Chapter 8

Alma Gordon and Frances Noonan stayed a while longer, meeting Ben and playing with him for a short time. Alma had never seen a child with eyes so blue. She admired his giraffe, and he handed it to her without a word. He did not seem troubled when Julia Blackwell told him he might go to Mrs. Gordon’s house to meet another boy.

The ladies agreed they would try it that week. Alma and Frances went home, and Alma collected Baby Owen from Mr. Glenn, who reported that Owen was babbling up a storm.

“We mostly talked baseball.” Mr. Glenn waved his arm toward the TV with the Giants’ ball game.

Baby Owen was on all fours and pulled himself up using Mr. Glenn’s legs. Mr. Glenn bowed down to take his hand because Owen couldn’t stand yet without toppling unexpectedly. Mrs. Gordon’s heart squeezed, seeing Mr. Glenn bent over with the child’s tiny hand in his meaty one, talking with her as if this was the most natural thing in the world. Two old people who had enjoyed love once, now with a second love. And a baby.

She reached over to touch his unshaven cheek, but Owen tugged him back into the room and Mr. Glenn had already turned away.

“Did he know any stats, Albert?” Mrs. Gordon asked. She didn’t know what a stat was, but she’d heard Mr. Glenn mention the word to Jonathan Martin, a lawyer who lived next door to her.

“Not yet, not yet. But I’ll get him up to speed. Lionel and I used to love to watch the ball games together. He knew all the teams, all the players, all the game situations.”

Mrs. Gordon heard the melancholy in his voice. Lionel had given the Glenns so much trouble when he was a teen. Before his teen years, he was just another child in the building. There were several kids then, not like now. Some came through the teen years fine. Others, like the Carmichael’s daughter and the Glenn’s son, had challenges. The police even came once. Mrs. Gordon remembered the whole building in turmoil when Lionel went missing. Bessie was beside herself, and Mr. Glenn took time off work. The husbands went with him to search San Francisco’s scarier neighborhoods where a teen might go. A teen with drug problems.

Oh, what a time. Lionel eventually disowned his parents and ran off to Oregon. The Glenns never saw him again. Mrs. Gordon’s daughter, Sylvia, had been a few years older. A few years made so much difference when you were young. Sylvia had come through her teen years unscathed, but Mrs. Gordon knew it was just luck of the draw.

“Someday, I’ll take Owen to the games just like Lionel. We caught a ball once, Lionel and I. It’s still here, somewhere, maybe.”

Mrs. Gordon followed his gaze around the apartment. It wasn’t the cleanest. All the apartments had hardwood floors, and Mr. Glenn’s was bare, which would be fine if there weren’t dust bunnies in each corner and crunched up tortilla chips on the floor. How had those gotten there already? They had gone through the day before and “baby-proofed” the apartment for Owen, and Mrs. Gordon had taken the opportunity to vacuum and sweep, saying it was for the crawling baby. She brushed off piles of dusty magazines and set them in one of her extra baskets. She folded the cadre of sweaters that lay everywhere, hiding the tattered ones on the bottom of the stack on the shelf in the closet. Mr. Glenn set glass objects out of reach and covered the electrical outlets with baby-safe protection. He didn’t object to anything she did, even when she plucked a holey undershirt out of the laundry basket and used it to oil the table.

Bessie Glenn’s precious violin lay in its open case on a chair in the corner. Mrs. Gordon didn’t know what to do, how to bring it up. Mr. Glenn loved Bessie and her death haunted him for years. Her violin was still there, unmoved, ready to be played, as if Bessie might appear at any moment.

As she stood staring at it, Mr. Glenn came behind her and circled her in his arms. He hugged her tight and without a word gently closed the case and placed it high up on top of the bookcase.

Now here was this man, stooped sideways, walking slow step by slow step to accommodate a toddler. Her toddler.

Her horoscope that morning said, “Good fortune is yours today.” Mrs. Gordon knew when she read it and she knew it now that good fortune was hers every day.

“His diaper’s new and he ate a big lunch. Should be ready for a nap now,” Mr. Glenn said. “Me, too, soon as the game’s over.”

Mr. Glenn gave her a kiss as he turned over the baby. He kissed the baby too. “Remember what I told you. Don’t talk about no-hitters.”

“No,” said Baby Owen.

“Shh,” said Mr. Glenn.

Mrs. Gordon walked slowly to the elevator. She didn’t have to lean so far to hold Baby Owen’s hand. Back upstairs, she settled him in her lap on the couch. Who would teach Ben about baseball if Paul Blackwell stayed in jail? And Baby Owen? Mr. Glenn was so good with him. Her mind conjured the image of Big Owen, Baby Owen’s father, and she shivered. She hugged the baby and thought how cruel life could be to children.

They started out so innocent and hopeful. But with each sharp rebuke, each careless word, they learned to be cautious. In Baby Owen’s case, his mother, Chantrelle, simply had no idea what to do and no patience for a baby. She didn’t know about hugging and coddling and kissing and sweet talk. Big Owen was even worse, a lumbering, overweight, overgrown boy with a mean face and a mouth full of chewing tobacco and reprimands. When Mrs. Gordon first met Baby Owen, he was silent and withdrawn. It was weeks before she saw him smile.

He certainly smiled now. He sat on her hip, his wet fist gripping her collar. He hid his head in her elbow, then peeked up at her, laughing, laughing. Then he ducked his head and did it again. Each time she feigned surprise, setting off extra fits of glee. It definitely took two to play this game.

Chantrelle would never have played this game.

Mrs. Gordon sighed, a familiar heaviness closing in. What if Chantrelle returned? What if she wanted Baby Owen back?