Page 46 of Safe at Home

“Tyler, do you have a minute?” I turned to see Coach Henderson standing there with his wife.

“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” I said in surprise. I hadn’t seen him in the church, but we were close to the front.

“I wanted to pay my respects,” Steve Henderson said. “Someone wants to meet you.”

“Of course,” I said and reached for Molly’s hand to let her know I wanted her to come with us.

“Tyler Stone, this is Harold Schroeder,” Henderson said, gesturing to the tall, gray-haired man in a suit, with baseballs on his tie, standing in front of me. I couldn’t believe it. I had seen him on TV so much I felt as if I knew him, but I had never met him in person. The head coach/manager of the Cincinnati Coyotes was here and wanted to meet me.

“Mr. Stone, I hear good things about you,” Harold Schroeder said to me and gave me a very firm handshake.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Schroeder.” I said in awe that he had heard of me.

“Please, call me Harry. Hopefully, before we know it, you’ll call me Coach Harry.”

Molly squeezed my hand, and I grinned down at her. “Mr. Sch- I mean, Harry, this is my wife, Molly.”

“Nice to meet you, young lady,” he said and shook her hand. “Good luck with those babies. We were all relieved to hear that you had missed the tornado.”

“Thank you, sir. It’s nice to meet you, too. You have a very good team this year. Fallon looks confident in center field, and Monroe and Miller are an amazing team at the corners.”

“Ah, so your wife is a baseball fan,” Coach Schroeder said, obviously impressed. “That will help you along the way as it’s very hard to be the wife of a baseball player.”

“I am very lucky,” I said and kissed Molly’s temple.

“This is my wife, Jodi,” he said, and we all shook hands with his much younger wife, who looked like a model.

“I am not a baseball fan,” Jodi said with a giggle. “I think the game is boring, but I do love this man.”

Harold just laughed and said, “I did notice Molly didn’t mention how amazing Hamilton is behind the plate.” Molly just shrugged but didn’t comment. I knew she wasn’t a fan of how Russell Hamilton, the current catcher for the Coyotes, played baseball. I wasn’t a fan of his, either. He was very argumentative with the umpires and thought he knew everything. “You know, the cocky bastard is a free agent at the end of the season, and the trade deadline is coming up. Soon, we’ll be a 40-man roster, and a lot of guys will be called up.”

“Honey, we need to see some other people,” his wife said. “Networking is the part of being your wife that I enjoy.”

“We’ll be seeing you soon,” Schroeder said as he shook my hand one more time. “Henderson here says that you are big on watching your own players’ and opponents’ film, and you’re always the first one at the stadium and the last to leave. That is the kind of player I want on my team. Don’t change.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, and I watched as he and his wife left the church. “Holy shit.”

“You may be in the major’s before we know it, son,” Henderson said with a laugh. “Don’t forget, you’re mine again starting tomorrow. Looking forward to having you back.”

After the funeral, Mack brought Nico back to our motel room in Riverbend. He had other things he wanted to pick up from their home, so it was perfect timing for him to drive back to Cincinnati.

Nico was very excited to see the kittens, and I watched as Mack made a fist with one hand and stroked it gently with his other hand. Nico nodded, picked up the small black kitten, and stroked him softly.

“What did you just sign to him?” Molly asked. “I really want to learn sign language.”

“It was ‘gentle,’” Mack said, smiling at his son. “That was one of the first signs we learned together. He is quickly catching on to sign language. I’m pretty sure he thinks it’s a game.”

Nico played gently and even laughed a little with all of the kittens. I did have to chuckle as I noticed my wife kept putting two of the kittens in Nico’s lap but steered the multi-colored kitten away from him. I had a feeling that was the one Molly wanted to keep.

Nico ended up picking the gray striped tabby kitten. Nico formed both his hands into claw shapes in front of his face and made a clawing motion moving backwards and to the side. Mack nodded in understanding and told us, “It looks like our new kitten is named Tiger.”

Molly did end up keeping the multi-colored kitten and named him Peanut. She says it was because he had some fur on his paw that looked peanut shaped, but I think it was because she couldn’t eat peanuts around me. I was just glad I wasn’t allergic to her kitten, Peanut.

Penelope’s kids ended up naming the all-black female cat Stormi since it had survived the storm. I thought it was an appropriate name for the kitten.

The next day, Molly and I hugged Penelope, her kids, and my former teammates goodbye. Dominic and my wife gave each other an extra long hug. “Take care of her,” he told me and gave me a hug.

“Always,” I said.

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