Читать книгу Fireside - Сьюзен Виггс - Страница 11

There were some papers for Bo to sign before the airline could officially release its unaccompanied minor.

“See you around, AJ,” said the flight attendant, handing Bo duplicate copies of the paperwork. She was a pretty woman in her dark uniform and sweater, and in a different situation, Bo might flirt with her, offer to buy her a drink—which he now needed worse than ever.

She offered a smile that somehow hinted she might be open to such an offer. In general, women tended to like him. Now was hardly the time for flirting, though. “He did great,” she reported. “You must be very proud of your son.”

Bo nodded, but didn’t know what to say to that. What the hell was there to say? Twelve years the kid had been on this earth, his flesh and blood, walking around, and this was Bo’s first time to see him. He had no clue what AJ thought; the boy was regarding Bo like a stranger or, at most, a distant relative.

Which pretty much described Bo to a T—distant. Relative.

It was completely screwed up.

And none of it—nada, zippo—was the kid’s fault. So Bo offered his most disarming smile to the flight attendant and said, “Yes, ma’am. I sure am proud.”

A gate agent double-checked the paperwork in AJ’s neck tag. Then she handed Bo a receipt, like a claim check for a rental car. “All set,” the agent said. “Have a nice day. Thanks for flying with us.”

Bo nodded again and stuffed the receipt in his pocket. “Baggage claim’s this way,” he said, indicating the sign.

They started walking, keeping a wide gap between them, like the strangers they were. Naturally, Bo couldn’t help checking him out. AJ was small. Like, really small. Bo didn’t know how big a twelve-year-old was supposed to be, but he was pretty sure AJ was puny.

As they passed a trash can, the kid took the tag from around his neck and dropped it in the garbage.

“Hey, I sure wish we were meeting under different circumstances,” Bo said to him. He didn’t know what the hell else to say.

No response. Maybe the kid was in shock, or something. If so, it was understandable. This was probably the scariest day of the boy’s life.

Bo played Yolanda’s phone call over and over in his head. That she’d called him at all was unprecedented. Over the years, she had called him only a few other times—to tell him of AJ’s birth, to advise him she was marrying some guy named Bruno, and—just last year—to let him know she was getting a divorce.

For reasons of his own, Bo had been more than willing to abide by her wishes, to keep his checkbook open and his mouth shut. He didn’t know diddly squat about being someone’s father, but he sure as hell knew how to give money away.

And then yesterday … the urgent call that didn’t leave him a choice. “Thank God, you answered,” she’d said in a voice he barely remembered.

“Yolanda?”

“I’m in trouble, Bo. There was a raid at work. I’m at the Houston Processing Center of the INS.”

“The INS.” It took a second for him to realize what she was talking about. Then it came to him—Immigration and Naturalization Service—and he felt a sick curl of apprehension in his gut. “Hell, Yolanda, what does that have to do with you?”

“There’s no time to explain,” she said. “I’m not supposed to be making any calls, but I’m desperate, Bo. I’ve been detained.”

He wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but he knew it was nothing good. “What, like a foreigner? I thought you said you grew up in the U.S.”

“I did. They say I’m undocumented, and I have nothing to prove otherwise.”

He winced, hearing her voice shake. There was nothing quite so compelling to Bo as the sound of a woman whose heart was breaking. Truth be told, he couldn’t remember a hell of a lot about Yolanda Martinez—but he remembered what was important. That she had a tender heart and beautiful eyes. That they had been each other’s first love. That she’d been the first to teach him that love alone couldn’t save a person from hurt.

“What do you mean, ‘prove otherwise’?” he’d demanded. “Nobody ever asked me to prove I’m a U.S. citizen.” Even as he said the words, he knew he was being willfully ignorant. People didn’t ask light-haired, blue-eyed Anglos if they were citizens. Such inquiries were reserved for people with dark skin and Hispanic surnames … like Yolanda Martinez. “Okay,” he’d told her, “then just clear it up for them. Show them whatever paperwork they need and everything will be fine.”

“I don’t have anything to show them. Don’t you remember, Bo? The way we ended things … The way my parents were?” She reminded him that she was the only child of ultra-conservative parents. Having a baby at age seventeen had strained her relationship with them, and the years had only increased the distance. Her father had died a while back, and her mother had returned to Nuevo Laredo, her Mexican hometown, just across the Rio Grande from Texas.

Yolanda had no time to explain much more about the situation, but suddenly Bo was part of it. Although he felt sorry for her, he also felt himself suppressing a surge of anger at her, hiding it from AJ. The kid had enough troubles without being told his mother had screwed up. The last thing Bo wanted to do was lower the boy’s opinion of Yolanda.

Rounded up en masse with undocumented employees at the factory where she worked, Yolanda claimed she had no one other than Bo to turn to. “I’m being sent to a detention center,” she’d said in a voice strained by terror and dread. “AJ’s at school …” She related the rest in a furtive, terrified tone. The armed raid had begun without a breath of warning. Seventy undocumented workers had been rounded up for deportation. Many of these workers’ American-born children would be left alone, to be lost in the foster system or fobbed off on relatives, most of whom were undocumented, as well.

