Chapter 10: Catch

Sunday afternoon, Nelson Holloway took a baseball to the face.

It bounced off my son's glove, spun up off a rock, and caught his father squarely on the nose.

Nelson sat down on the lawn with both hands over his face.

"I'm fine," he said. "That was a good throw."

"I missed it," Percy said, delighted. "I missed it so hard!"

"You were supposed to catch it."

"I know, but this is better."

I stood on Eugene's back porch with a mug of coffee and laughed until my ribs hurt.

The Holloway house was an old brick place with a wide yard and a maple tree gone orange for fall.

Eugene sat beside me in a wicker chair with a blanket over his knees.

He watched the grass.

"Brooke is still in her office," he said, without looking at me. "I told my grandson not to fire her over a card statement."

"Why not?"

"Because a man who admits nothing can wriggle out of a statement. Get him to say it out loud."

"The ex?"

"He ran from that room like his shoes were on fire," Eugene said. "He'll talk, once he's scared enough. Leave him to sweat."

I nodded slowly.

He was a very smart old man, and I had begun to like him against my better judgment.

Down on the lawn, Nelson got up with a red mark across his nose and showed Percy how to hold the ball with two fingers.

"Like this. Index and middle."

"Why?"

"So it goes where you want it."

"What if I want it to go in the neighbor's yard?"

"Then you're a natural," Nelson said.

Percy shrieked and threw it straight over the fence.

Eugene chuckled, and then his face turned soft and unguarded.

"My wife used to say the boy would come home eventually," he said. "She meant Nelson. She died thinking he'd never settle."

He put a hand into his tweed pocket and pulled out a small brass compass.

It was scratched and worn smooth, with a tiny dent in the lid.

"Would you mind," he said, "if I gave him this?"

My throat tightened.

"He'd lose it in a week."

"Then he'll lose it in a week with great joy."

I walked down the steps with him, and Eugene leaned on his cane and held the compass out in his open palm.

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