Minna.
âNo,â said her father, putting his arm around her, âitâs a condition. More like freckles or night blindness.â
âNot fatal,â said Minna.
âNot fatal,â he echoed.
âIâll tell you something about distraction,â said her father, smiling. âOnce, just before I asked your mother to marry me, I opened her closet door and looked inside.â
âAnd?â asked Minna.
âAnd,â said her father, âit was like a look into the future. A hint of things to come.â
âThat bad,â said Minna, smiling.
âI closed the door again,â he said.
âPapa?â
âWhat?â
âDid you fall in love at noon?â
âAt noon,â said her father promptly, âand every day thereafter at 3:00, and at 5:30 and again at 6:45, 11:10, and 4:22, and at . . .â
âMinna?â McGrew poked his head in the doorway. âBaseball practice today. And Emily Parmaleeâs got her feathers,â he sang. âWant to come?â
Minna looked up at her father. He shook his head and, having found his glasses, went off to his books and his patients. Minna closed the door of her motherâs writing room and left. Away from distractions and closets and laundry baskets and love at all hours. She went off with those she could count on, McGrew and Emily Parmalee. Off to the spring mud.
Minna sits in the grandstands. They are not really grandstands; they are three tiers of bleacher seats, scattered with parents and brothers and sisters watching practice. Her parents should be here, but they arenât. McGrew waves to Minna from left field. He likes left field because he can hum without interruption. Emily Parmalee is behind the plate, hunkered down in her uniform and face mask and cleats. Minna sighs and thinks about facts. Baseball is simple. There are facts there. You either know them or not. Hit. Bunt. Run. Slide. Baseball is not like love, which is confusing. It is not like Mozart, which Minna cannot play the same way twice and never perfectly. Baseball is not like her motherâs messages above her typewriter, which Minna does not understand.
Minna watches Emily Parmalee. Her uniform is dirty, the bill of her baseball cap turned up. But as Minna leans forward to look more closely, she can see, just below Emily Parmaleeâs cap, two more facts. Nearly hidden by the face mask and next to a dirt smudge are bright pink feather earrings.
EIGHT
M inna, McGrew, and Emily Parmalee walked home after practice, McGrew singing the national anthem one beat off:
â Oh . . . oh . . . oh say can you
See by the dawnâs early
Light what so proudly we
Hailed at the twilightâs last gleam . . .â
Their team, the Moles, had played well, with Emily making a final dramatic out at home plate. McGrew, lost in thought, had dropped the one fly ball that came to him.
âI was thinking about my science report,â he explained to Emily.
âDidnât you wonder what all the shouting was about?â asked Emily kindly.
âNo,â said McGrew. âI didnât hear the shouting.â
âDid the sunlight get in your eyes?â asked Minna.
âThere isnât any bright sunlight,â he pointed out.
Honest McGrew .
âDad should teach you how to catch a ball the right way,â said Minna. âHe should!â
âYes,â said McGrew. âBut I donât know if Dad can do it.â
Minna looked sharply at him, suddenly thinking of Lucasâs words: My parents are not the hopscotch type .
Minna put the end of the middle finger of her left hand in the palm of her right, moving it back and forth absentmindedly.
âWhat are you doing?â asked Emily Parmalee. She took off her catcherâs mask and her feathered earrings blew back like beaglesâ ears in the wind.
âIâm practicing my vibrato. I have a lesson this