Chapter 7 - The Diamond Was Never Empty Again
One year after Maya crawled through my hedge, the baseball diamond was full.
Not with guards.
Not with Costello captains.
Children.
Thirty-two of them.
Tommy had organized teams with the seriousness of a professional manager.
“You can't put Maya in center field,” he complained.
“Why?”
“She dances when the ball comes.”
Maya crossed her arms.
“Only when it's boring.”
“Baseball isn't boring.”
“Then hit the ball to me.”
I sat near home plate watching them argue.
My wheelchair was behind me.
Not gone.
I still needed it.
But not every minute anymore.
A cane rested against the bench beside me.
Elena walked over.
“You're supposed to use that.”
“I know.”
“You're not using it.”
“I noticed.”
“Luca.”
I smiled.
“Yes, Elena?”
She gave me the look I had learned meant I was approximately five seconds from losing an argument.
I picked up the cane.
“Happy?”
“Very.”
She sat beside me.
The estate had changed completely.
The old unused guesthouse had become an after-school center funded through the Costello Foundation.
The baseball field belonged to neighborhood children three afternoons a week.
There were tutors.
Meals.
Dance classes.
And, because Maya had insisted, “a place where kids can just be kids.”
Tommy called it charity.
Maya called it her idea.
Both were technically correct.
Maya ran toward us.
“Come pitch.”
I looked at her.
“No.”
“You promised.”
“I promised I'd consider it.”
“You considered it yesterday.”
“And decided no.”
She planted her hands on her hips.
“Scared?”
Elena whispered, “Don't.”
Too late.
I stood.
Slowly.
My right leg remained weaker.
My balance wasn't perfect.
It might never be.
But I stood.
Maya smiled triumphantly.
“I knew it.”
“You manipulate people.”
“I learned from Tommy.”
From across the field Tommy yelled, “I heard that!”
I walked toward the mound using the cane.
The children became quiet.
I hated that.
“Why did everyone stop?”
Tommy answered.
“Because you're walking.”
“I've been walking for months.”
“Yeah, but usually you walk like an old man.”
“I'm forty-nine.”
“Exactly.”
I pointed toward the gate.
“You're banned.”
“No, I'm not.”
“No, he's not,” Maya agreed.
I looked back at Elena.
“Do I control anything around here anymore?”
She smiled.
“Apparently not.”
I reached the mound.
Maya stood at home plate holding a bat far too large for her.
“This is a terrible idea.”
“You're nervous.”
“I've negotiated with people more frightening than you.”
“Were they eight?”
“No.”
“Then they weren't more frightening.”
She grinned.
I looked toward Elena.
She stood near the porch.
For a moment, I remembered the first time I'd seen her there.
Terrified.
Ready to lose her job because her daughter had crawled through a hedge.
Now she looked peaceful.
I threw the ball.
It bounced three feet in front of Maya.
Tommy groaned.
“That was terrible.”
“Quiet.”
“Want me to pitch?”
“No.”
Maya laughed.
“Again!”
I threw another.
Better.
She swung.
Missed.
“Again.”
The third pitch came across the plate.
Maya connected.
The ball rolled toward second base.
She screamed and ran.
Everyone started shouting.
“RUN!”
Maya raced toward first.
I laughed so hard I almost lost my balance.
A hand caught my arm.
Elena.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
I looked at her.
Then at the children running across the diamond I'd once built for a family I thought I would never have.
“Better than okay.”
That evening, after everyone left, Maya found me sitting on the porch.
The sun was dropping behind the trees.
She sat beside me.
“Luca?”
“Yes?”
“Do your legs still sleep?”
“Sometimes.”
“Mine too.”
“I know.”
She became unusually quiet.
Then she asked, “Were you mad when you found out someone hurt you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you still mad?”
I considered the question.
“Sometimes.”
“Mom says being mad too long makes you tired.”
“Your mother says many inconveniently intelligent things.”
Maya nodded seriously.
“She does.”
I looked toward the field.
“For years, I thought the worst thing that happened to me was losing my legs.”
“Wasn't it?”
“No.”
“What was?”
“Believing my life had stopped because my legs did.”
She thought about that.
Then smiled.
“But they weren't dead.”
“No.”
“They were sleeping.”
I laughed.
“You are never going to let that go, are you?”
“Never.”
Elena stepped onto the porch.
“Maya, time for bed.”
“Five minutes.”
“Now.”
Maya stood, kissed Elena, then unexpectedly hugged me.
“Good night.”
“Good night, troublemaker.”
She ran inside.
Elena remained.
I looked up at her.
“One year.”
“One year,” she repeated.
“Do you regret coming here?”
She shook her head.
“Not anymore.”
I held out my hand.
She took it.
I rose carefully.
No therapist.
No parallel bars.
Just Elena.
We walked toward the baseball diamond together.
At home plate, I stopped.
“What?” she asked.
“I was thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
“Very funny.”
I looked around.
“Eleven years ago, I built this place because I thought I'd have children here someday.”
Elena squeezed my hand.
“And?”
“I spent years looking at it like it was proof of everything I'd lost.”
“And now?”
A light came on upstairs.
Maya appeared in the window.
She waved wildly.
I waved back.
Then I looked at Elena.
“Now I think maybe I was just waiting for the right kid to crawl through the hedge.”
Elena smiled.
I leaned closer.
She met me halfway.
The kiss was quiet.
No audience.
No dramatic applause.
At least, that was what I thought.
Then Maya's voice came through the open upstairs window.
“FINALLY!”
Elena pulled away laughing.
“Maya!”
Tommy's voice suddenly came from somewhere inside the house.
“I told you they'd do it!”
I stared at Elena.
“Why is Tommy still here?”
She covered her face.
“I forgot his mother said he could sleep over.”
I pointed toward the mansion.
“We've lost control.”
“Completely.”
I looked down at my legs.
They were trembling.
Not from poison.
Not from paralysis.
From standing too long.
It was the best kind of pain I had ever felt.
For twelve years, I believed the most important question in my life was whether I would ever walk again.
I had been wrong.
The important question was what I would do if life ever gave me another chance.
I looked at Elena.
At Maya waving from the window.
At Tommy yelling something about pancakes.
At the diamond that was finally being used.
Then I took another step.
And another.
The chair remained on the porch behind me.
I wasn't ashamed of it.
It had carried me through twelve years I once thought were empty.
They weren't.
They had brought me here.
To Elena.
To Tommy.
And to an eight-year-old girl who had looked at what the finest doctors in the world called permanent and decided they might be wrong.
Because dead things don't try.
And apparently—
May you like
neither did Luca Costello anymore.
THE END
