Another frustrated Braves batter stalked back to the dugout after strike three nicked the inside corner. Just throw it over the damn plate, Gibson willed telepathically. What was one loss against the prospect of making a lifetime fan? Not very loyal of him, but the tickets had cost him an arm, a leg, and the better part of his ass. For this kind of money, he was entitled to be a little selfish.
His ex-wife, Nicole, would kill him if she knew what today had cost. He’d been job hunting for the last six months, and between child support and the mortgage, his savings were just about exhausted. A sullen knot had lived in his chest since the new year. As the weeks passed, it felt like someone had put first one, then both feet on his chest, until it was a struggle to draw breath. It had been hard to keep going, but it would all be okay after tomorrow. The two rounds of interviews had been smooth sailing, and now he had an honest-to-God job offer on the table—contingent, of course, on passing a polygraph in the morning. Since he’d taken plenty of polygraphs in the military, the test didn’t worry him. He would be working by the end of the week. Real work. Real money. The kind he’d expected to make when he’d left the Marines.
So, sure, maybe it was a little premature to splurge, but he expected to be buried for the next few months until he got up to speed with the new job. After that, he would start looking for a new apartment, one with a bedroom for Ellie, and maybe a dog. He’d really love to have a dog. Something big enough to run with him and sweet enough to let Ellie climb all over it. Gibson smiled into the sunshine. That was a dream for the future, the kind of dream that Benjamin Lombard’s vendetta had long made an impossibility. Well, as of tomorrow, those days were over, and today was a present to himself. He’d been looking forward to taking Ellie to her first game for a long time—the first of many father-daughter days at the ballpark.
He looked over at Ellie fidgeting in her seat.
Somewhere his dad was laughing at him.
Duke Vaughn had had four loves: diners, driving, baseball, and driving to a diner while listening to baseball. When Gibson had been Ellie’s age, Duke had shuttled him regularly between Charlottesville and DC, where Duke had served as chief of staff to then senator Benjamin Lombard. Listening to the Orioles on the radio had been a staple of those drives. To Gibson’s seven-year-old self, it had been incomprehensibly boring—listening to something you couldn’t see. What was the point? And of course there was his dad lecturing him on the history of the game.
“El, did you know DC used to have a baseball team called the Senators?”
Ellie stifled a yawn.
No one would ever accuse the Vaughn men of learning new tricks.
Gibson wished his dad could be here; Duke had always been good at coming up with silly games and contests, and kids had always loved him. Gibson caught himself. Since learning the truth about his father’s death last year, he’d become a nostalgia factory. It was nice being able to think about his dad without the memories being drenched in bitterness, but he also had to be wary of indulging in too much wishful thinking. Whatever else might be true, Duke Vaughn was still dead.
Not that Ellie was having a bad time. She was the kind of kid who always found a way to entertain herself. He admired that about his daughter. But it would be nice if it had anything at all to do with baseball. She had become fast friends with two boys her age in their row. The three children had invented a game with rules so convoluted that none of the fathers could follow, but which resulted in a lot of conspiratorial whispering and giggling.
So far the highlight of the day had been the Presidents Race. A mainstay at Nationals games since the team had moved to DC from Montreal, it was a promotional event featuring five runners in oversized foam presidents’ heads. During the fourth inning, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and William Taft ran from center field to first base. Shenanigans ensued. For years, it had been an inside joke that Teddy Roosevelt never won. Teddy finally broke his winless streak to celebrate the team clinching the playoffs in 2012. Since then, the Rough Rider won periodically, but mostly Washington, Jefferson, Taft, and Lincoln ganged up on him.
Ellie didn’t know that. So at the start of the race, she scampered down to the edge of the field to cheer on Teddy—her favorite president since playing him in a school pageant. Things were looking good, and Ellie’s man led the whole way. She was pogoing up and down—her gleeful shrieks carrying back to Gibson. But in the last ten yards, Lincoln tripped Teddy, and George Washington took it at the tape.
Ellie came back despondent and threw herself into her seat. “Daddy, he cheated!”
“It’s just a race, El.”
“He cheated. I hate him. Abraham Lincoln is a cheater.”
“That’s exactly what Jefferson Davis said,” one of the fathers deadpanned.
“It was close,” said Gibson. “Maybe Teddy will win next time.”
She perked up at that. “Can we come again? Please?”
Gibson pretended to think it over, milking the moment.
“Please,” she begged and smiled an exaggerated, too-cute-for-this-solar-system smile.
“I suppose it might be possible.”
Ellie squealed and threw her arms around him. He hugged her back, ignoring for a moment that he’d manipulated her enthusiasm. You just social-engineered your own kid, he thought. Not cool, slick. But he didn’t care. He needed it. He’d begun to have his doubts about the kind of father he was becoming. This dad-at-a-distance routine felt false. Being a father didn’t happen by appointment, no matter what the custody agreement said. Being a parent happened in the day to day. Not at baseball games and special events every other weekend. He feared that was how Ellie was beginning to see him. As the guy who came around every so often and took her places and conned her into hugging him. He needed to find solid ground with her. Soon. For now, Ellie was forgiving. If he didn’t figure it out, he had a bad feeling that he’d spend the rest of his life looking in from the outside at the rest of hers.
“Want me to teach you how to keep score?” he said, holding up the scorecard enticingly.
“I gotta go to the bathroom.”
“Okay, maybe after.”
Ellie shrugged noncommittally.
Gibson steered his daughter along the concourse past several food vendors. He was getting hungry. Ben’s Chili Bowl was over on the third base side. But if he got a half smoke, Ellie would want one, and a chili dog was way too advanced for her now. He loved her, but she could make a mess of eating an apple.
They found a ladies’ room; the line stretched almost out the door.
“I’ll be right here,” he said.
“Okay.”
“You’re all right by yourself?”
His seven-year-old daughter rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll be fine, Dad.”