The catcher's mitt.

Sanchez, Reuben

Austin to Albuquerque. Sometimes we flew--my wife, our three daughters, and I--for holidays or just to visit. Occasionally, we drove. Then, for those last eight months, I usually drove it alone because flying was so expensive and I needed to get home as often as I could for however long I could. I hated the drive, coming and going. Hated that I could only see my mother for a few days at a time.

One Friday night, I got in just past ten, and my sister Aracelli was there. Though pregnant, she insisted on spending the night, taking her turn with my other sisters. At least one of them would stay with her all the time. And my mother hated it. Hated growing old, hated dying, she told me late one night, and I didn't know what to say. Of course, I did know it was good she had family with her, but it had never occurred to me that sometimes you have to figure out how to get along even then. For, lately, my mother and my sisters seemed to be at war with each other.

My mother's dog, Chata, barked whenever anyone came to the door. "Chata" means flat-nosed, appropriate for a pug. My mother always had a soft spot for pugs, and I don't remember a time when there wasn't at least one or two of them running around the house. At fifteen, Chata was the last in a long line. Her doggy bed was in my mother's room. As usual, she woke my mother with her barking, then hustled into the living room as fast as her arthritic legs could carry her. Once she saw it was me, Chata simply turned around and ambled back to bed. She looked disappointed. Aracelli looked spent.

"That dog is driving me crazy," she said, as if talking to herself. "All she does is bark."

Aracelli flinched when my mother sang out from the bedroom.

"Well, you have your own house. If Chata bothers you so much, why don't you go home?"

"She doesn't bother me, Morn," said Aracelli in a tired voice. But it was too late.

"I don't need people watching me twenty-four hours a day."

I looked at Aracelli and tried to smile.

"Never ceases to amaze me," she whispered. "Nothing's wrong with her hearing."

My mother did have good hearing, but the bedroom door just off the hallway was open, and it was a small house to begin with.

"This is my dog and this is our home," my mother continued, "and she has a right to be here. Why, she's like family. Better!"

"All right, Mom, I'm sorry," Aracelli called out. "I didn't say she shouldn't be here. I just said--"

"She's a good dog, and she's old like me."

Aracelli gave up and sat down on the couch. The living room was dark, lit only by the light coming from the hallway. She sat there, staring at the turned-off television. I walked to the edge of the living room, then peeked into my mother's room.

"Hey. Just me. Shall I turn the light on?"

I flipped the switch as I entered my mother's bedroom. She had just finished putting on her housecoat and now leaned heavily on her walker next to the bed, the breather element in her nostrils, the canister hanging on the walker. It had only been a few weeks, bur she always greeted me like I had been away a lifetime. I followed her as she moved slowly through the bedroom door, down the short hallway, and past the living room where Aracelli still sat silent and unmoving on the couch. In the kitchen, I helped ease my mother into a chair and we sat at the kitchen table, Chata at my mother's feet, every now and then unconcernedly glancing at me.

We chatted, mostly about my work, my wife, and kids. I asked her how she was feeling, if she was in any pain, if she was taking all her pills, but she didn't seem to want to talk about any of that.

Aracelli entered the kitchen. Bright and cheery now, she asked if I was hungry. I said sure, as I was always hungry after the drive. As my mother and I spoke, Aracelli worked quietly, warming something on the stove. My mother seemed intent on ignoring her.

I washed my hands at the kitchen sink and sat back down. Aracelli served me, then she sat down and had a little something too. Over the phone recently, my mother told me Aracelli seemed to be eating all the time lately.

As we sat there, my mother couldn't hear enough about me, my wife, my kids, my classes. Once the semester's over, I assured her, we'll all fly in together. She wanted to know everything, even if I had told her about this, that, or the other on the phone the day before. And she looked at me intently, as if hanging on my every word. I told her as much as I could, as much as she wanted to know. My wife, Alejandra, whom my mother adores, she's doing well. A CPA, only I don't know diddly-squat about accounting. Nor do I want to know, though I would never tell Alejandra that. And Eloisa's doing fine, I guess. A sixth grader, she's fairly angry at the world lately, or maybe just at me. And she doesn't want to play catch with me in the backyard anymore nor does she want to watch ball games on TV with me. I don't know what to tell her. Alejandra does. Monica's our fourth grader, and she cries sometimes because some of the kids at school teased her about having big feet. I tell her kids can be cruel and her feet are not big. In fact, they are very pretty, I say to her. But beyond that I don't know what to say. Alejandra does. And Sandra is four. Thank God! Four is the best age for daughters--or at least for fathers of four-year-old daughters. Sandra still worships me unconditionally.

