Considering its historic qualities and the fact that I’d spent several weeks there the previous year—a century in the future—I thought I would enjoy Washington.
I did not.
We piled out of a four-horse omnibus in front of Willard’s Hotel, around the corner from the White House, at Fourteenth and Pennsylvania. I stared at the unfinished Treasury Building across the way, then dragged Andy out for a walk around the Ellipse—and found nothing but dark outlines of trees and a truncated, half-built Washington Monument. In the far distance, dimly illuminated, was the dome of the Capitol Building. Andy thought he remembered hearing about its completion during the war.
I had a bad moment: a sense of being wrenchingly dislocated, cut off, abandoned. This was the first place I’d come back to that I’d known at all well. While writing a feature on Vietnam vets I’d become familiar with the capital and could picture the way it had looked. That picture was jarringly out of sync with what I saw that night: I scarcely recognized the White House without its wings. The Old Executive Office Building wasn’t yet built. Nor the Lincoln or Jefferson memorials. No reflecting pools, no shimmering lights. The broad streets were dirty, the buildings shabby. If ever I felt culture shock, it was then.
“What’re you fretting so hard over?” said Andy.
“Even if I told you, it wouldn’t make sense.”
“You rile me saying things like that,” he said hotly. “Go ahead, try me!”
“All right,” I snapped. “I’m thinking that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial isn’t here. And that it’s crazy for me to know about that.”
There was silence.
“You’re right,” he said at length. “I don’t make sense of it. It is crazy.”
He sounded hurt. I felt bad about that. But I was too low just then to do anything about it.
We spent four days in the so-called City of Magnificent Distances. My spirits did not rise very far. It seemed that I was adjusting all over again. Road weariness didn’t help. We’d all had enough touring. It would end soon—this was the last major city—but for me, unlike the others, reaching Cincinnati would only pose a new set of problems.
We were celebrities here, as in Baltimore. The Washington Republican called our eastern swing the greatest baseball tour ever. At all hours the staff of Willard’s shooed rubberneckers from the lobby. People massed outside for autographs.
The players sat for another picture, at Mathew Brady’s studio a few blocks up Pennsylvania. The walls there were covered with photos of corpse-strewn battlefields and steely-eyed Civil War officers. A Brady assistant made the portrait. The only notable changes in the Stockings since Newark were tonsorial: Andy had a two-week-old mustache; Sweasy and Mac showed the beginnings of brushes; Gould had shaved his goatee off so that he too wore only a mustache. With so many models around, I’d decided to raise my own crop of whiskers and had not shaved for several days. Once again I declined being in the portrait.
Waterman and Sweasy hid Brainard’s baseball shoes so well that in desperation he borrowed mine for the picture. In it he sits on the floor, one oversized shoe pointing upward with spikes attached—I had misplaced the key to unscrew them—while Waterman and Sweasy barely repress smirks.
We were scheduled for two games. On a ninety-degree Friday we faced the Nationals at their new grounds on upper Fourteenth. A crush of traffic made surrounding streets impassable. Trees and rooftops, including that of the State Department across the street—it was situated temporarily in the Orphan Asylum—were crawling with spectators. We waited. And waited. Tempers grew short. People collapsed on the baking turf. Politicians droned floridly. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish was mercifully brief—he must have been a wretched orator—in his enthusiasm for the national game. The entire British legation was introduced. By then nearly ten thousand had assembled—another record smasher—and Champion was all smiles; no more complaints about gate receipts.
While we waited I asked Millar if baseball went back as far here as in New York and Philadelphia. He said that teams of clerks had faced off on the “White Lot” behind the White House before the war. Lincoln himself had reputedly played, once stalling reporters with, “Wait until I make another hit.” But with the proliferation of teams after the war, Andy Johnson had chased everybody off—hence these new grounds. In ’67, having recruited George and Brainard among other stars, the Nationals were easily the nation’s best team. Touring westward they crushed the Stockings 53-10, a “Waterloo defeat,” Millar said, that had inspired Champion’s dream of assembling a western powerhouse.
By four we were ready to play. The contest boiled down to our hitting against the Nats’ fielding. They contained us fairly well but mounted no offensive threat. Not a single Nat reached second base until the fifth inning, and by then we were up 13-0.
It was about then that we began showboating.
