Page 138 of Running Home to You
When their chuckles ended, Abby didn’t move. She didn’t say good night. She lingered in the shadows, perhaps the first tell of the day that she too longed for more.
“Are we a memory yet?” Abby asked. “Long-lost teammates? Maybe even friends?”
Kate lost her breath at the lines from her letter. The one she never responded to but knew by heart. She shook her head. “I’m afraid not,” she whispered.
“I didn’t think so.” Abby smirked as she backed away.
“I’ll see you at the game,” Kate said. “I’ll be the one at shortstop.”
“Oh, you think you’re playing shortstop? I won’t be giving it up that easily. I’m not a lovestruck college kid anymore.”
Kate raised an eyebrow and grinned. “You sure?”
Abby paused on the walkway. “Not right now,” she said with a smile. “Good night, Kate.”
“Good night.”
She waited until the door closed to breathe again.
The Alumni Game
She went to church twice, maybe three times a week, though she still didn’t call it a spiritual awakening. The closest she came to that was the Serenity Prayer, with its message of surrender—the same message she learned from the field, of taking the good with the bad, of showing up and trusting it to come to you. The closest she’d ever come to a higher power, a way of life, or religion.
But when the AA meeting ended and Abby climbed the steps out of New Hope Baptist’s basement, she thought maybe she’d had a spiritual experience after all. She walked into a tepid but windy afternoon, with a pale sun. Perfect weather for the alumni game, made more perfect by the light it cast down on Kate, who stood just out of the church’s reach. The same spot where Abby had once waited for her.
“The CAC is going to want to hear about this,” Kate said.
“How the tables have turned.” Abby chuckled. Her cheeks burned in the shadow of this new Kate, even as she appeared to have stepped out from their past. She wore running tights and anInsley SoftballT-shirt, chestnut hair loose in a ponytail. Signs of a morning jog, which she’d returned from ruddy and sweaty but no less enchanting. “Mick tell you I was here?”
Kate nodded. “Had to see for myself.”
Abby looked away from all that light. That blue gaze, that big smile, that halo around her head. “Well, different kind of Sunday service in there,” she said, grappling for composure or a laugh that might restore her cool. “Alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals.”
“What part’s different?”
“True.” Her cheeks ached from smiling. “You know who would be really excited to see me come out of there?”
“Jesus,” Kate said.
Abby laughed. “No. Blake Davis. Whatever happened to him?”
“He owns a car dealership in Ann Arbor. Married with four kids.”
“Damn. I bet he got a great deal on a minivan.” Abby glanced back at the church. “You want to go in for old times’ sake?”
Kate’s smile faded. “No. I’m doing less of the church thing. More of the God thing.”
Abby raised her brow. “Well, this I need to hear.”
They fell into a walk, no different from the ones to a study session or practice, mirrored steps and comfortable silence.
“Was it the case?” Abby asked.
Kate wrapped her arms across her chest as the wind picked up and Abby wished she had brought a sweatshirt to give her. She wanted even more to wrap an arm around her, but dug her hands into her pockets instead.
“No. Not entirely.” Kate shook her head. “It was inspiring, of course. These kids, fighting for who they are. When they asked me to fight for them too, I was happy to do it, but there was part of me that felt unqualified.” She didn’t look at Abby, but ahead. “Not because of my experience, but because they trusted me to fight for them when I never fought for myself. When I never stood so confidently in who I was and what I wanted that I wouldn’t dare back down. Now, I think maybe that’s why I got into law. I could hide behind getting justice, fairness, and acceptance for others, without ever taking a risk to get it for myself. It was my own way of playing it safe. Or maybe running away from what I wanted.”
Rather than sweep in with assurance, Abby waited. Despite hergrowth, beauty, confidence, a whip of fresh sarcasm, the new clothes, and big job, this promised to be the most profound. The truth behind the broken engagement. The truth beneath the rest.
