Player Loves Curves Box Set #4-6 by Hope Ford
Carter
I stormout to my car, get in, and bang my hands on the steering wheel, screaming out my frustrations. She’s right. I’m vibrating mad. But fuck, I’m not only mad, I’m happy, I’m nervous, I’m terrified, I’m lost, and all those fucking emotions whirling around in my head are too much. I put the car in drive and head to the gym at the clubhouse. It’s either that or I’m driving to the nearest bar.
The team is at an away game and I have the gym to myself. I get on the treadmill and start running. I don’t stop until it’s been over an hour and I feel that I’m about to drop from exhaustion. Normally, running soothes me, but even as I get off the machine with shaky legs, I still feel conflicted.
I sit down on a bench, my head in my hands. I try to fight it, but I can’t. Not anymore. My heart lurches in my chest. My life is a fucking mess. It’s so easy to blame this all on Hanna. She lied to me and forced me out of her life. But I’m the one that turned to alcohol and treating women like shit, like they deserved to be treated like that. Fuck, I haven’t even met her, but just thinking of some man disrespecting my daughter that way makes me want to fucking kill somebody.
I feel almost crazy right now, so many things in my head. I think about that moment when Hanna told me she was dating someone else. I remember exactly how it felt and how it fuckin’ destroyed me. I didn’t care about anything after that. Not baseball, not my family, not even myself. I’ve let everything go to shit, I’ve suffered, my baseball career has suffered, my family has suffered, and judging by the way that Hanna lives and where she’s working, she’s suffered. But in all of this, Maggie, my daughter, my own flesh and blood, has suffered too.
And it’s time I fixed that.
I get up, grab a towel, and walk down the hall to the batting cages. I load up the pitching machine, set it on automatic, and spend the next two hours working on my swing. The whole time I’m making plans thinking of everything I need to do by tomorrow morning.
* * *
Hanna
I didn’t sleep a wink.Janice brought Maggie back shortly after Carter left, and we spent the rest of the evening playing. Then I spent the night in bed, looking up at the ceiling, thinking about what a mess I’ve made of things. I thought what I was doing was sacrificial, so he could be happy. But seeing him on the news, especially of late, he hasn’t looked very happy. He always looks tormented… and angry. Man, if I could just go back and change what I did. How different would my life, Maggie’s life, be right now?
I finally fell asleep around six, and my alarm went off at seven just as I heard Maggie moving around in her bed. I get us both cleaned up and then go about fixing her breakfast. Before I know it, it’s eight forty-five and I’m a complete and utter mess.
When a knock sounds on the door, I let Carter in. I haven’t prepared Maggie, so when she sees Carter in real life for the first time, she looks at the television and then back at him. She doesn’t understand how he’s here. Carter just stands there, his arms full of a big teddy bear, staring at Maggie in nothing short of awe.
She gets up and wobbles across the room to him. She started walking as soon as she turned one and she’s picked up the pace ever since. Carter is frozen for a second, until he squats down, the bear still in his arms. He and Maggie stare at one another for the longest time, and I can’t stop the cry that comes from me when Maggie says, “Da da.”
Carter looks up at me with surprise and tears in his eyes and then back at Maggie. When he nods at her, she runs the rest of the way to him and he catches her before she falls. He pulls her up to his chest and holds her as he falls back on his back, the teddy bear forgotten as it falls to the ground beside them.
I take a few steps back, covering my mouth with my hand, not wanting the sobs to escape me and interfere with their joy at having each other. I should have known that Maggie would recognize him. His pictures are in the bedroom, we’ve watched him on television, and I had a pillow made with his face on it. She sleeps with it every night.
Maggie says it again, “Da da?” and she’s using her little pudgy hands to wipe the tears off Carter’s face. He laughs and just holds on to her. She sits there for a while, content to be in his arms, but as time passes, she gets up and starts playing with the teddy bear he brought.
“I need you to pack, Hanna,” he says without looking at me. I know he hates me.
When his words finally register, alarmed, I tell him, “You’re not taking her from me.”
He glares at me over Maggie’s head, but tickles her so hopefully she doesn’t notice his strained voice. “No. I’d never take her from you. I need you to pack both of your stuff.”
I put my hand on my hip and then quickly drop it. I don’t have the right to be righteous with him, but I tell him as calmly as I can, “You can’t come in here telling me what to do.”
He starts to say something, closes his mouth, and then brushes the hair off of Maggie’s face. She beams up at him before she dives onto the big, huge teddy bear as if she’s wrestling with it. Finally, he looks at me. “Do you have any idea how I feel, knowing that I have a little girl and I haven’t been here for her? Don’t you think she wonders why I haven’t been here?”
“I told her you had to work.”
He shakes his head, sadly. “And she thinks my work is more important than her.”
“She’s only fifteen months…”
“It doesn’t matter, Hanna. I need to do this. I need you to pack both of your things. I’ve moved out into the pool house and am moving you and Maggie into the house. I’ve been baby proofing all night. I went to the twenty-four hour box store and set up everything for her room, but you can change anything.”
I hold my hand up to stop him. Everything is whirling in my head. But my stupid pride rears its head. “You don’t have to take care of me in order to take care of her. I’m not your responsibility.”
“You would have been if you hadn’t lied to me, played God in all of this.” He stops and looks up at the ceiling, and I can tell he’s trying to get a hold of himself. “Look, I’m not going to argue with you about this. I need to do this. Please let me do this. I need you both somewhere safe. I’m pretty sure I saw a drug deal going down outside, and it’s only nine in the morning.”
I owe him this, I know I do. I screwed things up, and I’m lucky he’s not demanding more from me. “Janice is my best friend and lives next door. She watches Maggie while I’m at work and I don’t think she will be able to come all the way to your house to watch her, and I don’t want to hire someone I don’t know.”
He looks uneasy for a minute. “I want you to quit your job…”
“No, Carter. I have bills to pay, and I have to be able to take care of Maggie.”
“You know you don’t want to st…” He looks at Maggie, who’s looking between him and me. He smiles at her and tickles her bare feet. When she starts giggling, he smiles and then looks at me. “You don’t like that job. You know you don’t. You want to work, get something else. You want to go back to school, you always wanted to be a writer, do that. I can watch her. I’m benched for a few more weeks, and then when I go back we can figure out a babysitter by then if we need to. Do this for Maggie.”
I don’t want him to think that he can come in here and start telling me what to do, but he’s right. I hate stripping for money, but I don’t want to depend on him. “I’ll think about it.”
He wants to argue, I know he does, but he merely nods his head. “Now go pack some clothes. I got Maggie.” When I hesitate, he adds, “Please?”
Reluctantly, I get up and start to gather up our things, while hoping and praying I’m making the right decision.
