“Who sent you?” he asked.
“Nobody.”
“Where’s your father?”
“At work.”
Walter came down the bleachers with surprising speed.
“That’s enough,” he said.
“The boy made his point.”
Eli looked at him.
Walter’s expression changed.
It was brief, but Eli saw it: recognition followed by something less comfortable.
“You’re Nolan’s son?”
“Yes.”
Walter held out his hand.
“Give me the ball.
We can arrange something appropriate.”
Eli stepped back.
“I have one pitch left.”
“This isn’t a tryout.”
“The banner says—”
“I can read the banner.”
The sharpness carried across the field.
Ryan stood behind home plate, mask lifted.
Derek wasn’t looking at Walter.
He was watching the envelope that had slipped above the collar of Eli’s shirt.
“What’s that?”
Eli pulled it free.
The foundation’s address was printed across the front.
The upper corner had been neatly clipped.
“My dad wrote to you.”
Derek took half a step forward.
“When?”
“Last month.
About a scholarship.”
Walter’s hand closed around his cane.
“We receive hundreds of applications.”
Eli unfolded the letter.
His father’s handwriting leaned slightly downhill.
On bad shoulder days, his letters became smaller toward the bottom of a page.
“He asked if I could attend one clinic,” Eli said.
“He told you I practice every day.”
He turned the sheet over.
A short rejection had been stapled to it.
Application declined.
Insufficient evidence of competitive ability.
Derek read the words without touching the paper.
“Who evaluated him?”
Walter cleared his throat.
“There are standards.”
“He’s never pitched here,” Ryan said.
Walter ignored him.
Eli stared at Derek.
“I thought if you saw me, you might change your mind.”
The sentence landed harder than either pitch.
From the open gate came a voice.
“Eli.”
Nolan Carter stood beside the chain-link fence in gray maintenance clothes, carrying a canvas tool bag.
Eli recognized the way his father held his right arm close to his side.
He must have come directly from work.
For one foolish second, Eli wanted to hide the letter.
“I was going to tell you.”
Nolan’s gaze moved from his son to Derek, then stopped on Walter.
His face emptied.
“What are you doing here?”
Walter asked.
Nolan walked onto the dirt.
“Getting my boy.”
He didn’t raise his voice.
Somehow that made the field quieter.
Derek swallowed.
“Nolan.”
“Derek.”
Twenty years fitted into the space between their names.
Nolan reached Eli and took the letter gently.
“You didn’t need to come here.”
“They said I couldn’t—”
“I heard.”
His father’s thumb rested against the clipped corner of the envelope.
Derek noticed the gesture.
Something about it disturbed him, though he couldn’t have said why.
Walter moved closer.
“Let’s handle this privately.”
Nolan looked at him.
“That worked well last time.”
A woman beside the fence lowered her phone.
Walter’s jaw tightened.
“You know why you were removed from that program.”
Eli turned toward his father.
Removed?
Nolan had told him about Birmingham.
About striking out Derek Vaughn with the bases loaded.
About a championship won by a team nobody expected to win.
He had never mentioned being removed.
Walter continued, louder now.
“Your father had talent.
Nobody disputes that.
But talent doesn’t excuse attacking a coach.”
Eli felt the baseball slipping in his sweaty hand.
“My dad wouldn’t do that.”
Nolan’s expression didn’t change, but his breathing did.
Derek heard it.
He remembered hearing it beneath the bleachers: a boy trying to draw air through pain.
“Walter,” he said.
The older man raised a warning hand.
“Don’t reopen something you don’t understand.”
Derek looked toward the camera operator.
The red recording light was still on.
His teammate murmured, “D, let’s get inside.”
Derek stayed where he was.
Walter stepped toward Nolan.
“You should have stayed away from baseball.”
Nolan flinched.
It was small, involuntary, and unmistakable.
Derek dropped the bat.
“He didn’t attack you,” he said.
Walter turned.
Derek’s voice shook, but the next words carried to the back row of the bleachers.
“You threw him into the concrete wall.
And I signed the statement that said he hit you first.”
