“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Jake shrugged. “Because it’s embarrassing,” he said. “Because I was going to be a superstar major-league pitcher and I tossed it away so I could get drunk at a teammate’s bachelor party. Not something I’m proud of. I keep that part of my life just where it belongs, in the past. I’m different now.”
Ellie seemed to accept his explanation. “What does that have to do with high school?” she asked.
“I was a kid blessed with a golden arm,” Jake said. “My high-school coaches ignored my grades because of my talent. I went to a two-year college, but didn’t graduate because I was just there to showcase my skills to the big-league scouts. The Red Sox eventually took me and I did my time in the minors, but I was on my way to ‘The Show.’ That was given, until I turned my elbow bones into confetti.
“Guess I could blame my buddies for not taking my keys that night, or the coaches, who made me think I was above it all, the golden boy with a golden arm-but in the end, who did I have to blame but myself?”
“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Ellie said. The coldness Jake had felt was all but gone from her eyes, replaced by a look of deep sympathy and genuine concern.
“My dad was a soft-spoken guy,” Jake said. “Made a nice career for himself in the insurance industry. He tried to warn me about the dangers of believing the hype, but at that time I wasn’t into hearing anything negative. I was twenty-two, had a lucrative contract with a big-league ball club, a step away from pitching in the majors, married to my high-school sweetheart, and now a father to a precocious three-year-old boy. I didn’t think anything could touch me.”
“The stories I read online weren’t kind,” Ellie said.
Jake laughed at the understatement. “Guess you uncovered old headlines from the New York Post.”
“The Web is like faraway stars. It illuminates the past.”
Jake smiled, thinking of those fall nights when he and Ellie had huddled on a blanket on her front lawn as new lovers, gazing up at the night sky.
“Let me see if I can remember what the Post had to say.” Jake ruminated. “ ‘You’re Out,’ right? They ran that headline above a picture of my crushed BMW. And the Daily News, I think they wrote, ‘Booze Ball,’ but now that I think about it, maybe I have those two mixed up.”
“The Globe was a lot nicer,” Ellie said.
“Yeah, well, that’s because the only person who got hurt in the accident was me.”
“What happened after?” Ellie asked.
The more Jake revealed, the closer he felt to Ellie. For this reason, Jake was glad Ellie had forced the conversation, but parts of his life remained off-limits.
“After that, I sank into a depression,” Jake said. “I missed everything about the game. The teammates, the camaraderie, the competition, everything-I loved it all. Then, about six months later, things got worse.”
“Andy,” Ellie said as if reading his thoughts.
“All the classic signs were there. His weight loss was especially alarming for a kid that skinny. Laura would say, ‘How does that boy put away so much food, but we can’t keep a pound on him?’ Then one afternoon I put Andy in front of the TV and went to go make lunch. When I got back, he was conscious, but so lethargic. I panicked and rushed him to the hospital, where we got the diagnosis.”
“That’s a lot to handle in a short amount of time,” Ellie said.
Kibo picked his head up and gazed at Jake with watery black eyes, as if to say he concurred. Ellie gave all three dogs some attention.
“There was some money set aside from baseball to help pay for Andy’s care, but not a lot. Before the accident, Laura figured we were on easy street, and she spent money like that was our permanent address. But a hefty signing bonus only goes so far. I saw it all adding up, and I didn’t do a thing about it. I let Laura handle the finances so I could concentrate all my energy on studying batters and working on my pitches. So when baseball ended and money got tight, Laura and I started fighting. One night, after a particularly long battle to get Andy’s insulin levels just right, Laura left a good-bye note. That was the last I ever saw of her. I did my best to find her-my dad even paid for a private investigator-but she was gone. Vanished. Wasn’t even in touch with her parents. I’m guessing she changed her name.
“Anyway, I got divorced by a motion to serve. Essentially, you just show a judge all your documented efforts to locate your spouse, and if a judge agrees you did your best”-Jake clapped his hands and rubbed them together-“you’re divorced.”
“How did Andy take it?”
“He was three. Hardly knew his mother at all. After Laura left, my depression got worse. Some days I couldn’t get out of bed, and my parents had to help me take care of Andy.”
“But you’re not like that now,” Ellie said.
“I guess I grew out of it,” Jake said. “Sometimes you’ve got to look adversity right in the face and stick out your tongue.” Jake did this and made Ellie smile while Kibo licked his chops.
“Eventually my brother saw I was getting better and helped me get a job at Pepperell Academy.”
Ellie gave this some thought; then she said, “Don’t get me wrong. I admire what you did and what you’ve overcome, but you could have stayed in baseball, couldn’t you? What about becoming a pitching coach or something?”
Jake shrugged off the suggestion. “I thought about it,” he said. “But I couldn’t be close to the game without getting a hollow pit in my gut. I knew if I didn’t leave the game completely, I’d live the rest of my life in the past. So I walked away and never looked back. That part of my life came to an end-and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.”
Ellie got up from the couch and crossed the room with a kind of hip-swaying action Jake found hard to resist. She dropped into his lap and kissed him with passion.
“I like history,” she breathed in his ear. “I feel closer to you. Much closer.”
Ellie kissed Jake’s neck as he ran his hands along the contours of her back. They were kissing again, but Jake saw Kibo looking at them and he stopped.
“Maybe this history lesson should continue in the bedroom,” Jake said.
Ellie took Jake by the hand and led him down a narrow hallway. On the walk, Jake thought about what he hadn’t told her. Maybe he would. Ellie seemed receptive to one part of his past. Would she embrace the other?
Back then, Jake had needed a new sense of purpose. He found it in the writings of Thomas Wiggins, the founder of a popular survivalist blog. Everything Wiggins said about the coming collapse resonated with Jake in ways he found surprising and inspiring. With Wiggins’s guidance, Jake felt empowered to take control of his life once more. He devoted himself to becoming an expert survivalist. He learned how to use weapons-guns and knives. He improved his physical conditioning and built up strength in his injured arm. He learned about food storage, DIY fuel, gardening, raising livestock, medical supplies, and first aid. In essence, Jake became reborn: stronger in some ways, but weaker in others because for him, the future was always something to fear.
CHAPTER 5
Five boys and one girl, students at Pepperell Academy, gathered in the campus’s main courtyard-The Quad, as it was officially known-for a meeting. In better times, the six would have been laughing and talking excitedly. They were the best of friends, and shared the same interests: watched the same movies and TV shows, visited the same websites, downloaded the same apps, ate most of their meals together, and hung out as a group whenever possible during their limited free time. They were, in fact, what other students labeled a clique. Their collective even had a special name-though no one but the members knew it. They called themselves “The Shire.”