AJ had no one, Yolanda had explained between sobs. He was an only child, and she was a single mother. All her trusted friends and relatives had already been detained or deported. With no one else to look after him, AJ would be sent to foster care and lost.

Bo had felt a sick lurch of panic. He didn’t want the kid thrown to the wolves, but hell. He and Yolanda had been in high school when she’d gotten pregnant. Their lives were completely separate; the only tenuous tie had been the flow of Bo’s money into an escrow account set up a dozen years ago. Now, all these years later, that tenuous tie was made flesh and blood: AJ needed Bo.

He’d ponied up for a ticket; the only flight he could get last-minute was a red-eye routed through Chicago, making the journey an all-night ordeal. Mrs. Alvarez, a teacher’s aide at AJ’s school, had helped him. She’d dug up his birth certificate and put him on the plane.

It had been a hell of a night for the kid.

Bo took out his phone. “I need to call Mrs. Alvarez. I promised to let her know as soon as your flight got in. We’ll see if there’s any word on your mom.”

Finally, a flash of interest sparked in the boy’s eyes. He offered a quick nod. They kept walking as Bo scrolled to her number and hit Send, dialing a woman he’d never met, but whose semihysterical phone call had thrown his life into chaos.

“Mrs. Alvarez?” he said when she picked up. “AJ’s with me. He just got in.”

“Thank you for calling. Is he all right?”

“Seems to be.” He glanced at the dark-eyed stranger. “Quiet, though.”

“AJ? That’s not like him.”

“Any word on Yolanda?” Bo felt the boy looking at him.

“None. I’ve spent hours trying to get answers, but it’s impossible. The bureaucracy is absolutely incredible. The INS and the detention center are closed for the weekend. Nobody knows what’s happening. We’re lucky she managed to call you before they in-processed her at the detention center.”

The sinister terminology made him shudder. “Yeah, lucky. Okay. Well, keep me posted.”

“Of course. Can I speak to AJ?”

“Sure.” Bo handed him the phone.

AJ’s face sharpened as he took it. “Where’s my mom?” he asked. His voice was different from what Bo had expected—and then he realized he hadn’t known what to expect. Not this, though. Not this boyish rasp of emotion as AJ lowered his head and asked, “Is she okay?”

Then he was quiet for a minute, his face solemn. It was the face of a stranger. Bo had trouble wrapping his mind around the idea that this was his kid. He tried to pick out some resemblance, some point of reference that would somehow make sense of all this. But there was nothing. The Yankees cap and windbreaker, maybe. Bo had sent them in his annual Christmas box to AJ. The fact that the kid was wearing them had to mean something, Bo told himself.

Right, he thought. It didn’t mean shit. Years ago, when Bo had asked to see AJ, Yolanda had claimed that if Bo showed up in AJ’s life, it would only confuse the boy.

Now that he’d met AJ face-to-face, Bo knew that was a total crock. This kid, with his keen, guarded eyes, was not the type to be confused by anything.

AJ handed over the phone. Did all kids have such soft eyes, such thick lashes? Did it always hurt to watch a kid’s chin tremble as he fought against tears? He didn’t want to tell AJ that he’d talked to both the teacher and teacher’s aide at length already. He had been desperate for this not to be happening, and not just because it was inconvenient for him. It was because this sudden upheaval was so brutally cruel to the boy. Bo felt guilty about his earlier impulse to bolt. He would never do that to this kid. It had simply been his default fight-or-flight reaction to the unexpected.

For AJ’s sake, Bo kept mum about his conversation with the teacher. Mrs. Jackson had taken a bleak view of Yolanda’s prospects for getting out of her predicament. “It happens a lot down here,” she explained. “More than people realize. Long-time workers are detained and then summarily deported. And no one seems to worry that much about the kids. School-age children are allowed to go with their parents, but quite often, the parents don’t want that. I’m quite certain Ms. Martinez doesn’t want that for AJ.”

“So what happens to kids whose parents don’t bring them along?”

“They go to relatives if there are any, or into foster care if there aren’t. Some of them—too many of them—fall through the cracks.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They … the system loses track of them. They’ve been found living in cars or on the street, sometimes in abandoned apartments.”

“And how often do the parents get to come back for their kids?” Bo had asked her.

There was a long hesitation, so long he thought he’d lost her. “Mrs. Jackson?”

“I’ve never seen it.”

Bo didn’t think AJ needed to hear any of that. He put the phone away, saying, “Try not to worry. We’ll figure out how to fix this thing with your mother.”

The kid didn’t say anything, but Bo was sure he could feel doubt radiating from AJ’s every pore.

“It’ll be all right.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about me.”

“True, but right at this moment, I’m all you’ve got.” Bo watched the boy’s face change. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I intend to help you, AJ. That’s all I mean. I’m real sorry your mother never told you anything good about me.”

“She never told me anything about you,” the boy said.

Bo was stunned. “She didn’t explain where the monthly checks came from? The stuff I sent for your birthday and every Christmas?”

The kid shook his head. “I never knew about any checks. The gifts … we didn’t talk about those, either. She just handed them over.”