I talked about a lot of other things. After a while, my mother simply tired out. I walked her to her room. Helped her into bed. Put the other breather element on her, the one attached to the machine next to the bed. Chata got into her small, though for her sumptuous, bed over in the corner, scratched the bedding, spun around a couple of times, then plopped down suddenly, and eyed me all the way out of the room.

So it was Aracelli and me at the kitchen table. Until I would need to beg off and get my things out of the car. Of the five children, we are the closest in age. She is a little more than a year my senior, and I am the youngest in the family. I have always been spoiled, probably worse than Chata.

It was getting on to midnight when Aracelli suddenly remembered something.

"You'll never guess what I saw in the tool shed last week." "What?" I asked.

"Dad's old catcher's mitt. Carla and I dug out one of the old baby cribs and some other things, and Carla spotted it mixed in with a lot of other stuff."

"I hadn't thought about that mitt in years," I said vaguely. For some reason, I felt guilty, though I didn't know why. "Man, that thing was from the Stone Age of Baseball. Tiny, tiny pocket. Those old mitts. They have a lot of character."

"Yes," said Aracelli. "And someday it was supposed to belong to you."

Then I remembered, and I knew why I felt guilty. The catcher's mitt, which belonged to his father, was supposed to go to me. He told me so. But somehow over the years, I had simply forgotten about it. And I don't know how many rimes I had been in that tool shed since he died.

I abruptly stood up.

"You know what? I'm going to go get it."

"Now?"

"Yes, now. Where was it? Give me an idea." I went to the key rack on the wall next to the back door. Then I looked at Aracelli. "And where's the flashlight?"

But she just smiled. "How should I know?"

"Oh, well," I shrugged and took a key from the rack. "I'll find it."

"But it's kind of late, don't you think? Maybe tomorrow--"

"What the hell. May as well get it now."

"I'll go with you."

She started to get up but she was so big I had to help her.

I turned on the switch for the light over the back door, then followed her down the back steps to the tool shed, which stood in the middle and to the right edge of the yard, about forty feet from the house. I unlocked the padlock and opened the door. Though it was dark, I could tell the place was a mess, as usual.

"We're gonna have to straighten this out one of these days," I observed.

"What do you mean 'we'?" asked Aracelli.

Even with the back light on, I could hardly make out anything in there.

"Carla moved it because she thought you might want it. The shelves on the right, by the window. Top shelf, toward the left-hand edge."

I stepped through the doorway and, putting my hand out, felt my way along the wall toward the shelves. I had to be careful not to trip over anything as I inched my way over, until I reached the shelves.

"Top shelf," Aracelli repeated. "And left."

I reached up, felt around and, sure enough, there it was. Even more surprising, there were two of them. Once outside I noticed the other was my father's first baseman's mitt, which I also hadn't seen in years.

"Hey, would you look at this!"

The catcher's mitt was by far the more interesting of the two. My father was a fanatic about that glove. He kept it oiled, and he always had a shoestring tied around it, a ball tucked into the pocket. Always. Even after he stopped using it. Over the years, the string must have come loose, the ball must have slipped out of the pocket.

Aracelli took it from me. Even in the dim light, it looked like it had been neglected for the longest time.

"Looks bad," I observed. Then I glanced at the first baseman's mitt. "I guess this one's in decent shape."

But Aracelli just kept looking at the catcher's mitt.

"Yes, it looks like it's been sitting in there a long time. I remember he used this mitt when he played catch with you. Never the other one. Remember how picky he was about it when you two played catch?"

I wondered how she would have known that. And I suppose I hadn't thought about it in years, but he did always use the catcher's mitt when he played catch with me. He loved that mitt, and he had it ever since he was a kid. He played pro ball, though he didn't make it past Single-A in the California League. My father was a passable fine catcher in his day,, but, like he used to say of himself, he couldn't hit a breaking ball.

Suddenly those pictures popped into my head--the ones I had seen before. Aracelli glancing at us, sometimes more than glancing, sometimes watching intently through the kitchen window or at the screen door, or sometimes when she was outside, standing there or sitting there, watching. They were pictures, just flashes, really, without words, only my smile as I caught a throw with some zip on it, or my smile as I snagged a bad-hop grounder and fired the ball to my father and he winced because he caught it in the pocket instead of the webbing.

Parts of those pictures were all right, but others made me feel uncomfortable, and I had never known why. I tried not to think of them, and closed the door to the tool shed and slid the padlock back in its slot.

