one by one, the room becoming dim and finally dark. Only the flat white glow of the TV picture remained.
A silence followed. Nancy stood near the big chair in her torn shorty pajamas. She stood motionless, the silence lengthened, and the voice of George Kell said, “All tied up in the bottom of the ninth with Detroit coming to bat. If they’re going to put something together now’s the-”
Ryan turned off the sound. He sat hunched in the white glow of the picture tube. Behind him, Al Kaline silently swung two bats in the on-deck circle.
He said to her, “Have you broken everything?”
She seemed to nod. “I guess so.”
“Then, why don’t you sit down?”
“Jackie-”
“No more, all right? If you say any more, I think I’ll bust you one and I don’t want to do that.”
As Al Kaline stepped into the batter’s box and took his stance, touching the end of the bat to the plate and digging a foothold with his spikes, they heard the first thin sound of the siren far up the Shore Road.
“Sit down and relax,” Ryan said. “There’s nothing more to think about.”
Nancy curled slowly into the chair, leaning on one of the arms and resting her face in her hand. She stared out at the swimming pool and the lawn and the orange pinpoint of light against the night sky and a finger began stroking the soft, falling edge of her dark hair.
Notes