Bo tamped back a fresh burn of anger at Yolanda. There were lots of times when writing that check meant skipping meals or dodging the rent, but he never let her down. He figured it was the least he could do, since she was raising their child. It never occurred to him that Yolanda wouldn’t explain where the gifts came from. He gritted his teeth against saying what he really thought. “Maybe she didn’t tell you more because she wanted you to feel like you belonged to Bruno.”

“I belong to my mom. Not to Bruno or you.”

“When did you find out … about me?” Bo asked.

“When my dad—when Bruno left. I thought we’d handle it like other families, you know? You get to visit the parent who left. But Bruno, he didn’t want it that way. He said I couldn’t visit because I don’t belong to him.”

What a jackass, thought Bo.

And AJ had been left to deal with the reality that his father came in the form of a monthly obligation instead of a flesh-and-blood guy. Bo wondered if the boy would ever regard him as someone who cared, who would keep him safe and dedicate himself to helping Yolanda. And, yeah, there was probably some pride involved. He wasn’t the jerk Yolanda had painted, and now he had a chance to show his boy the truth.

“Tell you what. You’ve got a home with me for as long as you need it. And I’m going to help your mom. The smartest lawyer in the world just happens to be married to my best friend, Noah,” Bo explained. “Swear to God, I’m not exaggerating. Sophie’s an expert in international law.”

“My mom needs an immigration lawyer,” AJ said, the term sounding disconcertingly adult as it rolled off his tongue. “Is your friend an immigration lawyer?”

“Sophie’s the best possible person to help,” Bo replied. “I told her what happened, and she’s already working with lawyers she knows in Texas, trying to figure out what’s going on down there.”

Sophie had warned him the situation might get complicated. She said this “temporary” detention might last for a while.

Bo didn’t see how the government could keep a hardworking single mother away from her own kid. It didn’t just feel wrong, but inhuman.

They reached the baggage-claim area, and Bo found the carousel that corresponded to AJ’s flight. The conveyor belt was already disgorging pieces of luggage, the occasional box bound with bailing wire, a car seat, a set of snow skis.

“Let me know when you see your bag,” Bo said.

The boy watched the conveyer belt, then glanced at the duct-taped suitcase he toted behind him. “It’s right here,” he said.

Bo frowned. “You mean you don’t have any luggage?”

“Only this.” He indicated the carry-on bag and his backpack.

“Then what are we standing around here for?”

AJ just looked at him.

Damn. There was something that drew him to this kid. This solemn, very unkidlike kid. And it wasn’t just DNA.

“Is this the first time you’ve ever flown in an airplane?” Bo asked.

“First time I’ve ever flown in anything.”

At last, a glimmer of humor. “Well, hell. This is where the checked luggage comes out. And since you don’t have any, we’re done here.” Bo grabbed the carry-on and led the way to the parking lot. As they stepped through the automatic doors, the outside air assaulted them with bone-cutting January cold. The cindery reek of jet fuel and diesel exhaust bloomed in thick puffs from the shuttle buses.

AJ seemed dazed. He hunched up his shoulders and stuffed his hands in his pockets. Bo stopped walking and lifted the suitcase. “Hey, you got an extra coat in here?”

The kid shook his head, plucking the nylon fabric of the Yankees windbreaker. It flapped thinly against his skinny arms and shoulders. “This is all I got.”

Great.

“It was hot in Houston,” AJ added.

Now that, Bo could understand. Once in a blue moon, a cold spell might hit the Gulf Coast in a fist-like front known as a Blue Norther. Usually, it was plenty warm down there, and often muggy. Growing up, Bo hadn’t owned a coat, either, except for his varsity letterman’s jacket, purchased by someone from the high-school booster club; no way could he have afforded it himself. Now, that thing had been a work of art—smooth black boiled wool, sleeves of butter-soft cream-colored leather.

He peeled off his olive-drab parka, handed it to AJ. “Put this on.”

“I don’t need your coat.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t need you catching cold on top of everything else, so put it on.” A knifelike gust of wind sliced across the multilevel lot.

“People don’t catch cold from being cold,” AJ objected. “That’s an old wives’ tale.”

“Just put on the damned coat. It’s a long walk to the car.”

The boy hesitated, but then put on the parka. Bo couldn’t quite conceal his relief. He didn’t know what he would have done if the kid had defied him. Bo was a bartender. A ballplayer. Not a dad.

He got his key out of his pocket. The key fob still felt strange in his hand. He pressed the smooth, round button and the low-slung BMW Z4 roadster winked a greeting at him. He pressed another button and the trunk released. Carlisle, the sports agent who popped up at exactly the right time, had put the precontract deal together. Bo remembered standing in the cold November rain, just staring at the thing. A BMW Z4. Convertible.

Never in a million years did he think he’d own such a car. But life was funny like that. Everything could change on the turn of a dime. In a heartbeat. In the time it takes to pick up the phone. Just as he was getting his shot, he found himself in charge of a kid.

“Here’s our ride,” he said, inviting AJ to put his stuff in the trunk.

The kid complied without comment, though Bo could tell he was checking out the car.

