Page 52 of The Battery
Ah.I hadn’t meant my question to mean more than what we were doing in the moment.Clever.
To keep up pretenses, I pulled the tablet from him. I continued to lean but tapped through a series of moves. “You watching?” I asked when I noticed he had been looking at me.
He did a double take of the screen. “You’re moving too fast. Wow. You’re… you’re really good.”
“Do you know how many hours I spent in a chair next to my uncle during his first chemo treatments?”
“Have you been trimming your beard down more?” he suddenly asked.
I fumbled at the non sequitur. “Y-yeah, actually. You noticed?”
“Of course I noticed. Why?”
“Felt the need for a change. Why, do you hate it or something?” I tried to play the question off, like I usually did, as if I didn’t care. But I knew Cody could see through that.
“No way.” He reached up a hand to touch my face, clearly thought better of it given our circumstance, then lowered it back down. “I like it. Gonna keep trimming it back?”
I nodded. I was halfway through solving the game. “I think so, yeah.”
“Wow. End of an era.”
“And the start of something new.” I looked at him when I spoke. We held each other’s eyes for a moment. Then I handed him the tablet. “Okay. Take ’er from there.” I shifted in my seat to get more comfortable.
I wanted to sling my arm around him, have him nestled right up against me so I could smell his hair while he finished the game. Maybe once we got back home. We had almost ten days straight of games coming up and the break felt as far away as next season. So I contented myself with these smaller moments. Close, but not too close.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Cody
The call cameat 2am the day after we got back from Ottawa. I did not need to look at the phone to know who called. Nor did I need to ask what he wanted. My eyes shot open with ferocity and knowingness, as if someone came to me in a dream to warn me.
I slid my thumb across the phone screen. “I’m on my way,” was out of my mouth before Leo could say anything. I hung up to spare my heart the sound of a voice in pain, a voice I had come to know as perpetually masculine, even keeled, and unwavering. I had to steel myself against that for when I arrived.
I left a handwritten note on the fridge for Freddie. I was dressed and out of the door in under three minutes.
*
Maribel’s company car sat in the driveway,Helping Hearts Home Aideswritten along the side in bold cursive. I climbed out of my vehicle and the snapshot of it all burned forever into my memory. Dark of night, no streetlamps, Maribel’s car there, and the front door open to let the only splash of light spill across the yard. There was a stillness at this hour, as if everything waited for the big bang of morning to hit.
I jogged up to the front door and let myself in. I kicked off my loafers at the door and padded barefoot through the kitchen, then down the hallway. I heard shushed voices and stopped short to take a moment. I closed my eyes. Tried to hardenmyself against what lie around the corner. The lump had already formed in my throat.
Be strong. For him.
I turned the corner quietly. Maribel noticed me first. Leo had his eyes locked on to his uncle.
Ice squeezed my heart. Uncle Andy’s condition had taken a sharp dive the day after we left for Brooklyn. No water and food for days. His body was shutting down. I was shocked at how quickly it happened, especially since he had been so lively when I was around. I had read about that happening—a sudden resurgence of life before the collapse of death, as if the body and soul agreed to one final round.
He was skin on bones. Almost skeletal. Gone was the intensity of a Papadopoulos stare, replaced by a distant view of something lying beyond the mortal mind. Parched lips. Ragged breathing, if I could even report that. I don’t think I saw his chest rise and fall. A white blanket was pulled up to his shoulders over a naked body. A lamp on the nightstand was set to its lowest setting. Surrounding it were frames of…
My eyes welled up.
Leo’s family. There they are.A mother. A father. A brother who looked exactly like him. He had a twin? A whimper escaped my lips. I hadn’t seen any photos or even knew of their existence. Everything came crashing down at once.
More pictures. Black and whites of his parents and grandparents. Friends. Old pets.
And Leo. In a yellow and purple uniform for the Sarasota Martins, his first minor league. Probably his uncle’s proudest moment.
Maribel grabbed my attention with a gentle squeeze of my arm. “It won’t be long now,” she said in a hushed, respectful voice. She tugged and I understood. Leo still hadn’t noticed my arrival; I turned to follow Maribel out for privacy.