Told that a slugger had plunked an omnibus in the street outside the ballpark the previous year, George said that wasn’t so much. He promptly smashed a drive over the fence in left center. That set the tone for the rest of the afternoon, everybody but Andy and Harry muscling up. As a consequence the Nats’ left fielder, one Sy “War-horse” Studley, hauled in fly after fly. But George powered another homer, and we won easily, 24-8.
Saturday dawned cloudy and threatening. The Nats showed up with a coach drawn by six horses draped in robelike ornamental skirts called caparisons, which made them look as if they’d clopped out of a medieval pageant. Our escorts looked a bit smug and secretive as we pulled up at the White House. I assumed we were in for a long-winded tour as a clerk ushered us into a large office. There, to my surprise, behind an oversized desk, smoking a cigar nearly as dark as his wrinkled black suit, sat President. Ulysses S. Grant.
He was smaller and grayer than I expected. The hero of Vicksburg and bludgeoner of Lee’s armies, sworn in as President only three months ago, he was destined to become one of the worst in history—epic achievements all. His washed-out gray-blue eyes regarded us blandly, betraying nothing but a fleeting hint of humor when he said, “I believe you warmed the Washington boys somewhat yesterday.” His thin voice had a heavy smoker’s rasp. All in all, I thought, he’d make a fine wax figure.
Champion introduced us. Grant’s fingers brushed mine and his pale eyes flicked on to Andy, no sign in them that I had registered. It felt strange to tower over a war hero. I noticed that Grant’s movements were awkward and tentative. When Champion invited him to our game, Grant mumbled, “Schedule . . . time.” Still puffing his cigar, he moved vaguely toward the door and nodded as we filed out. I realized that he was enormously popular, like Eisenhower after World War II. But this guy had zero charisma. TV would have stopped him cold. In the Capitol Building we listened to a Congressman from Indiana argue for more western roads. The Library of Congress, lacking a building of its own, was currently housed there also. We visited the Patent Office, located in the Interior Department even though that too was unfinished—a condition that characterized much of the city. There George led the rest in gaping at marvels of steel and steam: engines and boilers and mechanized loaders; telegraphs and steamboats. They were all so hungry for progress, so certain it would come. Had I described electric light and power, radio and TV, phones, cars, jets, and all the rest, they’d probably just nod sagely and tell me their futuristic visions—including space shots. Hadn’t Jules Verne published A Trip to the Moon four years earlier?
Grant did not show up that afternoon, when we led the Olympics only 4-0 after four innings. Their pitcher teased grounders from us which their five-foot-four shortstop, Davy Force, ate up. In the fifth a steady downpour began. To our disgust Champion and Harry agreed to a replay on Monday. That meant two more days before heading home.
On Sunday we took a trip down the Potomac. I was surprised to see Mt. Vernon badly in need of paint and portions of Alexandria still war-damaged. Virginia was technically outside the Union, not yet readmitted under the Radicals’ reconstruction plan. The home state of Jefferson and Washington was subjugated territory, under military rule.
As we powered back upriver I came across Harry, standing alone near the stern, holding several envelopes and looking subdued. “Bad news?” I said.
“No, just reading Carrie’s old letters. Haven’t gotten another since Philadelphia. Touring is hard on a family, and Sabbaths are the worst.”
I nodded, aware that baseball was not played anywhere in America on Sundays. Harry had several children by a previous marriage. I presumed that his first wife had died, but I wasn’t sure; nobody spoke of her. When he’d remarried at the end of the previous season, the Stockings presented him with a hundred-dollar bond wrapped around a gold watch and a medal bearing all their names. According to Allison, Captain Harry had actually been teary-eyed—a dramatic break from his usual stoic persona.
“What’s she like?” I asked.
“Carrie?” He sounded surprised, then spoke slowly. “Why, she’s the truest wife a man could have, a servant in my home and queen in my heart.” His voice throbbed. “To my mind she embodies the noblest elements of the human spirit. She promises the highest I can hope. She purges what is dark within me, strengthens what is failing.”
He meant every syllable. I looked away, embarrassed, thinking that it might have been Twain carrying on about his Livy. Willingly or not, women in this time perched on incredible pedestals.
“And your people, Sam? I understand from Andy that you have family in Frisco.”