It had been one of the first things he’d bought when, last November, a single phone call had rocked his world. Years after Bo Crutcher had hung up his dreams of a major-league baseball career, he’d gone—same as he did every year—to tryouts. The difference this time was that the Yankees finally wanted to do business. Bo knew he was well past the age most players started in the major leagues. He knew he was a long shot. But at last, against all odds, he was getting a shot. Sure, they only wanted to acquire him for a midseason trade; it was a strategy move on the part of the Yankees, but he intended to make the most of whatever time he had with the club. It would be a hell of a thing to earn his spot on the forty-man roster and on the pitching staff. His competition was a hell of a lot younger, but none of them wanted this more.

He had planned to spend the entire winter getting ready for his big break. Life, however, seemed to be making other plans for him.

“All set?” he asked the boy.

“Smells like smoke,” he said.

“I’ve been known to enjoy the occasional cigar,” Bo said. “In the off-season.”

“Carcinogens don’t take any time off.”

Bo felt like telling the kid he was being a pain in the ass, but he kept his mouth shut. He knew why AJ was being a pain in the ass. He was acting this way because he was scared shitless, uncertain of his future and worried about the only person in his life who meant anything to him—his mother. And he was pissed, no doubt, about being sent to a dad he’d never met.

There was a shitload of things to talk about, but Bo figured he’d hold off, let the kid adjust to this bizarre and unexpected situation. Only yesterday, AJ had gone to school as if it was any other day. He had no idea that when school let out, his mother would be gone and he would be bundled aboard a plane bound for a place he’d never been, to a person he’d never met before.

The engine sprang to life with a growl. Bo navigated his way out of the parking lot, paid the booth attendant, then headed for the airport exit.

The last of the cold night lingered, and heavy clouds held back the dawn. AJ didn’t say anything, just shifted in his seat and glared straight ahead, his profile clean and angry in the yellow glow of the freeway lights.

“Look, I’m sorry this is happening,” Bo said. “I’m doing my best to fix it as quick as I can.”

“I don’t see why I can’t just go where my mom is,” AJ said.

“Because she wants what’s best for you, and going to a—” He broke off, not liking the sound of detention center. “Going where she is won’t help her, or you. I didn’t ask her to call me, AJ, but … I’m glad she did.” Bo couldn’t figure out if he was lying or not. Sure, he’d always wanted to meet AJ. But he wasn’t certain of his own motivation—curiosity? Ego trip? Or did he really care about this boy?

AJ shifted in his seat. Before long, the shifting became a squirm.

“Something the matter?” asked Bo.

“I gotta take a leak.” The kid sounded sheepish.

And you couldn’t have taken care of this back at the airport? Bo clenched his jaw. He stopped himself from asking it aloud.

“I’ll find a place to stop.” Within a few miles, he spotted a Friendly’s sign poking up into the gray day. The place was open, surrounded by a few semis and travel trailers. They got out, and discovered the air was even colder here, outside the city. Bo hated the cold. He usually tried to spend winters training in Texas or Florida, someplace warm. If the Yankees deal worked out, he’d be headed to Tampa soon enough for training and exhibition games.

The restaurant smelled like pure heaven—frying oil and fresh coffee. Bo waited in the foyer while AJ went to the men’s room. Behind the hostess stand, a young woman checked him out. Bo acted as if he didn’t notice, but he stood up a little straighter. The fleeting moment reminded him that he hadn’t had a girlfriend in a long time. It was easy enough to get dates, but harder to keep them.

AJ returned, sniffing the air like a coonhound on the scent. His eyes shone with a stark, naked hunger, and his face looked pale and drawn.

“You all right?” Bo asked.

“Fine.” AJ’s hair gleamed at the temples, as if he’d slicked it back with water.

For some reason, Bo was touched by the hasty attempt at grooming. “When was the last time you had something to eat?”

A shrug.

“Did they feed you on the plane?”

“Yeah.”

Bo had his hand on the door. Something made him hesitate, and he turned back. “What?” he asked. “What did you eat on the plane?”

“A snack.”

“You mean like a little packet of peanuts and a Coke?”

“Yeah, only I had a Sprite.”

“This way,” Bo said, heading to the hostess stand. He offered the hostess another smile. “You got a table for two, darlin’?”

“I sure do.” She took two glossy, oversize menus from beneath the podium. “This way. Your server will be right with you.”

Despite the undercurrent of flirting with the waitress, Bo was irritated. “You should’ve told me you were hungry,” he said. “I’m not a mind reader.”

AJ regarded him solemnly across the table. “I don’t know what you are. I don’t know you at all.”

“I’m your father, that’s what I am. And it’s not my fault you don’t know me. It’s not your fault, either.”

“Sure, let’s blame Mom for everything,” AJ said.

All right, so this was going to be an emotional minefield. Bo was bad at blindly feeling out someone’s vulnerable areas, particularly with a boy who was a stranger. An angry, resentful stranger.

“I’m not looking to blame anybody,” he said, trying for a kindly, reasonable tone. Wasn’t that how you talked to a kid? With kindness? “Your mother isn’t to blame for anything, AJ. She made the best choices she knew how to make under the circumstances. I respect her for that.”

The boy stared at the menu, his face expressionless.

