a crisis stage—or perhaps you should take the initiative, just in case…”
“Just in case what?”
“Kids have been known not to take home notes they don’t want their parents to see.”
“Surely Tyler wouldn’t,” she began, then shook her head. “Of course he would. I’ll call the other teachers as soon as I get home.”
Cal gave her an encouraging smile. She looked as if she could use some moral support. “Hey, he’s a good student. A few bad grades don’t mean the end of the world. He’ll catch up. More troubling to me is his complete lack of interest in his game. He excelled in his classes because he’s smart, but he excelled in baseball not just because of talent, but because of his passion for the game. He seems to have lost that.”
She sighed. “I thought as much, based on some of his comments to me, but to be honest, I have no idea what to do about it. Baseball was always something he and his dad shared. Bill’s not particularly athletic, but he loved the game. He started taking Ty to Atlanta Braves games when he was a toddler. Then he coached him in Little League. I tagged along, but I didn’t absorb much about the finer points of the game.”
Cal gave some thought to the implications of that. “So, now that his dad’s moved out,” he suggested slowly, “Ty’s rejecting baseball—either deliberately or subconsciously—the way he thinks his father’s rejected him?”
She regarded him with surprise. “Why, yes. I think that’s it exactly.” She leaned toward him as if he might have other answers to life’s mysteries. “What do we do about it?”
Cal hated to admit it with her looking at him so hopefully, but he was as much at a loss as she was. Identifying the problem was a snap compared to solving it, but at least he now knew what he was dealing with. “Let me think about that and get back to you, okay?”
She nodded. “Anything you can suggest will be greatly appreciated. I wish I’d come to you sooner, but the divorce isn’t something I’ve wanted to talk about.”
Cal regarded her with sympathy. “No one does, which is probably why kids internalize their feelings.”
“You’re right again. Believe me, I want to see that old spark back in Ty’s eyes when he walks onto a ball field. He needs baseball right now.” She studied Cal worriedly. “He mentioned you might pull him from the starting rotation.”
“I’ll have to if he doesn’t get his concentration back, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Now that I understand what’s going on, hopefully I can come up with some way to get him back on track. Maybe this is none of my business, but is the divorce final?”
“The paperwork’s done, but we don’t have the decree yet.”
“Are things settling down some at home, though?”
“Some,” she said in a tone that conveyed the opposite.
“They will,” he said, feeling a sudden need to reassure her. It was almost as powerful as his desire to get Tyler back in his pitching groove. “I’ll be in touch soon, Mrs. Townsend.”
“Call me Maddie, please. I’d just as soon not be reminded of anything Townsend right now,” she said, giving him a wry smile. “Besides, it makes me feel ancient.”
Cal laughed at that. “You’re hardly ancient. If I didn’t know you have a sixteen-year-old son, I’d swear you were my age.”
Her cheeks turned pink. “Flattery won’t get you much more than an extra batch of chocolate-chip cookies next time it’s my turn to bake for the team.”
“I’ll take the cookies, but it wasn’t flattery,” he told her.
In fact, for the first time since his own divorce from a woman who’d married a baseball celebrity, not a has-been, he was actually feeling a stir of real interest in a woman, and age was the very last thing on his mind. Of course, given the multitude of complications involved, he’d have to be out of his ever-loving mind to do anything about it.
5
The meeting with Cal Maddox had shaken Maddie more than she wanted to admit. Until now, Ty had been a near-perfect kid. He’d never given them any trouble. He’d made good grades and excelled at baseball. Now all of that was at risk. It made her see that building some sort of bridge between Tyler and Bill was more important than ever, but how could she possibly do that without further alienating her son, who claimed to be dead set against his father being in his life?
Maybe she was going to have to swallow her pride and go to Bill and plead with him to take the initiative and make more of an effort to understand his son’s point of view. Perhaps if he realized what was at stake, he would keep Noreen out of the picture, at least when he was spending time with Tyler. Right now Bill seemed stubbornly determined to unite them into one big happy family, no matter how his children—especially Ty—resisted the idea. Maybe she could make Bill see how desperately Ty needed some one-on-one time with his dad.
Determined to fix things for her son’s sake, she headed for Bill’s medical office in a small brick complex he and a business partner had built several years ago. Its professional suites also housed a dentist and an orthopedic surgeon, as well as an outpatient rehab facility for the surgeon’s patients.
She used her key and slipped in through the back door. It was the only way to avoid the waiting room and all the curious glances she was bound to receive there. Instead, however, she ran smack into Noreen, who was coming out of Bill’s office with her lipstick smudged and her uniform mussed. Maddie had to wonder how the patients would feel if they’d witnessed the same thing.
“Maddie!” Noreen said, looking dismayed as she smoothed the wrinkles in her uniform. “What are you doing here? I had no idea you still had a key.”
Maddie bit back an angry retort. The truth was that Noreen had more of a right to be here than she did and that grated.
“I need to see my husband. I gather he’s in his office,” she said and brushed right past Noreen without further comment.
When she firmly closed the door behind her, Bill looked up from the files on his desk and regarded her with uncertainty. “Maddie, I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Obviously,” she said, noting the fact that his tie was askew and his thick blond hair was messed up. “You know, if you keep this up, your reputation in this town is going to suffer.” She leveled a look into his eyes. “But then, Helen has already pointed that out, hasn’t she? I’d recommend a few minutes in front of a mirror before you start seeing patients.”
His cheeks colored, a sure indication of his embarrassment. “Why are you here?” he asked stiffly. “Just to pass judgment on me?”
“Not my job,” she said briskly, fighting the urge to say a whole lot more. She couldn’t afford to stir his temper, not when she was on a very specific mission.
“Did you come to apologize about Saturday?” he inquired. “If so, Noreen’s the one you really should be talking to.”
“Don’t push me,” she warned. “I’m here about Tyler. I just had a very distressing meeting with Coach Maddox.”
Bill
