Free Conviction by Kelly Loy Gilbert Page A

really—I want that more than anything. How about this: I won’t hit you ever again or yell at you or any of that. Okay? I swear.
Just—if you stay here and don’t ever try to run off like that again. Then you can look out for your new brother and help me raise him. He’ll need you. And we can be a better
family now. Us three.”
    Trey considered that. He said, tentatively, “You mean it?”
    “More than I’ve ever meant anything in my life.”
    “How do I know for sure?”
    “Because I’m giving you my word.”
    Trey looked down at the baby. “You swear?”
    “I swear. I swear, Trey. A man’s word is the most important thing he’s got.” My dad held out his hand to offer a handshake. “I swear on my life.”
    Trey’s expression didn’t change, but he shook. He said, soberly, “Okay, well, yeah, Dad, I guess I can do that. Stay here and help you take care of him.” Then he looked
up at my dad and then back down quickly, like he was nervous, too. “Um—I think the baby likes you. It was nice how he stopped crying for you. I think he thinks you’re a good
dad.”
    On air, my dad talks about this only vaguely. He talks about how he was in darkness, and when he found God, he was in the light, and he talks about how God blesses people who obey him. What he
means is that, after that night, God turned his life around. My dad stopped swearing, started reading his Bible, and got new bumper stickers for his car. It turned out he was a good dad to this new
baby, and it turned out things with Trey were better with a baby there, too. One night at the station my dad asked if he could fill in for one of the night-shift DJs who was out on sick leave, and
it turned out he was good. He got his own spot on a weekly show, and then he got his own show. He bought a house, then a nicer house. His ratings kept growing and he made himself into who he is
today.
    And, meanwhile, he found out I had it in me to be a good pitcher, maybe even a great one, and he started developing me. He coached a break into my fastball, taught it to paint curves around the
plate, taught it to come barreling forward knee-high before sinking like a plane losing steam midair. He taught me deception—how to not waste a single motion, how to shroud your movements so
they don’t give a thing away. And he taught me, too, that being up there on that mound with the whole game riding on your shoulders is the loneliest place you’ll ever know. That
it’s the time between throws, when you’re forced to face your own thoughts and fears, that can break you.
    I think the way you know you love someone is how badly you take it when they’re suffering, and it guts me to think what he’s going through alone, to think of him powerless and lonely
and afraid. But at least I can do this for him: play the way he taught me. Get the win against Brantley. That’ll be how I keep him close, for now—that’s how I’ll show him I
was always listening, that I still need him, that I took it to heart all those times he told me baseball is the truest test of who you are.

I n the two weeks before my dad’s preliminary hearing, we beat Bret Harte 4–1 and Ripon 5–2, and I throw my first shutout of the
season (6–0) against Waterford.
    La Abra, who we’re slated to play May 12, takes all of their three, and Alex Reyes goes through a slump at the plate. I read through every pitch he sees.
    At home, another toothbrush shows up next to mine in the bathroom, another towel on the bar. Trey buys a cheap (crappy) car from some guy off Craigslist, and the fridge fills up with stuff
I’m afraid to touch: tiny, see-through orange balls Trey says are fish eggs, dried mushrooms that look like dung. He’s on the phone a lot with his restaurant, and sometimes late at
night when I’m in bed already he goes out, God knows where, but at home he spends nearly all his time in the kitchen cooking, and when I get home from baseball every day, the whole house
smells like