“Sorry I sounded pissed. I’m mad at myself, okay?” Bo continued. “Not at you. I’m new to this—to being in charge of a kid. I should have asked if you were hungry, or if you needed the restroom, but it didn’t occur to me. I’m not a subtle guy, AJ, and I’m not real smart about a lot of things. Sometimes you’re going to have to speak up, spell out for me what you need. Can you do that?”

“I guess.”

“Good.” He picked up the carafe the hostess had left at the table. “Coffee?”

“I’m a kid. I don’t drink coffee.”

What Bo knew about kids would not fill the stoneware mug in front of him. “Well, then, take a look at the menu and order anything you want.”

The waitress came, and AJ asked for a blueberry muffin and a glass of milk.

“Oh, you gotta do better than that,” Bo said. “I mean it, AJ. Anything.”

The kid packed away food as if he was hollow inside. A stack of pancakes, steak and eggs, a ham sandwich, a vanilla milkshake. Watching him eat, Bo felt oddly gratified. He didn’t know why. There was something primal about feeding the boy, watching him fill himself up like a tanker taking on fuel. If he ate like this all the time, maybe he’d grow.

Bo had a club sandwich and coffee, wishing it was a beer. As he paid the tab, he felt AJ’s eyes on him.

“What? You need something else? Dessert?”

“No, just … thanks.” The kid’s gaze shifted to an array of pies in a revolving lighted display case.

“We’ll take that, too,” Bo told the waitress. “The apple pie.”

“Two pieces?”

“Nah. The whole pie, to go.”

Once they were back on the road, Bo felt downright talkative, thanks to the coffee. “So what’d you think of your first airplane ride?” he asked AJ.

“It was okay, I guess.”

“You know, I was even older than you when I first took a plane flight. Summer before my senior year of high school. I made the same flight you just did—Houston to New York. It was for an all-star baseball team that brought together kids from all over the country. We got a chance to work with a coach named Carminucci. Dino Carminucci. He had a big career with the Yankees for a while. He’s retired now, but manages the Hornets these days, which is the reason I ended up in Avalon a few years back.” He paused, trying to figure out if AJ was interested in talking.

The boy kept his eyes straight ahead on the gray horizon.

“The Hornets,” Bo explained, “that’s my team in the Can-Am League. It’s Independent League Baseball. Totally separate from major league. I’ve spent my entire career in the Independent Leagues. Never thought that would change. It might, though. If everything goes the right way this winter, that’ll change.” He sneaked another look at the kid. AJ clearly didn’t give a hoot about any of this and, honestly, Bo didn’t blame him.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Just strumming my lips. You’re probably tired from your trip.”

AJ nodded but didn’t say anything. However, Bo’s remark made the silence seem less awkward. He relaxed, resting his wrist at the top of the steering wheel, and watching the road. He remembered that first airplane flight as though it were yesterday. He’d been a boy on fire. Not literally, of course, although at seventeen, that was the way he felt, all the time, like a struck match. With no supervision at home and nothing to keep him from exploding, he was into anything that would give him an adrenaline rush—swimming in the long, deep rice wells west of town, skateboarding through parking garages, having bottle-rocket wars with his friends, racing hot rods along the spillways and bayous of Houston—an accident waiting to happen.

He wasn’t looking for trouble. It was just that life excited him, though not always in a good way. That particular summer, he was on fire because he was pissed at his mom, who was broke again and had to give up her place in the Wagon Wheel Mobile Home Court. Sometimes when that happened—which it did on a regular basis—Bo went to stay with his big brother, Stoney. But that year, Stoney, just out of high school, was working on a rig offshore and couldn’t take him. Nor could he bail their mother out of debt. Generally speaking, Stoney was just as foolish as she was about money, and just as broke.

With his mom drifting around the Gulf Coast and his brother out on a rig, Bo had been looking at yet another summer in foster care. However, it turned out his baseball coach, Mr. Landry Holmes, had other plans for him. Holmes had played college ball in Florida with a guy named Dino Carminucci. They’d stayed in touch ever since. Holmes ended up coaching in Texas, and Carminucci became a scout for the Yankees. Coach Holmes had made all the arrangements for Bo to take part in the all-star program, somehow coming up with airfare and pocket money. Coaches were like that, all hooked into some vast, invisible network. The scheme was supposed to keep Bo out of trouble, and to give his one-and-only talent a chance to do him some good, so maybe he wouldn’t end up like his mom and Stoney, drifting aimlessly.

Bo had been on fire about girls that summer, too, an affliction that had first struck him in the eighth grade when he’d sat behind Martha Dolittle in social studies, watching her every fluttery, girly move. If there was a scale to measure craziness about girls, on a scale of one to ten, Bo would register about a ninety-nine. He’d been in love with Yolanda Martinez the summer before their senior year of high school, and they’d had a huge fight about him going north for baseball. She thought he was abandoning her, but he claimed that if he did well enough, he might get a scholarship to college, which would mean he actually had a shot at a future.

He had been the best damn ballplayer ever to wear the uniform of the Texas City Stings, and that was no brag, just fact. And finally, thank you, Jesus, finally he’d been tagged for one of the most elite baseball programs in the country, where he’d be training with the top high-school players in the sport and, more importantly, in full view of talent scouts.