Then Aracelli caught me off guard again. "I wish I could have played catch with him, too."

I wondered why she had to say something like that. And I saw those pictures again. Aracelli watching my father and me playing catch in the back yard. Always watching, never playing. But she could play, she was a good athlete and she had a good arm for a girl. I played catch with her plenty of times. I'd let her use my infielder's mitt and I'd use the first baseman's mitt, for my father wouldn't let anyone, not even me, use his catcher's mitt.

I said the first stupid thing that popped into my head. "You should have said something." I felt silly even as I said it, though it didn't seem to upset her.

"You know, Julian, I used to be so jealous of you."

"Of me?"

"You were the one he paid attention to. The one he spent time with."

What exactly am I supposed to say, I wondered.

"If he would have just spoken to me once in a while." Her voice cracked, though she didn't cry. She never cried. At least, I had never seen her cry. "No, that's not what I mean. Of course he spoke to me. I mean, he just didn't think much of me."

I felt tired and wanted to sit down.

"C'mon," I said. "That's not true."

"It is. God forgive me for saying it. He never had time for me, or Carla or Gloria or Marta, even Mom. You know Gloria still hates him?"

I never knew it was hate.

Aracelli looked at me. "I don't remember ever having a real conversation with him. Ever. My own father."

I tried to say something, wanted to say something, but the words wouldn't come.

"Oh, I never held it against you, Julian," said Aracelli. Now, there was no emotion in her voice, only a matter-of-fact tone. "He gave you attention and you took it. What were you supposed to do? You're a guy. The only son. You're the one who'll carry on the family name, right?"

"I have three daughters," was all I could manage.

"Oh, shut up, Julian."

She turned and shuffled her way to the backdoor, slowly climbed those few steps, and went inside. I followed. She put the mitt on the table. In the light, the leather looked especially scuffed and stiff, the webbing loose. I laid the first baseman's mitt next to it.

I knew he hardly paid attention to the girls. Or to my mother. From my earliest memories, it was always me--I was the one. And it wasn't just about baseball, although baseball was a big part of it. I handed him the tools when he worked on the truck or the plumbing or whatever, and he explained things to me. He let me help him. We watched baseball games on TV, and I especially enjoyed trying to guess the pitch on a two-and-one count, the most important count in baseball and it tells you everything about a pitcher. He even tried to teach me how to play golf. I disliked it. And I hated it because I disliked it. He took me deer hunting when I was thirteen and every year after that until I went away to graduate school. In the evenings, Aracelli or Gloria or Carla or Marta may have been in the room, bur my father and I picked what we would watch on TV. One time, I must have been six or seven, it was just my father and me in the living room. Carla was in the kitchen with my mother, and I don't remember where Gloria and Marta and Aracelli were. The volume on the TV was cranked up as usual. It must have been too much because Carla finally called out from the kitchen, "Dad, can you turn it down a little?" My father casually looked at me and winked. Then, without moving a muscle, he said, "How's that?"

"That's good. Thanks, Dad," said Carla. I looked at him and smiled.

None of it bothered me before, maybe because I never let myself think about it. Until that night. Aracelli had me thinking about how my father would make it to all my baseball games if he didn't have to be at work, and how be and my mother always came to the Courts of Honor at the Boy Scouts troop I belonged to, but how he hardly ever made it to school events the girls were in--plays, choir performances, and such. He did walk down the aisle with each of them at their weddings, and be did pay for the weddings, bur he couldn't have gotten out of that even if be wanted to.

I never believed he treated them badly. He hardly ever drank, I never saw him hit anybody, I never even heard him raise his voice in anger. Besides, he was one of the smartest baseball guys I ever knew. He had a feel for the game. Like me. Bur it never occurred to me until that night, he did some damage just the same. And I figured, so did I. Then, I thought about my own girls and my wife.

I wanted to say something to Aracelli. But all I could do was sit down and try not to look at her.

He wasn't a bad father. That wasn't what Aracelli meant. I knew she still loved him. I felt badly though that, for Gloria, it was hate. Suddenly, for me, he wasn't way up there on the pedestal anymore. I had always been his favorite, my mother's too for that matter. And it occurred to me that I had put myself up there with him.

I must have looked fairly distracted, and Aracelli must have known it. She laughed.

"It's okay, Julian. Maybe I wasn't all that interested in playing catch. Anyway, it wasn't about playing catch." She picked up the catcher's mitt. "He wanted you to have it." She tossed it to me. "Can you fix it?"

