He needs to watch out for that one.
Chapter 11
Sam runs hard and fast up the hill, rain-soaked, his lungs burning.
Keep going, he tells himself. Five more minutes to the top. It’s so quiet, the only sounds are his labored breathing and the soles of his new top-of-the-line running shoes slapping against the cold, wet asphalt, bringing back the memory of the first time he ran this road, the night his dad left. Sam left his mother at the dining room table, the barely touched coconut cake on the table between them. He bolted out of the house, down their cul-de-sac of shitty two-bedroom houses, up into the hills. Albemarle Road. Even the name sounded majestic, and he kept coming back, punishing his body, imagining what it would be like to own one of these big houses, skylights under a canopy of pines, six wooded acres. Rich people lived here. Intact families with two cars and a father who wasn’t fucking the girl on page twenty-four of the Talbots catalog.
Annie knows something’s up. Of course she does, she’s not an idiot. He’s been acting weird since he went to the bank four days ago. Called her to cancel their date, made up a story about a patient in crisis, said he needed to make a few phone calls. He then sat in his car for four hours in the high school parking lot, trying to come up with a plan.
Sam hears a car approaching and moves to the side of the road, toward the edge of the shallow ditch. He keeps going, his thighs burning, sprinting the last hundred feet to the top of the hill. He drops down to the ground, panting, his phone heavy in the front pocket of his running jacket.
Do it, Sam. Do what you came up here to do. Call him.
Sam unzips the pocket and pulls out his phone and the slip of paper where he wrote his father’s phone number, which he’d spent forty-five minutes digging through old cell phone bills to find. It’s going to be fine. He’ll tell his father what happened at the bank, and his father will fix everything. He takes a breath, dials.
“Yeah, hello!” Ted Statler chirps on the first ring.
“Hi Dad.”
The line goes silent for a moment. “That you, Sammy?”
“It’s me, all right,” he says through the lump in his throat. “Unless you have another kid I don’t know about.”
His father laughs. “Well, how about that. How you doing, son?”
“Good. I’m sorry we haven’t spoken—” There’s commotion on the other end.
“Guess where I am,” Ted says.
“I have no idea.”
“Peter Angelos’s house. You know who that is?”
Sam laughs. “Of course I know who that is. It’s the owner of the Baltimore Orioles.”
“Right, Sammy! Nice work.” Teddy whistles. “He’s got a fountain. Anyway, how’s things, son? How’s New York treating you?”
“I’m not in New York. Moved back home a few months ago.”
“To Chestnut Hill?” Teddy laughs, incredulous. “Why would you do that?”
“Mom’s sick,” Sam says, numb with cold.
There’s a burst of laughter in the background. “What’d you say, Sammy?”
“Mom’s sick,” he repeats, irritated that his father isn’t walking out of the room to find some place quieter to talk to his estranged son. “She needed help.”
“Sorry to hear that, son.”
“And I got married.”
“Married! You’re kidding.” He whoops out a holler. “What’s her name? It is a her, right? Never can be too sure these days.”
Sam forces a laugh, like he’s supposed to. “Her name’s Annie.”
Sam hears muffled voices in the background. “Oh Jesus, Sammy. You’re never going to guess who’s here.”
“Peter Angelos?” Sam offers.
“No.” Teddy lowers his voice to a whisper. “Cal Ripken.”
Heat floods Sam’s face. Cal Ripken, his all-time hero. The man who brought father and son together one hundred and sixty two evenings a year. Hearing his name, Sam is twelve years old again, his mom in the kitchen making homemade spaghetti sauce for Sunday dinner. The house smells like garlic bread, and his father’s face is tight with concentration, watching number 8, old Iron Man himself, take the field.
“Should I talk to him?” his dad asks.
“Are you kidding?” Sam stands up and begins pacing back and forth across the street. “Of course you should. It’s Cal fucking Ripken.”
“Cal fucking Ripken,” his dad repeats.
“Who’s he with?” Sam asks.