“Had,” I said. “I’m on my own now.”
“You didn’t desert them?” he said sharply.“No, circumstances forced a . . . separation.”
It must have sounded forlorn. His brown eyes warmed with sympathy. “You’re welcome to visit our home, Sam. As often as you like. My daughters love to see the nine.” Daughters. The word sliced into me. “I’d like that, Harry, very much.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. The river sparkled around us, radiant and poignant.
Monday, June 28, marked exactly four weeks since I’d come back in time. The Stockings toured Arlington that morning. I didn’t go. I’d heard enough about the glorious military dead. And I didn’t want to be reminded of coming attractions: JFK’s eternal flame, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, fields of white crosses from future slaughters.
That afternoon, again swinging for the fences, we scored sixteen runs on twenty-three hits. George belted another homer and a double. Brainard limited the Olympics to five runs on five hits. But we were victims of the game’s outstanding play. Their left fielder caught Gould’s deep drive going away, then his bullet peg nailed Mac loafing to the plate. George, trying to distract the Olympics by taking off from first, was then gunned down at third. Triple play! Harry looked ready to puke.
The B & 0 run to Wheeling took nearly twenty-four hours. Hurley and I lost forty dollars playing whist—this time real, not imaginary dollars—to Brainard and Waterman. Worse yet, Hurley was broke; I had to cover our losses.
At the Pittsburgh depot Champion bought a stack of the latest Harper’s Weekly. Inside was a full-page engraving of the team, made from the Newark portrait. We debated who’d come out worst. Waterman looked like he’d discovered a turd in his pocket; Hurley was a glowering psychopath, George a propped-up dummy, and Allison, Mac, Andy, and Sweasy a row of moronic moon faces.
We stopped long enough in West Virginia to demolish Wheeling’s hapless Baltics, 44-0. George went eight for eight with two doubles, two triples, and seven steals. Allison, swinging from his heels, smacked two home runs and Andy one. We were on a power binge.
The Ohio was turgid and yellow, a silt-choked current that disappointed my romantic visions. We ferried across and boarded another train at Bellaire for the final run to Cincinnati.
“What’s Sam’s averages?” Andy asked Millar, who was preparing Harry’s stat totals for press distribution.
“Easy to figure,” I said. “I only had the one double in Baltimore. Course, that bunt against the Haymakers should have boosted my batting average to six sixty-seven.”
“Whoa,” said George. “Boosted your what average to what?”
I elaborated the obvious: one hit in three turns, .333.
“Where’d you get that notion?” George demanded.
“That’s not the right way,” Andy said, and explained that a player’s run total was divided by the number of games he played. The result was expressed in terms of “average and over.” “For example,” he said, turning to Millar, “what’re my striking averages?”
The reporter thumbed through the sheets. “Three and forty-five,” he said. “Against two and thirty-three. Third highest on the regulars.”
“What’s this against business?” I asked.
“You compare your runs average against your outs, or ‘hands lost’ average,” Andy replied. “I’m averaging three runs and forty-five over —that is, three point forty-five runs against two outs and thirty-three over. Let’s take you; how many times’d you make your run?”
“Just once.”
“So in three games you’re averaging oh and thirty-three runs against oh and sixty-seven outs. Not good, but you ain’t had much chance.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!”
“Tell him who leads the nine,” said George, grinning.
“You tell him,” Brainard snapped, several seats away. “You puff your figures in your head before a match is even done.”
George looked grim but said nothing. I began to wonder if the club was still big enough for two stars.
Millar said, “George leads the strikers with five and one against two and five. He also leads in making his base at four and twenty.”
“How many times up?” I said, getting out a pencil. “How many hits?”
“One hundred twenty-seven striking opportunities,” Millar said. “Eighty-six safe blows.”
I figured George’s batting average. Jesus, .677. “How many homers?”
Millar counted. “Five on tour, twelve in all.”
Twelve homers in twenty-four games. Against top competition. No other Stocking had half that many. George was a Babe Ruth in his own era, no doubt about it.
“This runs-against-outs business,” I argued, “doesn’t allow for all the times you hit but don’t score, or drive in runs, or score on errors. All it reflects is whether you stepped on the plate.”
