By Laura Heaton

Melanie tosses beer cans in the recycle bin then rinses coffee grinds and caked instant oatmeal from dishes left in the sink. She hears her father’s breathing rattle as he takes a noon nap when she passes his room with her laundry basket. She moves his T-shirts and pants from the washer into the dryer. Before throwing her jeans into the washing machine, she pulls a folded pink envelope from the pocket. She thinks of the girls on the bus yesterday talking up Susie’s thirteenth birthday party.  

“I can’t come. I have plans,” she’d told Susie. “My dad is…is taking me to a game…baseball… the Yankees. We’re big fans.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. 

Now she considers showing up at Susie’s party. She could say her dad got sick, another half-truth, and their plans were canceled. Let her father cook his own food and wonder where she went.  

“Melanie, are you home?” he calls from his room, his words nearly engulfed by phlegmy coughs.  

He appears, smoking a cigarette, tired, older than his forty-five years. Worn, like the old baseball glove he keeps on a closet shelf next to her mother’s jewelry box. He used to take the mitt out now and then, put it on, rub it, pound it with his fist and spout stories of his 95-mph fastball, of the days before his shoulder injury, when he still had hopes of going pro.  

“Yes, your father was a top prospect,” her mother, his number one fan, would say. “Still is to me.” Then they’d kiss and laugh together.  

“Let’s have burgers for lunch. Make them now, Mel, so we can eat before the game,” her father says, turning on the TV. He opens a beer and chugs, then looks at her, confused when she doesn’t respond.  

Melanie wants to say no. I don’t want to make greasy burgers or watch baseball or clean up cigarette butts and beer cans.  

“Dad, I was thinking of going to a friend’s birthday party today.” She doesn’t say her friend’s name, Susie, which was her father’s name for her mother. Everyone else called her mom Susan. 

Her father’s face falls, as if he is the one who is thirteen and denied a birthday party, or a ball game, or a girlfriend, or whatever a thirteen-year-old boy most desires. He slugs down the rest of his beer and goes into the kitchen. He slams the can on the counter while simultaneously grabbing another. “Sure, you go ahead,” he says, his back to her. “I could care less.”  

“Wait a minute,” Melanie says, as if she has just thought of something important.  

Her father turns and faces her. He narrows his eyes, scowling, waiting to hear what she has to say. 

“I almost forgot—it’s the Yankees’ home opener. Isn’t Max Fried pitching today? I can’t miss this one.” 

Her father’s lean, tense frame relaxes and his face cracks open. He laughs and shouts, “Yeah, what the hell were you thinking? Let’s go!” smacking the kitchen counter. 

Melanie laughs too, partly in relief and gladness to see her father excited, partly in something else she swallows and lets settle in her gut. She moves past her father and throws the invitation into the trash. She takes hamburger meat from the fridge, molds two patties, and splashes them with Worcestershire. She drops them in a hot cast-iron pan and flips and squashes them with a spatula before topping each with a slice of cheddar, the way her mother made them. 

At the top of the seventh, rain stalls the game. The Yankees have a big lead and her father has had one too many. He shivers in his sleep, his arms with goosebumps in his T-shirt, exposed to the chilly damp air coming through a cracked-open window. She covers him with a blanket, then slips away, into his bedroom. Frowning at the stale stench of the full ashtray, the piles of clothing strewn on the floor, and the half-dozen pill containers on his bedside table, she takes note to clean up here tomorrow. 

She opens the closet and picks up the baseball glove, feeling its soft leather, remembering when her dad coached her in Little League. After her nose was bloodied by a high pitch, she hated playing. Every time she stepped to the plate she froze, imagining the ball coming for her face. She complained to her mother, but never her dad. Like his joy for baseball, he always wore his disappointments like a child, sometimes causing Melanie fear greater than that from a high pitch; alarm and confusion at the absence of the amiable, trustworthy father she could depend on. But her mother could always assuage her dad’s discontent, and Melanie’s fears. When her dad tried to sign Melanie up for a second baseball season, her mom had him seeing soccer was the better fit and even believing it had been his idea. Her mom had also been Melanie’s number one fan.

Melanie puts the glove away and takes out the jewelry box. She examines the simple white gold wedding band half covered in tiny diamonds, then touches a smooth creamy-white pearl dangling on a dainty gold chain, her mom’s favorite, thinking of her mother’s cool touch, dark curls, soft skin. She clasps the pearl pendant behind her neck and lets her tawny waves fall over her shoulders. Admiring the pearl’s sheen in her mirrored reflection, she anticipates the day it will be hers, her sixteenth birthday, as her father promised—the day she’ll put it on rightfully and walk away—out from under this blanket. She knows there’s more out there than baseball and burgers. There are birthdays to celebrate, boys to date, career dreams to figure out and achieve—infinite possibilities as her mom used to say. The time is coming for Melanie to be her own number one fan.

Closing the door softly, she leaves the bedroom, deciding she won’t clean it tomorrow, after all.