Winning With Him (Men of Summer 2)

“I am. But that led me to think about you. Are you happy now? I never meet anyone you’re with. I never hear about boyfriends. It just makes me wonder.”

“About what?”

“Walls,” she says, pinning me with an intense mom gaze. “If you have too many. Or if you have too few. Honestly, I don’t know, Declan. I try to live without regret, but if I have one, it’s that when you were in high school, I was so focused on what I needed to heal that I didn’t really ask you what you needed to heal.”

Her lip quivers, and I reach for her hand, set mine on top of it. “Don’t second-guess yourself. You did what you had to do. I was behind you every step of the way.”

“But you were just a teenager. You were a kid trying to figure out who you were.”

“Every kid is trying to do that,” I say, protesting as the waiter brings the sushi. “Arigato.”

“Arigato,” Mom says to him, then zips her attention back to me. “Not every kid is raised by an addict and by someone who loves an addict. And not every kid who was raised by an addict and someone who loved an addict is coming to terms with his or her orientation,” she adds pointedly.

My stomach twists as we revisit the past—my least favorite place to travel to. “What are you saying, Mom?”

“I’m saying that you were so tough, so strong. You were all about baseball. Play harder. Play better. Practice more. At the time, I believed that meant you were doing fine. But now, I wonder if it meant that you weren’t.”

My throat tightens. My muscles tense. “And what if I wasn’t doing fine?”

Her eyes glisten. “I think you should consider talking to someone.”

“Like a twelve-step program?”

“Al-Anon could be good. Or maybe a therapist. Would you consider it? I think it would be good for you.” She pauses, and it feels important. “I heard that your dad still keeps turning to you when he has problems,” she says, laying the fact plainly on the table.

I wince. “Who told you?”

“He did, sweetie. He called me recently asking for money. When I said no, he said he’d just ask you and you’d give it to him. He said that’s what you’d been doing.”

I slump back in my chair, dragging my hands through my hair. Busted. “Sometimes it’s just easier.”

“I understand. And that’s why I want you to think about seeing someone. Talking through why it seems easier. What it means.”

I take a deep breath. “I will.”

Deep down, I know she’s right.

When I return to New York at the end of January, I do the hardest thing ever. Harder than breaking it off with Grant. Tougher than coming out. More difficult than giving my dad money.

I turn to Google, find a therapist, and ask for help.

The thing I’ve never done.

This is my virgin territory, and I’m more terrified of what I’ll discover than I am of being hit by a ninety-eight-mile-an-hour fastball.

But after a few trial appointments that don’t work out, I find someone who does work. We start in May, and the timing lines up with the baseball calendar. Slowly, but surely, we start working through some of the shit I’ve been burying for years.

When Grant wins the World Series in the fall, all I want to do is celebrate with him. He’s three thousand miles away so I can’t. But I can call him.

He answers with a hoarse voice the morning after. “Hey!”

“I guess someone had a good night,” I say, as I pace through my apartment, watching Park Avenue midday traffic cruise by below.

“The best,” he says, and his delight is infectious.

“Congratulations. I’m really happy for you. And proud of you, man.” I can’t wipe the grin off my face.

“Thank you. I still can’t believe it. It feels like a dream.”

“I can only imagine. Must be cloud nine,” I say, stopping to lean against the window, the cold of the glass pressing on my shoulder. “What was that like? When you caught the final pitch?”

He laughs lightly, sighs happily. “It was like . . . remember when you were seven or eight? And you went to the ballpark? And you played with a friend or maybe even alone? And you pretended you were the announcer?”

I slip back in time, warbling into a pretend mic. “And now, Declan Steele takes the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth in game seven of a nail-biter of a World Series.”

“And you could hear the roar of the crowd and the crack of the bat when you were a kid?” Grant says, as enthused as I am over the memories. “And then you imagined connecting with the ball, watching it soar over the fences. You ran the bases, arms high in the air, and you jumped up and down when you reached home plate?”