Chapter 4

I gave Tad my phone number and left the Unitarians, probably forever. But still, there was no denying that I’d just had a profoundly religious experience. There had to be a God, with creatures like Peggy Gabriel running around loose!

I wondered how old she was. She sure didn’t look old, but her boy, Tad, looked like he could be eight or even nine. She could be, like, thirty, even. Not exactly over the hill, but maybe too old to give a second look to a kid like me.

Still, I knew I looked somewhat older than my twenty-four years, given the dark hair and the light growth of beard I was sporting. And she certainly hadn’t treated me like I was some kid. I only wish she had been as spellbound by my mere presence as Tad had been. Well, he was a nice kid. I liked him, too.

I’d cautioned the boy that he should leave a message on my answering machine if he called while I was away. The truth was, I was out of that dismal little apartment as much as I could manage, and although I had a cell phone, I wasn’t in the habit of leaving it on for long periods. I mean, who was going to call?

After a light lunch I headed for Coolray Field for pre-game warmups. It was a dark-looking late morning in Lawrenceville and I dreaded the possibility of going through hours of rain delays trying to get the game in. It was getaway day for the visitors from Louisville and although we had an open date on Monday, Louisville did not, so I knew they’d go to extremes to get the game in.

But shortly after arriving at the park, the sky finished darkening and the rains came, and kept right on coming. It was a real heavy, steady downpour. The whole team sat around the clubhouse, half-dressed, waiting.

It took a couple of hours, but finally the word came: Game cancelled.

Well, I love playing baseball but it wasn’t like I’d never get another chance to play. Knowing in the mid-afternoon on a Sunday that I would be free as a bird until late Tuesday afternoon definitely lifted my spirits, despite the weather. Contemplating a sumptuous early Sunday dinner at the best steakhouse I could find, I headed for the apartment, figuring a nice nap first would be just the ticket.

There was already a message on the answering machine when I got there. Tad’s voice haltingly told me what I already knew – that today’s game had been postponed. Then he said the magic words, “Mom says to tell you that if you’re free, you could come out and have dinner with Grandma and her and me. They’re cooking now and we’re going to eat around 6 o’clock.”

He slowly recited their home phone number, and then said, “If you can come, call back and Grandma will give you directions.”

I looked at my watch. It was 3:40, still raining and looking good for another forty days and forty nights.

I thought about Tad Gabriel’s incredible mother and began to hope that I could parlay this friendly Sunday dinner invitation into a beautiful friendship. I reminded myself to pay lots of attention to young Tad. He already thought I was wonderful, and I knew that if the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, the way to a woman’s heart is through her kids. I was starting to feel lucky. From all appearances, Tad was a sweet-natured, good-looking kid who already loved baseball. In other words, he was easy to love. I knew that if he had been overweight, obnoxious and severely flatulent, I would still have tried to make him my friend for life. Fortunately, the job wasn’t going to be challenging, or even particularly difficult.

I wondered what Peggy and her mother would serve for dinner. I knew what I wanted to eat. It was virtually calorie-free, tasted great and wasn’t the least bit filling. I was momentarily mildly ashamed of myself for what I was imagining, but the image was so pleasant that it kept coming back to mind, despite my self-urgings to grow up and behave like an adult.

The guilt didn’t last. I knew I could behave like a gentleman when the occasion demanded it, and I had every intention of doing so that evening, when in the company of the little Gabriel family. Nothing had been said about their being a Daddy Gabriel, and it certainly seemed at this point that if he had been around, the fact of his existence would have come up in our conversation at the church.

I re-examined that conversation, including Peggy’s references to her personal interest in exposing young Tad to a at least a modicum of religious education, and their talk of Tad’s going to ballgames with the father of a friend. It had certainly sounded like Tad wasn’t living with his dad.

Then again, I cautioned myself to be ready for anything – including the nasty surprise that Old Dad would be right there with us at the dinner table. After all, I was Tad’s chosen guest, not Peggy’s.

Well, as my principal advisor on matters of romance -- the redoubtable Rollie Perkins -- would have said, at least I was likely to get a good free meal out of it.