“That’s the object,” said Andy. “How many outs it takes to score how many runs. All the rest is trimmings. A ballist’s freezin’ to make his run every time up. Harry’s averages tell how often he did it. But accordin’ to your way, all that’s required is gettin’ to first. Why go any farther?”
Well, he had a point. Sort of. “Another crazy thing,” I said. “You guys count an out against a forced runner instead of the hitter who forced him.”
“But it’s the runner who’s out” said George. “Got to show in his averages.”
“Even when it’s not his fault?”
“Able runners don’t get forced so often—for one thing they’ll steal the base to prevent it. So that shows up in the averages too.”
Stymied, I decided to let it drop.
Later Millar proudly showed me his homecoming article for the Commercial. It began:
God’s noblest work is a perfectly developed man of refinement and education To demonstrate this was one of the designs of the tour.
What tripe, I thought, and scanned the rest. Millar lavished praise on our “wholesomeness”—either he was blind or a hypocrite if he hadn’t noticed behavior incongruous with “wholesomeness” on the part of certain Stockings—and he gushed about the record crowds in the East, the turnout of respectable ladies and gentlemen, the audience with Grant, and finally trumpeted, “A new era has dawned upon baseballdom. . . .”
“Nice work,” I told him. “Very laudatory.”
Glasses glinting in the lamplight, Millar looked quite pleased.
I didn’t sleep much that night. Partly it was the train’s jouncing; partly the knowledge that a new phase of my life would begin the next day. I lay in my berth watching the curtains sway, trying to think about what I wanted to do. Gradually a plan took shape. I decided to broach it to Harry and Champion in hopes of extending what little continuity I knew in this strange existence. As I lay there it seemed that the railway car was like my life—being rushed through the darkness by an engine of fate toward whatever waited ahead.
The hoopla began at Loveland, twenty miles outside the city. A delegation flushed with our victories and their own liquor swarmed aboard. I was ignored until Harry introduced me as the savior of the Haymaker match, then was welcomed as a companion in arms. Cincinnati awaited us in a state of frenzy, they said. One rotund backslap-per confided to me that although he didn’t know much about baseball, “Glory, but you’ve advertised the city—advertised us, sir, and helped our business, sir.” I assured him that it was my pleasure.
We curved into the city along the muddy swell of the Ohio, on which increasing numbers of vessels trailed black plumes of smoke. The air grew thick as we passed through an industrial area. Very thick. I glimpsed people holding handkerchiefs over their noses. Eyes stinging, I felt like I used to when I drove into Los Angeles.
Gesturing with sweeping flourishes at a scow carrying iron scraps below us on the river, Hurley recited sarcastically:
“The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burnt on the water. The poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them. . . .”
Then he pretended to choke, gagging and clutching at his mouth. Champion was not amused.
“What’s that about?” I asked Andy, who explained that Cincinnati was notorious for burning a soft coal that permeated the air with soot. An hour of walking outside soiled your clothes and lined your eyes, nose, and mouth with grime; people breathed through fabric when winds didn’t ventilate the city.
When we pulled into the Little Miami Station I got a fuller picture. The city filled a bowl-shaped delta cradled between a wide bend in the river and steep encircling hills. Over it rose towers of smoke to a dark ceiling that obscured the sky.
“I didn’t imagine so many factories,” I said. “This is how I’d picture Pittsburgh or Chicago.”
“Oh, we lay all over them,” Andy said cheerfully. “Got more foundries than Pittsburgh, more hog packin’ than Chicago. They’re on the rise, but this is still Queen City, the biggest in the West.”
“I see.” I was less than thrilled by my new home.
The depot was bedlam. Thousands jammed the streets. Signs and banners waved everywhere. Currie’s Zouave Band, in bright red baggy pants, played “Hail to the Chief” as we squeezed into open carriages behind the bandwagon. I rode with Andy and Hurley. We set off through the streets. Men and boys cheered us, women and girls waved red scarves. We turned up Fourth, the city’s fashionable promenade, where crowds were even thicker in front of the expensive stores. The color red flowered everywhere. One store had fashioned an enormous C entirely of scarlet stockings. Crimson streamers floated down on us from upper stories. I’d wondered how ticker-tape parades felt to astronauts or World Series heroes. Now I had a pretty good idea.
“‘Is it not passing brave to be a king,’” Hurley quoted ironically, “‘and ride in triumph through Porkopolis?’”
