In the children’s Wiffle ball games he was both official pitcher and umpire, a position requiring endless discretion. While Sam smacked shots back up the box that made him duck, Justin struggled to make contact. Henry wanted everyone to have fun, and pitched to each according to their abilities, wearing his Pirates cap cocked sideways, keeping up a joking commentary gleaned from a lifetime of radio. The Eephus pitch, the slurve, the fadeaway. He threw between his legs and behind his back, routines he’d used on Kenny and his friends thirty years ago. The idea was for them not to take the game so seriously. Now that the girls were older, they didn’t care, ignoring his corny patter, barely paying attention when they were in the field. The boys, being younger, were desperate to win, a hunger he recognized from his own childhood, pitted against Arlene, who at twelve was not only smarter than he was but a good foot taller.
Checkers, hearts, badminton—he could never beat her, though he came close, the rare narrow defeats followed by tears, accusations of cheating and banishment to his room, where, like one condemned, he would await a visit from his father, who sat beside him on his bed, explaining the values of sportsmanship with an engineer’s maddening calm. His father, being omnipotent, didn’t understand. Just once Henry wanted to win.
“You will,” his father said. “Until then, you will lose like a gentleman. Is that understood?”
They shook on it, but the bargain was impossible for Henry to keep, and soon when anyone suggested a game, his mother would tell him he couldn’t play if he was just going to get upset. He promised, under duress, thinking maybe this time would be different, only to be overwhelmed in the end, fleeing hot-faced and seething with shame, blinking back tears as he climbed the stairs to his room, vowing vengeance on them all.
“Why do you have to be such a baby?” Queen Arlene asked.
He didn’t want to be. He tried not to, but couldn’t stop. It was a weakness, something wrong with him. When it happened, no one was more disappointed than he was. He tried to soften the blow, telling himself in advance that he was going to lose, but knowing only made him hate it more, until the mere idea of playing a game filled him with dread.
When he finally won—beating her at dominoes one afternoon on the Oriental rug in the sunny back parlor—the feeling didn’t suddenly lift like a broken curse. It took him years to accept defeat. He was clever and athletic, a dutiful student, and though he received straight As and won more than his fair share of spelling bees and forty-yard dashes, what he remembered was the disgrace of coming in second. While a necessary lesson, it was always a disappointment to discover he wasn’t the fastest or smartest or best at everything. In basic he was a passable marksman, but didn’t kid himself, like Embree, that he had a sniper’s eye. He was no hero, as Emily liked to think, just an average soldier, and while some of the work his team did on the Odyssey was groundbreaking for its time, no genius.
Now, inning by inning, as he called his own balls and strikes, he knew how Justin felt, expecting Sam to beat him once again, and at the end, how Sam felt when he lost because Ella muffed a pop fly and then threw the ball away.
“Good game, everyone,” Henry said.
Scowling, Sam stormed around the side of the house.
They were using paper plates for bases. Before going after him, Henry had Justin and the girls collect them.
He found Sam on the far side of the garden, sitting behind a tree with his arms wrapped around his knees. He hid his face, sniffling, and Henry remembered his own inconsolable anger and shame. He put a hand on his shoulder.
Sam shrugged it off. “Go away.”
“Come on, let’s get some lemonade.”
“She missed it on purpose.”
“Sam. She did not miss it on purpose. Come on.”
“She sucks.”
“Stop. That’s not how you talk about your sister.”
“All she had to do was catch the stupid ball.”
“You’ve never dropped a fly ball?”
“Not one that easy. Then she can’t even throw it.”
“It was a terrible throw,” Henry conceded, getting his attention. “She did hit a home run, you’ve got to give her credit for that.”
“I guess.”
“Do you want to know a secret? I don’t like losing either. When I was your age, every time I lost I felt just like you do right now. No one likes to lose, but someone has to, it’s part of the game. If you won every time it wouldn’t be any fun. Do you think Justin likes losing?”
“No.”
“No,” he agreed, letting it sink in. “You hit the ball really hard. You almost took my head off with that liner.”
Sam picked up a buckeye and winged it at the nearest tree, missing. He did it again. The third time he hit the trunk.
“You want to go get some lemonade or do you want to sit here? I’m hot. I’m going to get some lemonade.” He offered him his hand.
Sam took it. Henry pulled him up, and together they walked around front to rejoin the others. After all the nonsense with Jeff and Margaret, he counted it as a win.