The Boy of Summer

27 - Walk

Walk: Base on Balls occurs in baseball when a batter receives four pitches that the umpire calls balls (outside of the strike zone), and is in turn awarded first base without the possibility of being called out.

Six years ago...

Jett and Kenzie used his teammate's car to visit the baby. There was never a ceremony to make them Maisy's godparents officially, but they took their role seriously.

The hardest part of their regular visits was pretending there was nothing going on between them. They were inseparable except for classes and his workouts. He had practically moved into her tiny apartment.

Maisy was two months old and Jett was heading to Vermont for Christmas, but wished he could stay with Kenzie.

There was a dusting of snow on the grass as they walked up the walkway. He fought the desire to take Kenzie's gloved hand. Kenzie knocked and walked in calling out to Kimmy. They followed the sound of the baby crying. She was kicking her feet angry in the crib while Kimmy slept through her angry complaints.

Kenzie instantly picked up the baby as Jett woke her mother.

"What?" Kimmy asked, not lucid.

Kenzie yelled, "Kimmy, she's hungry and wet!"

"I'm tired. I'm so tired and in pain," she said lethargically.

Jet knew she had surgery, but her persistent pain surprised him. His teammates had recovered faster from surgeries to repair ligaments and tendons.

Kenzie sighed. "Sleep. We'll feed her."

Jett followed her into the kitchen. She passed off the baby to him to hold while she prepared the bottle. He stuck his pinky in her mouth, but it only stopped her wails for a moment. She knew it wasn't food.

Kimmy hollered. "Stop the crying!"

Kenzie rolled her eyes and shook the bottle more vigorously than necessary to mix the powder. The minute she handed him the bottle the poor thing stopped crying and began gulping.

Kenzie paced with her fist clenched. Jett wanted to hold her, but his hands were full. He looked down at the sweet baby and knew he loved her. He wondered how much more intense his love would be when he had his own child.

"Kenze, she's okay." He lifted her to burp.

"What's wrong with her? She slept through that crying." She whispered.

"I don't know." He wished did.

"What if we didn't come today?"

"We did." He tried to reassure her.

She finished the bottle and burped again. Kenzie relaxed and sat next to Jett on the sofa. Jett passed Maisy to Kenzie who held her as she slept.

"All that crying wore her out." Kenzie still looked sad.

Jett put his arm around her and she rested her head on his shoulder. They were alone except for the tiny baby. He kissed her head. She looked up and he captured her lips. He could linger on her lips for hours.

Kenzie had other things on her mind because when their lips separated, she said, "We should tell Betsy."

He didn't respond, instead he kissed her again, but they jerked apart when Kimmy exclaimed, "I knew It!" Her voice startled the baby who cried. "See she cries when I walk in the room. She's supposed to love me!"

"She does love you, Kimmy. Babies cry! She was hungry. You should have fed her and changed her."

"That's all I do. I need to get out of this house."

She paced back and forth like a caged animal.

Kenzie pleaded. "Kimmy, you can't tell anyone about me and Jett. You know my father."

Kimmy looked at them and at her baby who Kenzie had quieted. "Okay, but it goes both ways. You can't tell my mother I was sleeping. Not a word or I'll go straight to Coach."

Jett watched as Kenzie agreed and then Kim turned to him. "You too, slugger."

Jett nodded. "We've been keeping your secrets. You can trust us." Could he trust her?

Kenzie talked the entire drive back to school. "What kind of mother is she? What kind of friend? She'll ruin everything!"

There was nothing Jett could say. He let her rant. Although arguing with her was like foreplay, it was not the time to play games.

Once they returned to her apartment, he said goodbye, because his mother was coming after he took one last exam. He waited until he heard the dead bolt click into place before he reluctantly walked back to his dorm.

Jett sat at the table with his parents. It was the day after Christmas and home bored him. He hadn't kept in touch with his old friends. There was no point, since he never planned to live in their small town again.

"You know how I told you about Maisy?"

His mother smiled. "So have you changed a diaper?"

He shook his head, embarrassed because Kenzie always did. "I've fed her and burped her."

Stephen said, "You would spit it all up again."

Jett rolled his eyes. "Kimmy sleeps a lot."

Laura said, "Having a baby twenty-four-seven is hard. She's lucky for you and Kenzie." She smiled, and it made Jett feel paranoid.

Stephen said, "Just as long as you remember baseball and your classes are priority number one."

He nodded and felt sour in his gut, because it would get harder to see Maisy once practice started and worse when, not if, he was drafted.

"Dad, does it take long to recover from a c-section?"

"Why are you asking him? He never had one! I have the scar to prove it. That and a beautiful son."

"Me! I didn't know!" He pushed his food around his plate. As his mother explained eight weeks was the norm to be back to normal, he counted the weeks in his head. It had been closer to ten and Kenzie had been helping every day since she went home for Christmas.

"I know I have no right to ask and I promised if I get signed..."

"When," Stephen said.

Jett smiled. "I promised the signing bonus is yours for all you did for me, but there is one more thing..."

"What son?"

"Can I have a car?" He blurted it so quickly the words ran together.

"You'll keep your bonus," Stephen said.

"If I get drafted, I can pay you back. If I don't I'll need a car to do whatever I need to do to get noticed."

"You'll be noticed, don't worry."

Laura said, "I wish a car meant we'd see you more."

They all knew once the season started he wouldn't have time to visit.

"I'd really like to go to see Ben while he's home. If I wait until school starts he'll be gone."

He wanted to see Kenzie. Would Ben kill him if he found out what Jett had been doing with his sister? He was a dead man walking, and he didn't care.

His mother sighed. "I knew you wouldn't stay. I'm grateful to Coach for treating you like one of his own. It's not easy to send your only son away."

Jett had heard his mother's guilt before and used it. "So about a car?"

Laura said, "You know how much we love you."

He knew he won and leaned over to kiss his mother's cheek.