"Well," I remarked, perhaps a bit professorially. "It's not really about fixing a mitt. It's more about--bringing the leather back, somehow. Restringing the webbing. That sort of thing."

"Can you do it?" she repeated, though it didn't sound like a question.

"I can oil it. Soften up the leather. And the webbing. Might be better if I take some leather strapping off that one," I nodded at the first baseman's mitt. "The pocket's still in pretty good shape. Like I said, one thing about these old mitts, they have a lot of character." I slipped on the mitt and pounded the pocket a couple of times. "You better believe it! I'll make it good as new. You'll see."

"I'll help. You show me and I'll help," said Aracelli. "Let's start right now."

We forgot about the dishes in the sink and began working on the old catcher's mitt. The leather was in bad shape--scuffed, dried, faded, almost like cardboard in some spots. I had a quart of motor oil in the trunk of my car. I got the oil, broke the seal, and I showed her how to use an old rag to work oil into the mitt. I told her to use just a touch of it to get the leather started. Motor oil might make it too soft, might darken the leather, might even damage it, but I figured just a bit couldn't hurt in this case. As Aracelli worked the oil in, I fetched the Vaseline from the bathroom. I told her after she was done with the oil, she should be much more liberal with the Vaseline, especially on the heel and in the pocket, and she had to rub it in with the tips of her fingers. While she worked, I sat across the table from her and began removing the leather strapping from the first baseman's mitt. Almost immediately, the leather began to show signs of life. Then I showed her how to re-string the webbing. She insisted on doing practically everything herself once I showed her how.

I don't know how long we worked on the mitt, but at some point my mother got up. We heard her walker as it moved slowly out of her bedroom and down the hall. Aracelli looked up from her work.

"Everything all right, Mom?"

"I need the bathroom," she answered softly.

We heard the bathroom door open and close. For some minutes, we remained silent, simply waiting. For everything now was significant. The bathroom door opened, and a moment later, she emerged from the hallway and paused, looking at us and at the things scattered on the kitchen table.

"What are you doing?" asked my mother.

We didn't say anything at first, but just looked at her, then we looked at each other and laughed.

"We're bringing Dad's catcher's mitt back to life," said Aracelli.

She pushed her walker into the kitchen. Just before I stood up, I glanced at the tennis balls on the two front legs of the walker. They seemed to slide smoothly over the linoleum but I would check them next day anyway to see if they needed replacing. I helped her into my chair and sat next to her. Soon after, Chata came and planted herself at my mother's feet. I helped my mother with the tubing and breather element on the portable oxygen canister hanging from the walker.

Then I started in.

"We're working on the catcher's mitt, you see, and we need to keep it in shape and we need to take care of it if we don't want it to wind up in a junk heap because, after all, Grandpa gave it to Dad way back when Dad was a kid and I will someday give it to one of my children because, you know, it's a family heirloom passed down from generation to generation."

My mother, who never cared for baseball though she often went to my games with my father, seemed to listen intently to my breathless account of what we were doing at the kitchen table well after midnight.

When I had finished, she observed, "It certainly is a fine old mitt." Aracelli was still working on it, and my mother reached out and touched the mitt gently. "My, the Vaseline is working wonders."

"Just doing what your son told me to do," said Aracelli.

"Yes. A fine old mitt. But, Julian, it's not a family heirloom."

I glanced at Aracelli but she kept working.

"Sure it is, Mom," I laughed, because I thought she had to be joking. "Remember? Grandpa gave it to Dad when he was a kid. And Dad said someday this would be my mitt. I guess I neglected it for a long rime, but now Aracelli and I are taking care of it. Oh, yeah, this is definitely a very old catcher's mitt, Mom."

My mother smiled, and I couldn't help bur note something puckish about that smile.

"I know it's very old. I remember the day your father bought it at the flea market."

"Flea market!" I practically yelled.

"That's right, Julian. Do you remember the flea market down on South Broadway, not far from the church?"

"What flea market? I don't remember any flea market."

"Well, they closed it down a few years ago. But for a long time, they had a flea market every Saturday and Sunday."

"I remember," said Aracelli.

"Oh, it was a very big thing. Everyone in the barrio went to it."

"Mom," I tried to smile, "he didn't buy it at the flea market. He couldn't have. You're probably thinking of something else. This is a very, very old catcher's mitt. I'll bet it was made in the 1930s or 40s. His father gave it to him. He told me. You remember."