He hadn’t slept a wink on the flight to New York City. Sure, he’d been tired, and the trip seemed endless, but he hadn’t wanted to miss a single second of the experience of flying in an airplane. All his life he used to watch planes flying overhead, silver flashes in the smoggy sky above Texas City, and he’d imagine being aboard, flying beyond the murky pollution to a place where the skies were clear and the air sweet. He didn’t much care where the plane was headed. Away was good enough for him, even if it meant leaving Yolanda, whom he hadn’t managed to sweet-talk into bed—yet.

Flying was everything he wanted it to be. When the gate agent saw his height, she gave him an exit row seat with lots of legroom, and all he had to do was say he was willing to help out in case of an emergency. Which was a complete joke, because in an emergency, he’d be yelling his head off like everybody else, but he knew better than to point that out. He’d brought along a copy of the training camp’s prospects report—a detailed scouting write-up about each player—and a book called The Celestine Prophecy. It was one of the biggest hits of the ’90s, prominently displayed everywhere—particularly the airport. He was a fast reader and it was a short book, so he finished it between periods of simply staring out the window.

The guy in The Celestine Prophecy was on the trail of some kind of ancient manuscript, and he kept having these spiritual insights, like discovering it was divine to be a vegetarian and that a guy needed to know his own personal mission. It wasn’t much of a book, but Bo saw a handful of other people on the plane reading it, so he kept plugging away, waiting for it to get more interesting. Mostly, though, he kept watching out the window. It looked like a dreamland out there. Sometimes all he could see was an eternity of cotton-candy clouds. This was what heaven looked like in every movie he’d ever seen about heaven. The weather cleared at certain points and he found himself looking down at the world. The green landscape was veined by the silvery twists of rivers and streams, and crisscrossed by roads. Everything looked so tiny and neat, it was surreal, almost. Like flying over a map of the world.

The guy next to Bo was a been-there-done-that kind of businessman. However, when the flight attendants came with a cart laden with meal trays, Bo couldn’t contain himself. He’d been dying of hunger and here they were, bringing him hot food. It was a meal fit for a king—a piece of meat molded into the shape of a football, with gravy on a bed of rice, chunks of green beans on the side. A little salad in its own container with an even tinier container of salad dressing. A dinner roll and a chocolate brownie. Bo looked out the window again. This was heaven.

He all but inhaled the tray of food and downed a carton of milk. The businessman next to him glanced over. “Would you like my entrée?” he asked. “I haven’t touched it.”

“Sure, that’d be great,” Bo said. “Thanks.”

The guy handed over his foil-wrapped mystery meat and the dinner roll, too. That seemed to break the ice, because the guy asked, “Is this your first trip to New York?”

Bo nodded. “First trip to anywhere, now that you mention it.” Other than team trips for games, the farthest he’d been from home was New Orleans. Last summer, he and Stoney had driven half the night to the Big Easy, because they wanted to get laid. The evening hadn’t really worked out, though, because Stoney—never known for his smarts—couldn’t manage to convince anyone they were over twenty-one. When they finally found a club with a bouncer who looked the other way, it turned out that the phenomenally gorgeous, sexy pole dancers in skintight sequined costumes were guys. Bo still got the willies, remembering that night. They couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

“Where are you staying?” the guy asked.

Bo handed him the brochure about the all-star program. It was a glossy pamphlet with pictures of lakes and forests that stayed cool even at the height of summer’s fury. “The program’s invitation only,” he told the businessman, “run by a guy who has connections to the Yankees organization.”

“You don’t say.” The guy sipped his coffee. “You must be pretty good.”

“I guess I’ll find out this summer.” At that moment, Bo had considered himself the luckiest guy in the world. He still remembered the heady feeling that anything was possible. It was the feeling he got every time he stood on the mound, his fingertips playing over the laces of the ball. Baseball had always been his passion and his salvation, even when injuries, bad timing and bad luck ruined his chances in the draft, year after year. He never gave up, though, never stopped trying, even when he was over thirty and had earned a nickname in the league—“Bad Luck Crutch.” When some brutish rookie asked him why he kept showing up, Bo had learned to grin and say, “I figure I need to be here when my luck comes around.”

And indeed, a decade late, that was exactly what had happened. Last fall, his luck had come back, triggered by a phone call from Gus Carlisle, a sports agent. There was a spot on the Yankees’ pitching staff. They were interested in pre-contract talks. Bo had been invited to the Rookie Development program this winter, and if things progressed, he’d be included in spring training and exhibition games.

Suddenly, Bo felt very close to that boy on fire. “You a baseball fan?” he asked AJ. Maybe the kid was ready to talk.

“Not really.”

Great. “Not even the Astros?”

“I don’t really follow them. Or any team. Or any player, either.”

“Well, hell.” Bo drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “What do you like to do?” He fiddled with the radio dial. “How about music? You like music? I play in a band in Avalon. We’re not that good but we have quite a time together. One of us is good—a guy named Eddie Haven.”

