Heft - By Liz Moore Page 0,118

of answer.

What do you think, said Lindsay.

I don’t know, I said.

If you had to guess, said Lindsay.

But I didn’t want to guess anymore.

Together we read his letter. We read it seven times. He was not my father. I wasn’t crushed. I felt no badness or anger. I was not sure what I had wanted. He sounded like a teacher in his letter. I liked him. I tried to picture him and couldn’t, so I pictured someone backlit by the sun. He could be anyone. Anyone except my father, according to him. All of my life I thought this about my father: that he could be anyone I passed on the street. On the street I looked for my father in every man I saw. I looked for him in my sleep. Now I know there are two less people my father could be. Two less for me to wonder about. The rest of the world remains.

I feel like people are only really dead once you stop learning about them. This is why it is important to me to keep learning about my mother, and what she wanted, and what her life meant, what she meant by the life she led. Then she will be alive, somehow, and her wish for me will have come true. My vow is to learn more about her. To see her as she saw herself.

So I like that Arthur Opp knew my mother the way he did. That he had a connection to her, outside of me. I like that she had a secret. I like that she had some little thing to think about, someone separate from me and my life. I wonder if she was in love with him. I can see her being in love with him, from the letters of his that I have read. She always had heroes, from the time I was little: I was the main one, the great hero of her life, but there was Dr. Greene, and the rich people from Pells, and my coaches, and my teachers. She liked hearing about them from me. She would have loved the Harpers. She liked smart people. She wanted me to be smart.

I am not mad at her for lying. I think she did it so I would be sure to meet him. I can see her doing that. I can see her giving us to each other as a gift.

I haven’t heard a word from Gerard Kane. I didn’t think I would, but—there was a part of me. The little-kid part, the part that felt like I couldn’t possibly fail at the one thing I was ever good at. I guess I could keep trying. I still have the spring ahead of me. Maybe I’ll play better than I ever have, and maybe some other scout, some other recruiter, will notice me. Maybe. All of these are maybes. And then I think about the Marcus Hobarts of the world, the people who play like they are magic, the people who play like they were made for baseball and baseball was made for them. Sometimes I think that I am like this too, like I am part of this, but there are days, more and more, when I’m not sure. And I think you have to be sure. I think the Marcus Hobarts of the world are positive.

So I’ve been thinking about what Ms. Warren said, which I kind of can’t believe. It isn’t too late. It’s not like I don’t have college coaches still interested in me. I talked to Lindsay’s dad about it and he said, I think that’s a really good idea, Kel.

Of course he did.

But really I’m considering it. Now that my mother’s gone—I guess I can do whatever I want. This is a thought that makes me feel happy and sad all at once. It is what I spent two years wondering about: how I would ever leave her, how I could possibly hope to have a life outside of Yonkers or Pells. Now I can go to school wherever I want. Alaska, if I want to. California. Hawaii. Arizona. Anyplace in the wide world.

When she first died I thought to myself, I could have prevented it. And this was the most painful thing to think. She wasn’t hit by a train. It wasn’t a clean even death like that. I could have stopped her. I could have reasoned. At first when I thought of these things I would shut my brain off,