“Who wrote that?” I said, thinking his tone odd.
“Marlowe,” he answered. “After a fashion.”
“You two can lay off,” Andy said. “It’s plain you’re educated.”
“Aw now, me foine lad.” Hurley’s abrupt brogue was thick as porridge. “It’s ye who’re the best of us, Andy, make no mistake.” A melancholy out of keeping with the occasion edged his voice, puzzling me.
We were deposited at the Gibson House, a newly refurbished six-story luxury hotel on Walnut, where dignitaries awaited us on a second-floor balcony. The street below was a noisy carpet of people. Windy speeches ensued, one boiler-lunged politician bellowing that our march to the sea would have made Sherman proud. Harry, George, and Brainard stepped forward to speak—only George seemed to enjoy it—and then Gould, a popular hometown figure, managed a few words. Finally Champion, at Harry’s urging, told the throng that we needed to rest before the Grand Complimentary Game that afternoon.
Since the contest was only hours away, Harry insisted that we remain at the Gibson. Brainard complained, and others echoed. I wasn’t happy either; I wanted to look around my new city. But Harry held fast, saying he wouldn’t see his own family until after the exhibition match. Then he surprised me by announcing that Hurley and I would captain the “picked nine” against the first nine that afternoon.
He made it sound like an honor. To me, facing the Stocking starters seemed more an ordeal.
We climbed down from a pennant-bedecked omnibus. The double gates of the Union Grounds closed behind us. The crowd’s clamor was punctuated by a cannon that boomed in the outfield, lifting me six inches off the grass. We marched onto the field in a line, Caesar’s legions returning in triumph. I was coming to like this hero business.
The field was green as malachite in dazzling eighty-five-degree sunshine. It was a gorgeous ballpark, rivaled in my experience only by the Capitoline Grounds in Brooklyn. The grass was thick, the infield a pebble-free mix of dirt and clay, its drainage so good that no trace remained of earlier showers.
A wooden clubhouse rose behind the third-base stands adjoining a ladies’ pavilion known as the Grand Duchess, the two structures forming a high L behind home plate. Carriages moved on a track inside the fence. From a high platform beside the Grand Duchess’s cupola, the Zouave Band floated festive airs over the diamond. Spectator areas were awash in red: scarves and handkerchiefs fluttered; parasols waved; hats flew in the air. At fifty cents a head—not to mention the five-dollar tickets to tonight’s Grand Reception Banquet selling fast—I knew the club’s coffers must be swelling.
At three-thirty, Hurley and I joined Harry at home plate for the toss. Hearing a commotion, we turned to see a flatbed wagon carrying a bat as big as a tree. A gift of the Cincinnati Lumber Company, it proved to be twenty-seven feet long. The names of the starting nine were inscribed on it in red letters—and then: “Substitutes—Hurley and Fowler.”
“You did that?” I said to Harry, who just smiled. After that he could have asked me to climb the flagpole naked and I’d have tried my damnedest.
We set about the business of playing. My teammates included Stockings from previous years, when pros and amateurs had played together. A few were youngsters on the way up. One of them, a strapping lad named Oak Taylor, had considered himself next in line for a substitute spot. He wasn’t ecstatic over my presence.
I started at catcher, then played the outfield and first base. Except for a couple of passed balls, I handled my chances without mishap. Our main problem was at short, where a nervous kid named Brook-shaw kicked so many balls that Hurley finally took the position himself.
I faced Brainard five times. My first trip up he returned my grin in a friendly way—then put a ball under my chin. It came so fast I barely could twist away. I picked myself up slowly. He was still grinning. Very funny. I dug in and twitched my bat menacingly—and fanned air on three pitches.
“Thanks, Acey,” I said dryly. “I realize this is for the whip pennant and all.”
“I’ll lay one where you can plank it next time,” he promised.
He did. I planked it sharply into the left-center gap for a double.
“Charity’s done!” he called.
He popped me up twice on rising balls, but I felt my timing improving. My last time up, he hummed in another riser. I adjusted slightly, leveling my swing, whipping the bat fluidly. Crack! The ball rocketed to the center-field fence almost before Harry or Andy could react. It bounced high off the boards and back over Harry’s head as he sprinted to the track. The crowd laughed and applauded as I pulled into third standing up. Brainard shot me a look under the brim of his cap. I shrugged, grinning happily. I hadn’t hit a triple since high school.
