Free See No Color by Shannon Gibney Page A

word in the book, I never once believed that Perry would intentionally give him a chronic, career-ending injury. Who would want to go down on record as the man who busted Terry Kirtridge’s shoulder so bad that he was never the same again? Who would want to go to bed knowing that you had effectively stopped someone’s career at thirty-one?
    â€¢ • •
    Although he recovered enough to play the next season, Dad’s performance was less than impressive in spring training. It was pretty clear that he wouldn’t see the major league roster any time soon. He was thirty-two and had never done anything but play baseball.
    In late September, he was offered a position of first-base coach for the Brewers AA team, in Huntsville, Alabama. He mulled over it for a week before he was asked to coach the top boys’ middle and high school baseball teams in the state. The positions were at Cherokee Middle School and West High School.
    â€œIt’s an opportunity,” he said to Mom as he sat down at the kitchen table. “Look what I’ve done for our kids so far, just through coaching. I could do so much more with so many other kids.”
    Jason and I peered at each other from around the corner. It was the first time we had ever heard him talk about coaching anyone but us. And since he had not shown the least bit of interest in resuming our training since his injury, I felt a twinge of jealousy at the thought of him coaching others.
    â€œI think you should take it, Terry,” Mom said, shredding lettuce. “We could all use a change.”
    What she meant was that the teams were in Madison, so we’d have to move. We would have to sell the house, leave our friends, leave school, and everything in Milwaukee.
    My stomach churned at the thought, for all the things I would push away and all the new things I would take in. I lay in bed every night those last few weeks with my palm pressed against the wall, trying to remember its coolness, imprint it in my memory. Because I knew that soon enough, my room and the wall would become only thoughts to me, images, as intangible as Dad’s leaping catches on the field were to him now.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    â€œP ickles,” I said, handing Jason a regular-sized mason jar. Jason grabbed it and set it up on the shelf carefully.
    â€œSweet or garlic?” Jason asked.
    I checked the label on the side of the jar where Mom’s perfect handwriting identified the correct item. “Garlic,” I said.
    Canning was something my mother had grown up with, something she fell back on when she was stressed. When Mom and Dad’s realtor found a house in Madison that had all the modern conveniences (and a yard big enough for a batting cage) but also the root cellar from the original farmhouse, Mom took it as a sign. The last of Dad’s signing bonus more than covered the down payment.
    For Jason and me, though, the cellar was a hated spring chore—taking inventory and organizing so Mom could begin to plan her purchases at Madison’s overflowing farmer’s markets.
    Jason pushed a jar over to the left, raising a wave of dust from the rickety wood shelf.
    I coughed. “Damn.” I waved my hand.
    â€œSorry,” he said.
    â€œDoesn’t anyone ever clean those?” I asked.
    Jason snickered. “Yeah, and who’s going to do it? You?” He reached over me and tried to grab another jar from the box.
    â€œHey,” I said, pushing him aside. “I got it.” The dust had settled now and I could breathe.
    He stepped back. “Fine. Then let’s hurry up and finish. I got things to do.” A rectangular shadow played across his face, making him look angry.
    I shivered and turned back to the box. It was half empty. Once this chore was done, I could go back to my reading, and he could go back to studying old DVDs of his at bats from last season when he was a .301/.366/.550 hitter. I leaned down and picked up the next