Unforgivable Love by Sophfronia Scott

Author:Sophfronia Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-08-10T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 28

Elizabeth

Mercylands, July 1947

She had found the ball and bat while wandering the too-quiet house that day. Rose was in the library returning telephone calls so Elizabeth sat for a while in her room and read. But after only a page or two she wanted to move about. She paced around a little then opened the door and strolled the length of the hallway. She paused at the stairs and considered going back to her room but decided to continue down to the first floor and go outside. She discovered a foyer where the servants allowed certain equipment to accumulate: boots, raincoats, umbrellas. She was just about to step through the door when she noticed a baseball and a bat. Elizabeth quickly looked around, but knew she was being silly—Val wasn’t there.

Often, though, it felt like he was there—quite present in fact. His letters didn’t stop. Sometimes there were just a few lines on the same thick paper. “Thinking of you. Val.” Other times they took on a playful tone. One of the letters, postmarked from Chicago, had gone on for pages describing nearly every single play of the All-Star baseball game he had attended at Wrigley Field. He complained about Jackie Robinson not being on the roster. On the bottom of the last page, in large block lettering, he had drawn “42” with arrows pointing to it. “Jackie Robinson’s number!” he’d written. That did make her laugh. It looked like something out of a schoolboy’s notebook. She liked how he was engaging in an activity he obviously enjoyed. But why was he so in love with the game? As far as she could see it was about knocking around some big pincushion of a ball with a hunk of wood. She supposed boys with sticks always wanted to be hitting something. That must be the natural attraction. When she thought of the boyish aspects of Val she almost regretted the harsh tone of her last letter. She must have sounded like a teacher scolding him.

She had hoped once he went back to the city Val would lose interest in her and start chasing some other woman. Wasn’t that what he usually did anyway? She only had to wait him out.

She picked up the ball and bat and took them out to the lawn. She threw the ball up and tried to grasp the bat in the way Val had shown her, but she missed. She tried again, and again the ball fell to her feet as she swiped at the air. The third time she managed to make contact and, shocked by how the handle vibrated and stung her hands, she nearly dropped the bat. The ball scooted across the grass and she laughed softly. She realized she would have to retrieve it. She walked over, picked up the ball, and continued her way down the lawn. She kept trying to hit the ball, sometimes swinging badly, but she began to enjoy having something to do. She hummed to herself in the sunshine.

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