Vicki squeezed his hand and released him up the steps. “Good luck, my sweet.” Rafe took his place in the back line of the chorus, a lost look on his face. He watched his mom linger at the bottom of the steps, then take out her digital camera and turn it towards him.
“Mom!” he whined, trying to wave her away. Suddenly the students began to stir. Rafe’s eyes grew big and a smile lit his face. Vicki turned and there was Jason striding down the side aisle, followed by a young man and young woman pushing hand carts loaded with long cardboard boxes.
Rafe rushed to the edge of the stage. “You came!” he shouted. He had left messages for his father in Chicago and Cincinnati but wasn’t sure he got them. Jason laughed. “Of course I came!” He grabbed Rafe and swung him off the stage. He could see that he’d been crying. “What’s the matter, Buddy?”
Rafe squeezed his father as hard as he could. Jason squeezed back. “That’s OK, Buddy, I’m here,” he whispered.
The familiar discord of an orchestra tuning up signaled the imminence of the program. Jason set Rafe back down on the stage. “Knock ‘em dead, Tiger,” he said, before backing away. There was a buzz in the crowd that Rafe’s father had brought baseball bats signed by Giants’ players. His helpers unpacked the boxes and leaned the bats near the stairway where the performers would be leaving the stage.
Slowly, the house began to quiet. Jason ended up standing along the wall of the packed auditorium directly behind Vicki. “What are you doing here?” she asked, turning to address him but without looking at him.
“What do you think I’m doing here?”
She exhaled loudly, clearly unnerved by his presence literally breathing down her neck. “You’re disrupting everything!”
“Disrupting what? I’m his father!”
“That hasn’t done him a whole lot of good up to now.”
“It’s not for lack of trying.”
The opening strains sounded and the chorus stiffened as if they had been struck by lightning. Rafe watched his parents, his two favorite people in the world, talking together and his smile grew. Maybe they’d have pizza together and watch a movie; maybe his father would come on the school hayride in Sonoma.
“It’s going to be different now,” Jason said into the back of Vicki’s head. Rafe was swaying now in unison with his white-suited classmates, who were gathered like pleats in a semi-circle at the back of the stage. His mouth opened wide as the chorus sang out the opening refrains of the Brahms-inspired overture. “I’ve been traded.”
Vicki turned and looked him in the eyes. A set of violins and goofy flute music erupted from the orchestra, then the boom of a kettle drum and the tinkling of a chime.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
He smiled down at her, clearly gloating. “I’m playing for San Francisco now.”
JASON RENTED a two-bedroom condo along the waterfront near PacBell Park, in a bayside development called South Beach Harbor. There was a big picture window with a view across San Francisco Bay to Oakland, and a swimming pool out the back door shared by the other condos in the complex.
Jason’s first day there with Rafe was one of the happiest in his life. They rode bicycles along the waterfront almost to the Golden Gate Bridge, and when they returned they set to work preparing Rafe’s favorite dinner, spaghetti and meatballs. Side-by-side they stood at the marble-top counter, rolling ground turkey into meatballs on a wooden cutting board. Jason sautéed the meatballs in a large iron skillet while Rafe cut up lettuce, tomatoes and carrots for a salad, his face knotted with concentration.
“You’re quite the chef!” Jason exclaimed.
Rafe smiled up at him. “This is fun!”
When everything was done they sat on opposite sides of the table in the small dining room. “How you doin’, Bud?” Jason asked.
“Good.” Rafe smiled, shoveling a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth. Jason wasn’t sure what else to say. He hadn’t spent time with his son since July, when the Reds played in San Francisco. Rafe was taller, his cheekbones broader, his eyes set deeper in his face. It happened like this every off-season, returning like some general and having to introduce himself anew to his family. This time, however, there was one huge difference: the general had come to stay.
“You got homework tonight?”
“It’s Saturday!” Rafe replied.
“They don’t give homework on weekends?”
“Uh-uh. Weekends are for playing!”
Jason smiled and looked out at the ships lined up in San Francisco Bay. As a boy in Port Sulphur he used to watch oil tankers disappearing over the curve of the sea and dream of sailing away. But no more. He had a contract to play baseball in the town where his son lived. There was no better dream he could have.
After dinner they brushed their teeth in the large, mirrored bathroom, then Jason led Rafe up to his bedroom. He had bought a full-sized double bed for his growing son and covered it with Rafe’s Stanford quilt and a half dozen of his favorite stuffed animals. A small ship’s lamp glowed beside the bed.
Rafe leaped on the quilt and hugged his furry friends. Then he gazed out the window at the blaze of lights in the center of the bay.
“You know what that is?” Jason asked. Rafe shook his head. “That’s Treasure Island.” Rafe’s eyes danced as Jason pulled the covers back for him to slide under the flannel sheets. When he was settled, Jason held up an oversized book.
“Treasure Island!” Rafe shouted. The cover illustration was a giltedged painting of a pirate and his parrot, with a triple-masted schooner looming behind them. Jason balanced himself in the miniature rocking chair beside Rafe’s bed. “Chapter One,” he intoned. “The Old Sea-Dog at the Admiral Benbow.”
He looked down at Rafe. “You ready for this? There’s pirates and stolen treasure and sword fights — it’s pretty rough stuff.”
“They have sword fights in Star Wars,” Rafe said dismissively. “With light savers.”
“Light sabers,” Jason corrected him.
“Light savers,” Rafe insisted. He looked sincerely into his father’s eyes. “It’s all make-believe anyway, Daddy.”
Jason smiled and set the book across his knees so Rafe could see the illustrations as he read. “Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesy, and the rest of these gentlemen, having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island …”
He paused and looked at Rafe, who smiled back at him with warm, sleepy contentment. Jason took his hand and squeezed it. “I’m glad you’re here, Buddy.”
“Read, Daddy!”
Outside, the lights of Treasure Island twinkled in the center of the bay. Jason returned to the book, reading in a firm, animated voice: “ … and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow Inn, and the brown old seaman, with the saber cut, first took up his lodging under our roof … ”
IN SAN FRANCISCO, nobody argues with a Giant. Despite Vicki’s objections, the court granted Jason’s request for joint custody on alternating weeks, even during baseball season. Vicki didn’t tell Rafe about it until the end of the week, when he was scheduled to begin his first full week with his father. She picked him up early from aftercare and took him to his favorite restaurant, the Sushi Boat, where food sailed by on little wooden barges along a flume filled with flowing water.
“What’s that? What’s that? What’s that?” Rafe cried excitedly as the sushi floated by. Vicki leaned over and swiped a smear of wasabi from the sleeve of his