Elin Hilderbrand - 28 Summers

Charlie is in his sixties; his own children are grown, he owns a prosperous caretaking business on the island, and he recently lost his wife, Sue, who was the biggest champion of youth sports that Nantucket had ever seen. Charlie’s love of the game is infectious, but more than the game, he loves the kids, who are, frankly, at a challenging age. Charlie has schooled his players in strategic baserunning, which is how they often win; the Nantucket team steals home more than any other team it plays. Off the field, Charlie is warm and nurturing. His motto is three words long: Kids playing baseball . The players are developing skills, learning sportsmanship, creating a team atmosphere, and having fun. There are many things that are wrong with the world, but this thing is right.

As catcher, Link is the key to the team; he’s not as glorified as the pitchers, but he’s involved in every pitch of the game. He has a deadly accurate arm, and at least once in every game, he’ll throw out someone trying to steal second. He has been inconsistent at the plate and Mallory is never so tense as when he’s up to bat. He strikes out a lot, that’s fine, but he strikes out looking, which is not fine. He bats seventh in the lineup.

Fray hasn’t traveled east to see Link play even once. Mallory knows this bums Link out, though he doesn’t talk about it. Mallory sends endless videos with captions that say, Look at our son! And Number 6 is en fuego! Fray occasionally calls after a game (at Mallory’s prompting— Call now, before the pizza comes! ), and although Mallory hears only Link’s side of the conversation, she can tell it’s stilted.

The travel season culminates with a week of tournaments in Cooperstown, New York, at the end of July. Mallory splurges on a room at the Otesaga Hotel. The place is filled with history and old-fashioned charm; this is where all the Hall-of-Famers stay when they’re in town. In addition to watching a lot of baseball, Mallory squeezes in some pool time and breakfast every morning on the veranda overlooking Otsego Lake.

The living is good; the baseball not so much. Nantucket plays seven games and loses the first six. Link is brilliant behind the plate but abysmal at the plate; he strikes out sixteen times. In the final game, however, his luck changes. He hits the ball at his first at bat and it goes sailing over the fence: home run! Mallory is so excited—and so shocked —that she starts to cry. Throughout the season, Mallory has pictured her parents up in the sky, sitting in some heavenly version of lawn chairs (like earthly lawn chairs, but comfortable), cheering Link on.

Did Kitty and Senior see that? Home run! Here in Cooperstown!

At Link’s second at bat, he hits another home run. What? Mallory blinks, confused, but yes, the ball cleared the fence and there goes Link, trotting around the bases, then jumping into the crowd of his assembled teammates at home plate.

His third time at bat, Nantucket is behind by two runs and the bases are loaded. Dewey, the father sitting next to Mallory, says, “What are the chances he does it again?”

“Zero,” Mallory says, though she hopes for something better than a strikeout. A single would, maybe, tie the game. The count gets to two and two, and Mallory imagines Senior up out of his heavenly lawn chair shouting, the way he used to at the Orioles games on TV. Then she hears the crack of the bat and the ball goes all the way over the deepest part of the fence and everyone on base scores and while the other parents are jumping up and down, creating cacophony on the metal bleachers, Mallory has her face in her hands. She’s sobbing because she isn’t sure what happens when people die but she is sure that her parents are here in Cooperstown somewhere—either that or she and Link are carrying Senior and Kitty around inside of them, because they made this happen. She knows they made this happen.

The next day, they drive home. Despite the triumph of the last game, the trip is melancholy. This baseball season was a sweet spot in their lives; Coach Charlie and the other parents have become a family. The games, although not all exciting, were addictive in their own way. Mallory can now tell a ball from a strike from any spot in the park as well as a curve ball from a slider. She has subsisted on hot dogs and peanuts in the shell; she has lived in cutoffs and a visor. Now that the season’s over, Mallory won’t deny it—she’s sad. Link might play next year or he might get a job instead. But even if Link does play, there’s no telling which other kids will return, and in any case, it won’t be the same. This season is something that can’t be repeated; it will just have to live on in everyone’s memories. The Nantucket U14s in ’14.

It’s on this five-hour drive from Cooperstown to Hyannis that Link tells Mallory that he doesn’t want to go to Seattle the following week—or at all.

“But…” Mallory says. “Don’t you want to see the baby?”

Link pulls out his left earbud. His buddy Cam, the center fielder, is riding home with them, but he’s asleep in the back seat. “No,” Link says, softly but firmly. “I don’t.”

“Honey, she’s your sister and you’ve never even met her.”

“She’s too little to know any better,” Link says. “I don’t want to go.”

“But what about your dad and Anna?”

“Anna, ha,” Link says. “She doesn’t like me.”

“What are you talking about? Anna loves you.” Only a few summers earlier Mallory had been certain she’d lost Link to Anna’s influence.

Link shrugs. “I liked summers when we were in Vermont. In Seattle, Dad is always at work, and the house is cold. Anna is either on her phone or on her laptop, and I spend way too much time playing video games. The only day we do stuff together is Sunday, and now there’s a baby, so, yeah…I’m not going.”

“You don’t have the power to decide that, bud, sorry.”

“Mom,” Link says. “Please don’t make me go. I haven’t had my summer yet. We haven’t sailed, we haven’t kayaked. I’ve barely been in the ocean .”

“We all make choices,” Mallory says. “Your choice was to play baseball.”

“What if Dad says it’s okay if I don’t go?” Link asks. “Then can I stay home?”

Mallory isn’t sure how to answer. She has sensed the relationship between Link and Fray deteriorating for a while. Fray used to come to Nantucket all the time, every month. But since he moved to Seattle, he hasn’t come once. Not once! Mallory hasn’t called him on it because she knows he’s busy. He’s a wonderful provider for Link, and Mallory figured Fray and Link would reconnect over the month of August like they always did.

She can’t stop herself from thinking that if Link doesn’t go to Seattle, he will be on Nantucket over Labor Day weekend. Which is not okay. Mallory is sorry, but that is not okay .

Is she going to condemn her only child to a month of misery in a house with a newborn just so she can continue her love affair?

Link needs to meet his baby sister, Cassiopeia. Baby Cassie. He needs to spend time with Fray. Link is thirteen years old; it’s a crucial time to have a male role model, a father .

Surely Fray will agree with this. Fray will never allow Link to skip a summer. Fray will sweeten the deal with Mariners tickets or a father-son camping trip in the San Juan Islands. Anna and the baby will stay home with the cadre of baby nurses. Mallory paints an irresistible picture in her mind: Fray will take his fifty-foot Grady-White over to Friday Harbor to use the luxe cabin of one of the Microsoft execs for a few days. They’ll fish for steel-headed trout; they’ll see killer whales. They’ll build campfires and talk about girls.