Postgame

SHE WAS IN. THE WOODS again and she came to a clearing she knew. Standing in the middle of it, by the stump that wasn't a stump but a gatepost with a rusty ringbolt embedded in the top, was Tom Gordon. He was idly flicking the ringbolt back and forth.

I already had this dream, she thought, but as she approached him, she saw it had changed in one particular: instead of the gray road uniform, Tom was wearing his white home uniform, with Number 36 on the back in bright red silk. So the road trip was over. The Sox were at Fenway again, back at home, and the road trip was over. Except she and Tom were here; they were back in this clearing.

"Tom?" she said timidly.

He looked at her, eyebrows raised. Back and forth went the rusty ringbolt between his talented fingers. Back and forth.

"I closed."

"I know you did, honey," he said. "You did a good job."

Back and forth, back and forth. Who do you call when your ringbolt's busted?

"How much of it was real?"

"All of it," he said, as if it didn't really matter. And then, again: "You did a good job."

"I was stupid to get off the path like I did, wasn't l?"

He looked at her with slight surprise, then pushed up his cap with the hand that wasn't flipping the ringbolt back and forth. He smiled, and when he smiled he looked young. "What path?" he said.

"Trisha?" That was a woman's voice, coming from behind her. It sounded like her mother's voice, but what would Mom be doing out here in the woods?

"She probably doesn't hear you," said another woman. This voice she didn't know.

Trisha turned. The woods were darkening, the shapes of the trees blurring together, becoming unreal, like a backdrop. Shapes moved there and she felt a momentary prick of fear. The wasp-priest, she thought. It's the wasp-priest, he's coming back.

Then she realized she was dreaming and the fear passed. She turned back to Tom, but he was no longer there, only the splintered post with the ringbolt in the top ... and his warmup jacket lying in the grass. GORDON printed across the back.

She glimpsed him on the far side of the clearing, a white shape like a ghost. "Trisha, what's God's nature?" he called.

To come on in the bottom of the ninth, she wanted to say, but no sound came out.

"Look," her mother said. "Her lips are moving!"

"Trish?" That was Pete, sounding anxious and hopeful. "Trish, are you awake?"

She opened her eyes and the woods rolled away into some darkness which would never entirely leave her now-What path? She was in a hospital room. There was a thing up her nose and something else - a tube-running into her hand. Her chest felt very heavy, very full. Standing by her bed was her father, her mother, her brother. Behind them, looming large and white, was the nurse who had said she probably doesn't hear you.

"Trisha," her Mom said. She was crying. Trisha saw that Pete was also crying. "Trisha, honey. Oh honey." She took Trisha's hand, the one without the thing in it.

Trisha tried to smile, but her mouth was too heavy to go up, even at the corners. She moved her eyes and saw her Red Sox hat on the seat of the chair by her bed. Smeared across the visor was a dim blackish-gray shadow. Once it had been Tom Gordon's signature.

Dad, she tried to say. Nothing came out but a cough. It was only a little cough, but it hurt enough to make her wince.

"Don't try to talk, Patricia," the nurse said, and Trisha could tell both by the nurse's tone and posture that she wanted the family out of here; in another moment she would make them leave. "You're a sick girl. You've got pneumonia. Both lungs."

Her Mom seemed to hear none of this. She was sitting on the bed beside her now, stroking Trisha's wasted arm. She wasn't sobbing, but tears welled steadily from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Pete stood next to her, crying in the same silent fashion. Trisha was touched by his tears in a way she wasn't by her mother's, but she still thought Pete looked quite remarkably dorky. Beside him, beside the chair, stood her Dad.

This time Trisha didn't try to speak, only fixed her father with her eyes and mouthed it again, very carefully: Dad!

He saw and bent forward. "What, honey? What is it?"

"I think that's enough," the nurse said. "All her signs are up, and we don't want that-she's had all the excitement she needs for awhile. If you'll just help me out, now ... help her out-"

Mom got to her feet. "We love you, Trish. Thank God you're safe. We'll be here, but you need to sleep now. Larry, let's-"

He took no notice of Quilla. He remained bent over Trisha, fingers lightly tented on the sheet. "What is it, Trish? What do you want?"

She moved her eyes to the chair, to his face, back to the chair. He looked puzzled-she was sure he wasn't going to get it-and then his face cleared. He smiled, turned, picked up the hat, and tried to put it on her head.

She raised the hand her mother had caressed-it weighed a ton, but she managed. Then she opened the fingers. Closed them. Opened them.

"Okay, hon. Okay, right."

He put the cap in her hand, and when she closed her fingers on the visor, he kissed them. Trisha began to cry at that, as soundlessly as her mother and brother.

'All right," the nurse said. "That's it. You'll really have to"

Trisha looked at the nurse and shook her head.

"What?" the nurse asked. "What now? Goodness' sake!"

Trisha slowly transferred the cap to the hand with the IV needle in it. She looked at her father as she did it, making sure he was looking at her. She was tired. Soon she would sleep. But not yet. Not until she had said what she had to say.

He was watching, watching closely. Good.

She reached across her body with her right hand, never taking her eyes from her father, because he was the one who would know; if he understood, he would translate.

Trisha tapped the visor of her cap, then pointed her right index finger up at the ceiling.

The smile which lit his face from the eyes down was the sweetest, truest thing she had ever seen. If there was a path, it was there. Trisha closed her own eyes on his understanding and floated away into sleep.