Torey Hayden - The Tiger’s Child - The story of a gifted, troubled child and the teacher who refused to give up on her

His real love, however, was the baseball team—“his boys.” Again and again, he told me how it was they who had made him go straight for good. They depended on him, he said. The team had nearly been disbanded for lack of a coach until he took over. More to the point, he admitted, he would lose them if he messed with drugs again. He was still under the watchful eye of the parole officer.

I enjoyed that baseball game. They didn’t win, but they played well and it was apparent that winning wasn’t so important to them. They were a team, in the true sense of the word, and I identified immediately with that. Whatever his past, Mr. Renstad’s present was going well.

I’d made plans to take Sheila out after the game. On the other two occasions I’d come to her house, so I thought it would be pleasant to go somewhere with her. Sheila, however, was unable to decide where she wanted to go.

I suggested we go for a pizza. I thought I might take her up to the city, partly to give her a change of scenery, and partly because there were nicer places to eat up there. So after the game, we got into the car and headed north.

Somewhere within the first five miles, I took a wrong turn. As I was still learning my way around this new area, this wasn’t unusual; however, I didn’t realize I’d done it until the thinning houses made me suspicious that I was not going toward the city. Normally I have an excellent sense of direction, and while I do take wrong turns, even then I can usually discern if I’m going in the right general direction. On this occasion, I managed to get myself completely turned around, because while I still felt that I was going toward the city, evidence outside my window said otherwise. I voiced my concern to Sheila.

“No, you’re all right. I know exactly where you’re at. Just keep driving this way,” she said confidently. So I did.

Another fifteen minutes and I hit open country. I knew I was irredeemably lost and knew I wasn’t going to right myself without taking drastic action, probably in the form of stopping and digging out the road map. I pulled the car over into a gateway to a field.

“What are you doing?” Sheila asked in surprise.

Reaching my arm over the backseat, I groped for my road atlas.

“Looking for the map. I’m lost.”

“No, you’re not.”

“We’re lost.”

“No, we’re not. I’ve been out here millions of times.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I have,” she said. “I used to be in a children’s home near here. Just down that road over there. I know exactly where we are.”

“So, where are we then?” I asked.

“Well, here, of course.”

“But where’s here?”

Sheila looked out the window.

“Tell me. Where are we?”

“Don’t get so bitchy.”

“You don’t know either, do you?” I said. “We are lost.”

Unexpectedly, Sheila smiled. It was a beguiling smile. “I’m always lost,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

I tugged the atlas over into the front seat and opened it. Locating us on the map, I discovered where I had turned wrong and figured out what I would need to do when eventually we headed back to Broadview. “Okay. I’m happy now,” I said, closing the book. I started the engine.

“You’re really a control freak, aren’t you?” Sheila said. “I never realized that about you before.”

“Not really. It’s just I feel uncomfortable when I’m disoriented.”

“Ah, not only a control freak, a defensive control freak.”

If she wanted to go in this direction, I thought, well and good, we’d go. So we took off down a minor highway in a direction I’d never been before. The better part of an hour raced past, along with the scenery.

It was a pleasant drive. Sheila talked, launching into a most amazing conversation about Julius Caesar. She had read his account of the Gallic wars in Latin class and this caught her fancy, particularly his descriptions of the native Celts in Gaul. I had done Caesar myself when I had taken Latin in high school, but in those days I had been more interested to see if I could get good grades without having to read the assignments, rather than find out what the books actually said. Consequently, I had emerged from school clever but culturally illiterate and had spent most of my adult life catching up. I hadn’t managed to work myself around to Caesar yet in Latin or English, so for most of the conversation I just listened, which was probably no bad thing.

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