Steal Away Home by Billy Coffey

Author:Billy Coffey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2017-11-07T05:00:00+00:00

-5-

It’s a single bump in a single game, Country says, nothing more. Johnson, he still looks good out there. And as this is a man who’s seen more pitchers than I ever will, I can’t disagree. O’Neill is barely in the dugout after rounding the bases when Johnson gets Brosius on a ground ball to first. Ethan moans from the other end of the dugout. One down.

-6-

I’d have given about anything to get out of supper that night given what was bound to happen, but eating together was Mom’s rule. Didn’t matter if I had a game or Dad had to stay late to get the football field in shape or Mom got held up at the library, supper came only once we were all home. Though I’d grown to loathe those thirty minutes or so—what teenager in his right mind wants to have dinner with his parents?—I endured them as best I could. Not for the company (which was minimal) or the lively conversation (which was nonexistent), but for the look of contentment on my mother’s face. From the time I’d signed my scholarship, that sense of ease inside Greta Cross seemed limited to whenever she pulled a roast or an apple pie from the oven and laid it upon a table bearing three plates.

It was near to six that evening when I got home. Three cars that day, Bubba’s and Travis’s and one off the lot. My shoes and socks were soaked through with water. The skin on my hands was a bright red that promised to crack in the following days. My pores oozed soap and tire polish. I wasn’t about to worsen Dad’s anger by saying supper would have to sit until I walked around in the woods awhile. Micky would have to wait, if she showed up at the hill at all.

Dad sat at the head of the table, newspaper spread before him like a curtain. The kitchen smelled of brown beans and ham and buttered corn bread from the skillet—my favorite meal, made for Momma’s little working man. She kissed my head as I sat. Dad moved the edge of the paper and cast me a grin through two knowing eyes, as though they said, Ain’t much fun, is it, having to spend all your day in thankless toil?

We prayed.

Mom passed the corn bread. “How was work, Owen?”

“Wet. Boring. Felt more like Bubba’s personal assistant than anything else.”

Dad grunted. Mom sighed. I could fill a book talking of my parents, but those few words are a good enough summary.

She said, “Well, it’s money well earned and money you’ll need.”

“Yes’m.”

“Got that blasted mower fixed,” Dad said.

He ignored me. Mom did not. I could talk to her of Micky. Mom would maybe understand. Would be thankful, at least, that I’d climbed atop those rails and saved the girl I loved. She would wait. Would listen. But before then I would have to get through supper, and I would have to get through my practice with Dad in the backyard after.

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