It was a rare moment for our side. The nine won handily, 53-11. George and Sweasy smacked homers, and Andy led a swarm of base runners that drove our catchers crazy. I was glad when it ended.
Finally we were free to disperse—for several hours—before returning for the banquet. Andy accompanied me back to the Gibson House. He boarded with Sweasy, Allison, and Mac a block away, at 421 Main. He said he’d ask if his landlady had space for me. I wasn’t sure I cared to live under the same roof as Sweasy, but I told him to go ahead. Meanwhile, I booked into the Gibson, where the proprietors let me know they were proud to have a Red Stocking stay.
That night 150 people assembled to honor us. They included, for reasons I never understood, practically every judge in Hamilton County and flocks of grandly dressed matrons who swept back and forth in lavender and lace and taffeta skirts that rustled like dry-leaf forests. It looked like an opera opening night.
We sat at the head table. Beside me, Hurley, tipsy from the beginning, reeked of bay rum. Andy claimed he’d been drinking the stuff—it was 60 percent alcohol—and refused to sit with him. We imbibed local wines and ate succulent dishes I could identify only by the ornate bill of fare: breaded mountain oysters; sweetbreads glace; buffalo tongue en gelee; Westphalian ham a la Richelieu, and so on. By the time the desserts arrived I was almost “en gelee” myself.
Champion brought an emotional speech to a thumping climax by displaying our twenty-one trophy balls from the tour and exclaiming, hand clasped to heart, that as Stockings president he wouldn’t trade places with Grant himself. The place went wild—except for Brainard, who snorted and gave me a knowing look; he figured Champion was on the make in the city’s Republican establishment.
There were countless toasts: “To the fair ladies—God bless ’em!” “To the judiciary—always impartial in the game of life!” They elicited flowery responses from whiskered orators. By midnight it was hard to sit through any more. I had to brace Hurley to keep him upright.
We were introduced one by one. We stood and mumbled our thanks, no one attempting a speech—though George stood grinning so long he seemed about to give it a try.
Only a few members of the Stockings’ families were on hand: Gould’s father, a local wholesaler, and mother and strapping blond brothers; Allison’s younger brother, down from Cleveland where he played ball; Carrie Wright, small and plump, with warm eyes that matched her husband’s—I liked her at once.
I scanned the faces in the audience carefully, trying to match one with the haunting image I carried in my mind. But no, Andy’s sister was not there. When I mentioned it, he said curtly that she did not approve of baseball.
The affair concluded with the Stockings’ song, each player’s verse sung by somebody else, all of us booming the choruses. When the others had had their turns, Andy stood, pointed at me, and sang.
“Our newest man is some for tricks—
It passes all belief.
He tries to snare so many fouls
We’ve dubbed him ‘chicken thief.’
And when he marches to the plate
To strike one foul V fair,
Opponents learn his name with haste—
Sam Fowler makes yem care!”
I sat there dumbfounded. The others grinned at me like monkeys. When they broke into the final chorus, I swallowed hard, trying not to look like a complete simp.
“Hurrah, hurrah,
For the noble game hurrah!
Red Stockings all will toss the ball
And shout our loud hurrah!”
The street outside was noisy with departing carriages. I’d managed to get Hurley safely into a hack. Gaslit globes burned above the sidewalks. The night air was mild.
“I’m umping a junior match tomorrow,” Andy said. “Want to come watch?”
“Sure.”
“As for roomin’ at our place . . .”
“I can guess,” I said. “Sweasy vetoed it.”
He nodded. “Sweaze got riled when I brought it up.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I need to-”
“Andy!” an urgent voice interrupted behind me; a woman’s voice, low and throbbing.
As I turned, a figure brushed past and clutched at Andy. I caught a glimpse of pale cheek and jade eyes. The eyes, the eyes in the picture!
“Cait!” He wrapped his arms around her. “What is it? Why are you crying?”
“Oh, Andy,” she sobbed. “T’wasn’t in me to spoil your celebrating.”
“What’s the matter?” His face tightened. “Is something wrong with Timmy?”
“No, it’s Mother.” The words were muffled against his chest.“Mother. . . ?”
“Oh, Andy, she died this morning.”