Bo was no virtuoso, but ever since high school, he’d played in a variety of garage bands. In the movies, a band was like a second family, but in real life, that was never the case. Every band he’d played in was as dysfunctional as his own family, if not more. Except the group he was with now, which was more about drinking beer and male bonding than about making music. The group consisted of Bo on bass and his best friend, Noah, on drums, and a local cop named Rayburn Tolley on keyboards. The real talent of the group was Eddie, on lead guitar and vocals.

A long silence stretched out. It was always a surprise to Bo when he met someone who wasn’t a baseball fan. More surprising when they didn’t have a favorite band—or song. He glanced over at AJ, then did a double take. The weak, cold light of winter flowed over his face. He held one curled fist tucked up under his chin, and he appeared to be fast asleep.

“Oh, you are scintillating, Crutch, that’s what you are,” Bo murmured. “Purely scintillating.”

Bo had to remind himself to watch the road. It was irresistible, sneaking glances at that sleeping face. Was there a resemblance? Some indelible stamp that branded this boy his? Bo couldn’t tell. He drove the rest of the way to Avalon listening to Stanley Clarke and Jaco Pastorius on the Z4’s state-of-the-art MP3 player.

For Bo, music was never just background noise. It was a place he went in his head, like a sanctuary. Home base, where he was safe. This was something he’d invented when he was a kid, left alone in a noisy trailer park in Texas City. The air smelled of burning petroleum products from the refineries, and the sky was always a dull amber color, even at night, because the refinery never slept. Bo’s mother and brother were gone most of the time, and he’d found that music was a way to fill the dark corners of the house and drown out the sounds of the neighbors fighting, dogs barking, trucks and motorcycles coming and going.

When he was about twelve years old, Stoney gave him an electric bass and an amp. The instrument was hot, of course; everything of value Stoney brought home was hot. Bo hadn’t objected, though. Sure, stealing was wrong, but Stoney was good at it, and he only ripped off people who owed him money.

Bo had taught himself to play by ear.

Bo glanced over at AJ, wondering if the kid liked music. Hell, he wondered if AJ liked anything. This boy, who carried around half of Bo’s DNA, was a complete stranger to him. Bo harbored no romantic notion that just because they were blood relations, they were going to find some deep connection and form a meaningful, lifelong bond.

Bo’s own father had disabused him of that notion. Wiley Crutcher had married Bo’s mother, Trudy, and stuck with her only long enough to give her a name that sounded like a prosthetic device, and two large, athletic boys. Wiley had left when Bo was a baby. Bo’s only memory of the man came from an encounter that occurred when Bo was in grade school. Wiley had shown up for a Little League game; Bo had no idea why. Bo’s mother had introduced them before the game.

“This him?” Wiley had asked.

“Yes. This is Bo. Bo, this here’s your daddy.”

Bo remembered feeling those eyes, checking him out. Wiley Crutcher had taken a sip from a bottle in a bag; he’d wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “Didn’t look like much.”

“Oh, he’s a real good ballplayer. Wait till you see.”

“Yeah?” Wiley had tossed him a coin. It had a triangle and some words on it. “Here you go, kid. For luck.”

Some guys’ dads gave them bikes and baseball mitts for presents. Bo got a one-time visit and this coin. His father hadn’t stuck around, but the coin brought Bo luck. That was something, at least. Bo had pitched his first shutout that day. His team and his coach were overjoyed, but when the game ended, his father was already gone. He went to get some beer, Bo’s mother explained, and he never came back.

So now, when Bo regarded this boy, this stranger-son he’d picked up at the airport like a piece of lost luggage, he did not fool himself into believing that the tenderness that touched his heart as he watched the boy eat and sleep was anything but pity. This boy’s mother had been rounded up at the factory where she’d worked for ten years, put in detention to await deportation. No wonder the kid was freaked.

Sophie would fix this, Bo reassured himself. Maybe even over the weekend; she was that good when it came to matters of law. So, really, there was no point in getting attached to the kid. AJ would be back with his mama in no time.

A few hours later, they rolled into Avalon, a town that, to Bo and most outsiders, looked too pretty to be real. Clustered around the southern end of Willow Lake, it was a town forgotten by time, where the seasons changed but the landscape didn’t. Currently the lake was frozen over, a vast white expanse of hell, as far as Bo was concerned. He preferred to stay inside where the real men were, shooting pool and drinking beer.

When it came to winter sports, Bo figured he’d rather have a root canal. He was a summer guy, through and through. He’d grown up with the sticky-hot sun of the Texas Gulf Coast beating down on him. It wasn’t his choice to live in the tundra. Initially, he’d moved to Avalon because it was the only place that would have him, pitching for the Hornets. Now he was entrenched, awaiting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that was not yet quite real.

The main part of town had a railway station with a few daily trains south to Grand Central Station in New York City and to Albany and points north. The town square had a courthouse, shops and restaurants that catered to tourists year round. Radiating from the main square were quaint streets of homes, schools and churches. They passed the Apple Tree Inn, a high-end restaurant where you took your date if you wanted to impress her, thus increasing your chances of getting laid. The Avalon Meadows Country Club was the place where the local nobs sipped martinis and traded travelogues.

