turned away and went back toward Webber, trying to figure out how to tell him that he wouldn’t ever be one of those players on the television. Not for their club. Nor for Pittsburgh nor St. Louis nor Boston. Nor anyone. He was twenty and his life as he expected it to be was over.
Chapter Twenty-five
When Edward Everett got home on Sunday night after a miserable doubleheader—two losses, eight–one and, in a second game to make up for the rainout on the day before, four–zip—he had two voice mail messages. He expected one to be from Marc Johansen, MS, MBA, demanding more information about Webber’s injury. Almost immediately after the taxi had brought him back to the motel from the hospital, he’d taken his laptop to the lobby to email a report about Webber’s injury and prognosis to Johansen. It took him more than half an hour to compose since he wanted to be accurate, but also he kept changing it, first reporting Nelson’s part in it, then deleting him from the account because he had no idea how Marc Johansen, MS, MBA, would react to his allowing Nelson to stay with the team after the organization had released him. Finally, he’d said only, “injured off-field in physical altercation with person not a team member.” It was after all the truth. Since then, he’d obsessively checked his cellphone, expecting he’d find a missed call from Mark Johansen, MS, MBA, but the big club was ominously silent.
As for Nelson, he had vanished. When the bus left the lot at the Urbana ballpark after the final game, Edward Everett scanned the faces on board: no Nelson. As the bus sat at the exit from the parking lot, waiting for traffic to clear before making its turn, he expected to see Nelson running toward them, but he didn’t show up, leaving him God knew where. Perhaps, Edward Everett thought, Webber—pitiful Webber, still in the hospital, his mind doped with Percodan—had knocked into Nelson the sense he needed, as if one of the punches had shaken loose the last bit of—what, insanity? eccentricity?—whatever had made Nelson keep showing up to a team where he did not belong anymore.
The first message on his voice mail at home was from Collier. “Gimme a call,” he said. It was almost eleven when he heard the message; Collier was probably still up—he suffered from insomnia; in the past, he had called Edward Everett even later than this for no particular reason except that, Edward Everett could tell, his house was too quiet and there was nothing on television. Collier would not want to hear about Webber, one of only a few players who drew fans to a game—what fans there were.
The second message was a hang up, just the sound of what seemed like a woman’s voice exclaiming a syllable he couldn’t discern and then a receiver clattering twice before the dial tone came on. When he checked his caller ID, it read, “Blocked.” He replayed the message several times, raising the volume, wondering if it was Renee’s voice, wondering if he could understand something of what she had been trying to say. “Ha” was all he could make out, or “Ah.” It may have been a frustrated exhalation, or the start of a sardonic laugh, but it also could have been the beginning of a word: “Hon,” maybe, he thought. Nonetheless, he clicked “save” and, after seeing that the kitchen light was on at the Duboises’ house, went next door to get the dog.
On the team’s way out of Urbana, Edward Everett had asked the bus driver to stop at a Czech bakery they passed. Once, Renee had joined him on a road trip there and, exploring the town while Edward Everett was at the ballpark, had discovered the bakery. She took him there for coffee and kolache, Renee trying out the little Czech she knew, greeting the tiny, white-haired woman behind the glassed counter of bread and sweets, “Dobry den.” The woman had brightened and begun speaking rapidly before Renee blushed and said, apologetically, that “hello” was the extent of what she remembered from the lessons her maternal grandmother had given her when she was a small girl. Nonetheless, the baker had not accepted any payment for the pastries they ordered and had also made them take a box of them for the road. “Grandma used to make these at Easter,” Renee said on their drive back to Perabo City, opening the white box, filling the