Free Summerland by Michael Chabon Page A

these boxes contained his entire life up to the time of his marriage; other times he said it was all a lot of junk. No matter how many times he went to rummage in them, Mr. Feld never seemed to find exactly what he was looking for, and everything that he did find seemed to surprise him. Now, for the first time that Ethan could remember, he had managed to retrieve what he sought.
    "Wow," he said, gazing down at his old mitt with a tender expression. "The old pie plate."
    It was bigger than any catcher's mitt that Ethan had ever seen before, thicker and more padded, even bulbous, a rich dark color like the Irish beer his father drank sometimes on a rainy winter afternoon. Partly folded in on itself along the pocket, it reminded Ethan of nothing so much as a tiny, overstuffed leather armchair.
    "Here you go, son," Mr. Feld said.
    As Ethan took the mitt from his father, it fell open in his outspread hands, and a baseball rolled out; and the air was suddenly filled with an odor, half salt and half wildflower, that reminded Ethan at once of the air in the Summerlands. Ethan caught the ball before it hit the ground, and stuffed into the flap pocket of his shorts.
    "Try it on," Mr. Feld said.
    Ethan placed his hand into the mitt. It was clammy inside, but in a pleasant way, like the feel of cool mud between the toes on a hot summer day. Whenever Ethan put on his own glove, there was always a momentary struggle with the finger holes. His third finger would end up jammed in alongside his pinky, or his index finger would protrude painfully out the opening at the back. But when he put on his father's old catcher's mitt, his fingers slid into the proper slots without any trouble at all. Ethan raised his left hand and gave the mitt a few exploratory flexes, pinching his fingers toward his thumb. It was heavy, much heavier than his fielder's glove, but somehow balanced, weighing no more on one part of his hand than on any other. Ethan felt a shiver run through him, like the one that had come over him when he had first seen Cinquefoil and the rest of the wild Boar Tooth mob of ferishers.
    "How does it feel?" said Mr. Feld.
    "Good," Ethan said. "I think it feels good."
    "When we get to the field, I'll have a talk with Mr. Olafssen, about having you start practicing with the pitchers next week. In the meantime, you and I could start working on your skills a little bit. I'm sure Jennifer T. would be willing to help you, too. We can work on your crouch, start having you throw from your knees a little bit, and—" Mr. Feld stopped, and his face turned red. It was a long speech, for him, and he seemed to worry that maybe he was getting a little carried away. He patted down the tangled yarn basket of his hair. "That is, I mean—if you'd like to."
    "Sure, Dad," Ethan said. "I really think I would."
    For the first time that Ethan could remember in what felt to him like years, Mr. Feld grinned, one of his old, enormous grins, revealing the lower incisor that was chipped from some long-ago collision at home plate.
    "Great!" he said.
    Ethan looked at his watch. A series of numbers was pulsing across the liquid crystal display. He must have accidentally pushed one of the mysterious buttons. He held it out to show his father, who frowned at the screen.
    "It's your heart rate," Mr. Feld said, pushing a few of the buttons under the display. "Seems slightly elevated. Ah. Hmm. Nearly eleven. We'd better get going."
    "The game's not until twelve-thirty," Ethan reminded him.
    "I know it," Mr. Feld said. "But I thought we could take Victoria Jean ."
    ONE WINTER MORNING ABOUT THREE MONTHS AFTER THE DEATH OF his wife, Mr. Feld had informed Ethan that he was quitting his job at Aileron Aeronautics, selling their house in a suburb of Colorado Springs, and moving them to an island in Puget Sound, so that he could build the airship of his dreams. He had been dreaming of airships all his life, in a way—studying them, admiring them, learning their checkered history.