chase would do something stupid like highjack a flight home. I can’t handle that right now.”
A staffer slid her head through the cracked door, beckoning “Mrs. McAuley, follow me, please.”
The sisters, arm and arm, holding their collective breaths, stomachs churning, heads pounding, fingers interlaced in solidarity, approached an area surrounded by a mint green curtain and were met by a handsome, unshaven doctor who looked like an actor on a medical drama. Ry lay before them with wires looped everywhere, monitors beeping, a machine pumping oxygen.
Lights of assorted colors glowed like a macabre Christmas display. A nurse was adjusting an intravenous tube; someone was jotting down readings from a machine.
“It was a close call, but he got help right away. His heart rhythm will regulate, it will just take some time. The blunt force probably pressed against his inverted aortic arch and disrupted the heartbeat. I don’t see any permanent damage, but I want to follow up with his cardiologist and his pediatrician. He’s heavily sedated. He’s been through a lot, but he’s a tough guy,” the doctor explained. There was an uncomfortable, awkward moment during which no one spoke. Was there something else he wasn’t saying? Was he holding back information? Then someone brought in a chair and Molly pulled up next to her son’s bed. Leaning on her elbows, she took his hand and brushed it.
“Can we have a moment?” Brigid asked, and the area cleared.
Molly leaned into Ry’s ear and spoke: “It’s alright now, Bryson. The doctors have it all under control. You just rest up. You’ve got another game next week. If you’re feeling up to it. Of course, you’ll feel up to it. How stupid of me. You are a superhero.” She stared at the boy for a moment, this child who had been the center of her world, who taught her what total, unconditional love, devotion, and sacrifice meant. A series of isolated tears began to dribble down her cheeks, but she checked them, wiping them away with her fingers.
“It’s okay, Mol, go ahead and cry,” Brigid assured her, but Molly sat up, shoulders back, chin forward, and replied, “I’m fine.” Then a nurse approached saying, “I’ll need you to step out for a few minutes.”
“I’ll be right back, baby. You just rest. It’s okay now,” Molly assured him. Brigid led Molly to a quiet room at the end of the hall and the two sat down. Molly sighed, “We sure dodged a bullet there, didn’t we?”
Brigid took her sister’s hand and looked her in the eyes. “It was a close call. Where is all this coming from?”
“What do you mean?” Molly asked, confused.
Brigid made a circle in the air with her index finger. “All this…bravery. You didn’t…fall apart. You kept it together through the whole, horrible ordeal. You were amazing.”
“What did you expect me to do?” Molly threw up her hands.
“I don’t know, fall on the ground and cry. Turn into a puddle of emotions. Come completely unglued. But you had nerves of steel. You were a tower of strength. I’ve never seen you like this. Where did this come from?”
“From you, silly,” Molly laughed nervously.
“What do you mean, me?”
“Don’t you know? You gave me this strength. Growing up, I idolized you. I worshipped you. You were perfect. I wanted to be you. And I hated myself because I couldn’t be you.”
“No, no, no, that can’t be! I was so mean to you,” Brigid suddenly felt guilty and self-conscious, her brain unable to comprehend what her sister was saying. A weary custodian rolled her cart past the door. A disembodied voice announced something over the intercom. Someone pushed a patient bed down the hallway, thump, thump, thump.
Molly placed her hands on Brigid’s knees and explained, “When you left for college, I was lost. I had no one to talk to, no one to share with, no one to coax me off the ledge.” She drew in a breath to keep herself from crying. “So, I tried to do what I thought you would do. I played your voice in my head over and over. All that advice you gave me. All those pep talks. All those heart-to-hearts. And when the time came, I went out in the world and just did it. That’s all anybody can do, isn’t it? There’s nothing heroic about it. That’s just life. And here we are. Ry needed me and I was there for him just like you taught me.” Tears began to dribble down her cheeks like dew. Brigid’s eyes filled and, when she blinked, they tumbled down as well.
The two sat for a full minute in silence, processing the moment, evaluating the emotional tsunami that had just engulfed them. How had Brigid missed it? How had she failed to see Molly was not a flighty little girl anymore? That she hadn’t been that little girl for many years? She had somehow frozen her sister in time. Brigid had left Molly alone in their childhood bedroom with the swim ribbons and boy band posters and the Little House on the Prairie books, sitting in the dark, sobbing. But Molly, like Brigid, had abandoned that room long ago and built a life. Of course, she had! And suddenly, that life came into focus for Brigid, and she was both embarrassed and impressed. Their fraught relationship had somehow, in the throes of their shared terror, transitioned into something completely fresh and new and whole. Then she rose, smiled, and thrust her hand forward saying, “Molly, it’s so nice to see you.”
About the Author
R.H. Nicholson taught writing for forty years but is now (finally) focused on his own work which has appeared in Cool Beans, Ignatian Magazine, Adelaide Literary Journal, Echo Ink, The Blue Lake Review, The Back Porch, Big Window Review, and elsewhere. He and his wife live in a small Ohio River Valley town with their geriatric cat Fezziwig.