And then there was the Hilltop Tavern. It had been Bo’s home away from home since he’d moved to town. It belonged to Maggie Lynn O’Toole, who had to buy out her ex in their divorce settlement. The bar, located in a historic brick building at the top of Oak Hill, had started life during Prohibition as a speakeasy. Through the years, it had gone through many transformations and was now the most popular watering hole in town.

Bo lived in a studio apartment tucked into a corner of the building over the taproom. AJ didn’t wake up when Bo pulled into the nearly empty parking lot at the back of the old brick walk-up, and stopped the car. Damn, now what? He hated to wake the kid after the night he’d had. God knew, sleep was a better place for the boy than being awake and fretting about his mother. But they couldn’t stay in the car all day.

“Yo, AJ, we’re here,” Bo said.

The boy didn’t respond.

Bo made plenty of noise getting out of the car and retrieving the bags from the trunk. He took the bags upstairs, hurried back down to check on AJ. He went around to the passenger side and opened the door. “Hey, we’re here,” he said again. “Come on upstairs and you can get some sleep.”

AJ was already getting some sleep. A fresh gust of arctic air caused him to shudder, but he didn’t wake up. Bo considered giving the boy a nudge, then decided it would be cruel to wake him from a sound sleep into a strange, cold world of worry. He reached into the car and released the seat belt. Bending low in a supremely awkward stance, he snaked one arm behind AJ and the other under his knees, and lifted him up.

The kid stayed sound asleep. Amazing. Also amazing—for the first time in his life, Bo was holding his son. Twelve years too late, AJ was in his arms, a deadweight. He was small, but not that small. Bo staggered a little, getting his balance on the icy surface of the parking lot. Damn. He could blow out a knee like this. And that would blow everything for him.

He moved slowly, carefully, waiting to feel some kind of connection to the bundle of humanity. Maybe now that he was touching the boy, it would happen.

Music pulsed from the taproom, interspersed with laughter and conversation. The afternoon crowd wasn’t too rowdy, but now Bo heard it with new ears. He instinctively hunched his shoulders as if to protect the kid from the intrusive noise. “Let’s get you inside, my buddy,” he murmured, and headed for the door.

The carpet on the stairs and in the hallway was grungy from winter boots; Bo had never noticed that before. He resolved to talk to Maggie Lynn about replacing it. Inside the apartment, he lowered AJ to the sagging sofa that occupied one wall, under a Rolling Rock Beer clock. The boy still didn’t waken, just sighed lightly, drew his knees up and turned his back.

Bo grabbed a pillow from his bed and pulled off the comforter, tucking it around the boy. Then Bo pulled the blinds and stood still for a few minutes, totally at a loss. Now what?

He’d never noticed before how small the apartment was, how cluttered. He listened to the noise of the tavern below. Was it always that loud? That obnoxious? Suddenly it bugged the shit out of him. He went to the fridge, grabbed a beer. The bottle gave a hiss of relief when he opened it.

He sat for a long time, sipping the beer and reflecting on his own childhood. He’d had a single mother, too. They’d lived in all kinds of places, none of them anything special. Where he hung his hat had never mattered much to him until now. Having the boy here made Bo flinchingly aware of the small, shabby digs. He knew for a fact he didn’t ever want to embarrass this boy, didn’t ever want AJ to feel ashamed of who he was or where he lived. Bo had been through that, and the vivid memories haunted him still.

Bo could afford a new place now. He just hadn’t gotten around to it.

Studying the kid, he wondered what the hell he was going to do. He thought about Coach Landry Holmes, the man who had taken him under his wing when he was about AJ’s age. Coach Holmes was, in many respects, more of a parent to Bo than Trudy Crutcher had ever been. Holmes had first spotted Bo playing sandlot baseball, pitching to kids on a field polluted with refuse that blew like tumbleweeds across the dying grass. They used old Circle K bags for bases and kept score with a stick in the clay-heavy earth.

Holmes had seen the strength and promise in that twelve-year-old’s pitching arm, and he’d made Bo his project. When Trudy got behind on her bills and the boys had to go into foster care, it was Coach Holmes and his wife, Emmaline, who took the youngsters home and fed them, made them do their homework and get their hair cut and go to church. The Holmeses attended their sports practices and games with more reliable frequency than Trudy ever did. That had been just fine with Bo, because whenever his mom showed up somewhere, she always created a stir. She wore her hair teased up high, and her shirt cut low. Looks like hers were impossible to ignore.

Yet despite the kindness of Landry and Emmaline Holmes, Bo felt completely unprepared to be a father. It was probably also why he felt so strangely disassociated. He vacillated between the urge to flee and take no part in this, and the opposing urge to protect this boy at all costs. He’d coasted for years, sending child support even when he couldn’t afford to, because it made him feel like he was doing his part without requiring an emotional investment from him. Yet now, out of the blue, here was a kid in desperate need. And Bo could no longer turn his back on his responsibility, could no longer write a check to make it go away. Well, actually he could, but even he wasn’t that big a jerk.

AJ was young and undersized for his age. But his presence here was huge. He was the proverbial elephant in the room. What a mess, Bo thought.

“I’ll do the best I can, kid,” he muttered to the boy.