Another pitch struck the wood, splintering the top edge of the frame.
“We should walk home before the fog comes in,” Dolores said.
“I have ten more,” Cris said.
The community center basement smelled of damp wool and floor wax.
Cris sat at the long pine table, watching his mother empty her vinyl coin purse onto the wood.
Dolores sorted the crumpled singles into three neat piles.
“We have eighteen dollars left for groceries, Cris,” she said.
He looked down at his boots, where the sole of the left shoe was parting from the leather.
“The regional tryout in Portland is next month,” Cris said.
“The bus ticket is four dollars,” Dolores said, her finger tracing the silver ring on her hand.
“I can walk to the highway and hitch,” Cris said.
“We cannot buy the new cleats, Cris.”
He reached into his canvas bag and pulled out his old glove.
It was an eight-dollar piece of stiff cowhide he had oiled with lard until it turned the color of wet earth.
“This glove is fine,” Cris said.
Dolores did not look at the leather.
She looked at his chest, where his shirt was vibrating with a fast, shallow rhythm.
“You are breathing like you ran from the harbor,” Dolores said.
The paper sheet on the examination table crinkled as Cris sat up.
Dr. Sarah Harris adjusted the metal binaurals of her stethoscope and stepped closer.
“Deep breath,” she said.
Cris inhaled.
The cold metal disc pressed against his ribs, just below his shirt pocket.
Dr. Harris did not speak for a full minute.
She kept her eyes on the linoleum, listening to the rapid, erratic thumping that filled Cris’s ears.
“Does your mother know how often this happens?” she asked.
“She does not,” Cris said.
The doctor stepped back and picked up a thick white medical report envelope from the counter.
She did not open it.
“Your heart is beating at nearly two hundred frames a minute while you are sitting still, Cris,” she said.
“I have a game on Friday,” Cris said.
“If you pitch on Friday, you might not walk off the field,” Dr. Harris said.
She reached for her black pen on the desk.
The sound of the doctor tapping her pen against the metal clipboard.
The doctor did not look up when Dolores Ronans finally walked through the clinic door at nine the next morning.
The small waiting room smelled of damp wool and floor wax, and the radiator in the corner hissed like a wet log on a fire.
Dolores sat on the vinyl chair with her purse gripped in both hands, her worn silver wedding band spinning slowly under her thumb.
Cris stood by the high, narrow window, his shoulders hunched inside his denim jacket as he watched a lobster boat back away from the town wharf.
Dr. Sarah Harris set her pen down on the metal desk.
She adjusted her glasses, then set her palms flat on the medical report envelope.