I called back for directions and spoke this time to Sarah Gabriel, Peggy’s mother. Sarah sounded friendly and warm, and I speculated that unless she was Peggy’s mother-in-law, the three of them sharing the same last name again suggested that Father Gabriel was out of the picture, for whatever reason. Maybe, I thought, he was by now the Angel Gabriel. I hoped not. I didn’t wish Tad’s father any ill will. But I did fervently hope that he was alive and well and living in Indonesia.

Sarah’s instructions were straightforward and it turned out that the Gabriel residence was only about two miles distant and wouldn’t be difficult to find, even for a relative stranger in town like me. I was told (again) that dinner would be at six, but Sarah encouraged me to come earlier so we could all get acquainted.

It was still raining when I got to their old, two-story white clapboard house. It looked like an old farmhouse although it was surrounded by other, newer homes that evidently had been built up as a subdivision much later. The place was attractive and in good repair, although because of the surrounding split-levels and ranch-style homes, the Gabriels’ place looked a bit out of character, despite being on its original site.

I’d stopped on the way at a large drugstore, hoping to find some kind of small offering for the family. The best I could do on a Sunday afternoon was a large box of chocolates and a cheap-but-promising bottle of wine -- the kind of wine you can buy in a drugstore in the State of Georgia, on a Sunday afternoon -- after church services have ended and it’s become legal to sell it again.

For Tad, I brought along an oversized Gwinnett Braves T-shirt and a baseball I had earlier scrounged from the ballpark. An Official International League baseball. Autographed by none other than Marty Coggins.

Tad met me at the door and I got the hero treatment once again. The boy was genuinely excited at the prospect of breaking bread with a real live sports star – minor league division. I understood the reaction somewhat. I still remembered as a kid being taken by my father to meet a very elderly man who had, some sixty years earlier, been a famous baseball player from my father’s old hometown back in Illinois. Even back then, I was enough of a fan to be impressed by the old guy’s history, and I had been eager to talk to him. The old guy was nice to me and had patiently answered my (probably dumb) questions, and he’d given me a few trinkets associated with his long-ago baseball career -- including an autographed Hall of Fame postcard outlining his achievements.

I knew that in Tad Gabriel’s eyes, I was similarly special, although the adults in the room might be expected to take my presence in their home with somewhat less fanfare. After all, I didn’t have any Marty Coggins Hall of Fame postcards on me.

Still, I was quickly made to feel at ease in their home, with Sarah showing me to their pleasant living room (parlor?) where both Tad and Peggy fussed over me, offering iced tea, cookies, and, if I wanted, some of the drugstore wine I had brought along. I settled for the tea, and no cookies, thanks.

It was just the four of us. Sarah came in from the kitchen, introduced herself again, and was soon gone. Peggy’s mom was a very attractive woman of, maybe, fifty years, and I noticed with some relief that there was neither a Pa nor a Grandpa anywhere in sight. It occurred to me that Mother Sarah would have been perfect for the role of Church Pickup Artist in the scenario that Rollie had described – if only Sarah Gabriel had been a churchgoer. Imagine if Sarah had picked me up at church and brought me home to meet her unmarried daughter, Peggy. Jesus! I would never have doubted Rollie Perkins’ word on anything, ever again.

Dinner was beautifully prepared and far more enjoyable than I would have expected from any of the local restaurants I had frequented to date. The conversation was lively and it fully included Tad, but wasn’t permitted to be dominated by the boy. We all got to know one another with some ease and comfort.

I answered all of Tad’s (and Sarah’s) many questions about my life as a ballplayer. I admitted with some chagrin that I was only a designated hitter, and had, to date, never played an inning for Gwinnett in a defensive role.

Tad didn’t see anything wrong with this. Well, he wouldn’t.

Steering the conversation away from being all about Marty Coggins, I learned that Sarah was a former schoolteacher (high school English) whose husband, Peggy’s father, had suffered a heart attack and died three years earlier at age 53. Before that, the four of them, Peggy, Tad and Tad’s maternal grandparents, had all lived together in that same old house. When grandad died, Sarah had retired from the school system to become Tad’s stay-at-home caretaker while Peggy worked and commuted three days a week to classes at the University of Georgia in Athens, some 45 miles distant.