Chapter 15: Seven Forty-Two

"Hi, Fox Field," Todd said.

His voice came out of every speaker in the park at once, warm and a little shaky.

It was the voice he used on waiters and state troopers, and the park speakers made it enormous.

"A lot of you know me as section 112."

Nobody laughed.

A few people in the upper deck said, "Boo," in a tentative way, like they weren't sure yet.

"I want to say something to my wife."

On the board, he was forty feet wide, with his hand on his heart and a Channel 3 light making his eyes shine.

I counted, because it was the only thing I knew how to do in that park.

At three seconds, he said, "Beth, I have made the worst mistake of my life."

At seven, he said, "I was selfish, and I was weak, and I take responsibility."

At eleven, he said, "But I also know my wife has been grieving, and when a person is grieving, other people can take advantage."

"There are people in my wife's life who have used her pain," Todd said. "One person in particular."

At fourteen, he lifted his chin toward the glass over home plate.

"A woman in that booth, with a lot of free time and nobody at home but a cat."

The park went quiet in a new way.

It wasn't the quiet of a crowd waiting.

It was the quiet of four thousand people who had just been introduced to a man they didn't like.

Then a woman in the upper deck said, loud and clear, "Hey!"

A man in the third-base seats said, "She runs the cam, you jackass."

Somebody else booed, and then the whole lower bowl did.

It rolled across the infield.

Todd didn't understand yet.

He thought it was for the cameras.