"Well, of course, you never knew him because your grandfather died even before your father and I married. But then, your father didn't really know him either. You see, he was a drunk and he ran out on his family when your father was a boy. There was another woman involved too. He left your grandmother with four kids to raise. No, Julian, your father never had many memories of him. Not good ones, anyway."

It was silent for a moment. I looked at Aracelli, but she only seemed to have eyes for the catcher's mitt.

"But why did he tell me--"

I felt my words drifting off even as I looked down at Chata, who was already fast asleep at my mother's feet.

"Oh, now, Julian. I know what your father told you and your sisters. But I never interfered because--well, I just didn't interfere."

"Well," I said. "Do Carla and Gloria and Marta know about this?"

My mother nodded. I looked at Aracelli.

"You knew!"

But Aracelli just looked at me.

"Everybody knew bur me? When were you planning on telling me, Mom?"

"Don't yell at Mom," said Aracelli.

"I'm not yelling! I'm just asking!"

"Well, I'm telling you now, Julian," my mother calmly said. "Don't be so dramatic." She looked at Aracelli and smiled. "He's always been so dramatic."

"I know," said Aracelli.

"I'm not dramatic, I've never been dramatic."

"I remember the day your father brought this mitt home. He was so proud of it. Now this was after his playing days in the minors. Still, you know he kept playing. He said it was an antique. I believed him. Bur I'm afraid I also got angry with him."

"Why?" I asked.

"This was just after Carla was born. We had bills. Hospital bills. The mortgage. The refrigerator. Oh, my! lust so many bills. And here he was, spending five dollars on a baseball mitt."

"Five dollars? That's all he paid? Five dollars?"

"If it was when Carla was born," Aracelli said, "that was a long long time ago in a faraway galaxy!"

My mother and Aracelli laughed, bur I didn't see what was so funny.

"Hey, how about if I tell Carla what you just said? Think it'll still be funny then?"

"Tell her. I don't care."

"Now, Julian. Stop being mean."

"Me? Bur I--"

"Besides," continued my mother, "Aracelli's right. Five dollars went a lot further way back then."

"But be taught me how to play baseball," I said. "He taught me everything I know about baseball. He was a catcher."

"Yes," my mother said firmly. "He was a catcher. And a damn good one too. And when be bought this old mitt, why, he used it in all his games. The other men laughed. Bur he didn't care. He said it was the best mitt a catcher could have. I think I understood why be felt the way he did about it, though he never really told me. Your father was never much of a talker. With me anyway. Bur now, when you were born, Julian, he was already forty-two. Kind of long-in-the-tooth for baseball by then. He stopped playing for good around that time. Oh, he would never admit it, bur I just don't think his body could handle it anymore. So he stopped playing. Not even old timers' games. That's about when he took up golf. He used to laugh and say it was an old man's game. He was so disappointed because you didn't like golf, Julian."

"Stupidest game ever invented," I said.

"The one thing you couldn't do together. He took care of this mitt, though. Kept it oiled. Kept a hall in it and a shoestring wrapped around the mitt to keep the pocket true. Wouldn't let anyone touch it. Not even me. And the only rime he used it again was years later when you got old enough to start playing. And he taught you. When he got to a certain age, he couldn't even do that with you anymore. This old catcher's mitt did not belong to his father, Julian. But it meant a lot to him."

"You have to admit," said Aracelli. "Some of it makes sense now."

I took the mitt from her. "So he bought it at a flea market. I'll be damned."

Aracelli took the mitt back. "Like Moro said, don't be so dramatic. It still means a lot. And I'm sure if you put your mind to it, you can come up with a pretty good tall tale when you pass it on to Eloisa."

"Now, Aracelli. Be careful with Julian. You know how sensitive and serious he is."

"Yes," agreed Aracelli. "And gullible. Then again, aren't we all?"

Suddenly, my mother and Aracelli burst out laughing like a couple of school girls. I thought they were laughing at me, but it was no use being angry with them. So I laughed along with them, though to this day I am not sure why.

"Julian, get me a bottle of water, would you please?"

I got her the water, loosened the cap because lately she had trouble with such things, and handed it to her. She took a sip and ser it down on the table.

As Aracelli continued to work, she and my mother soon began talking about things, which didn't have anything to do with the catcher's mitt. To me, it seemed sudden and easy, although it probably wasn't. Things I hadn't heard them talking about in a long time. I listened and I watched.

Every now and then I tried to join in, but it is impossible to get a word in edgewise when a mother and daughter suddenly discover how to talk to each other again. So I got up and did the dishes. Afterward, I told them that I had better get my things out of the car. My mother looked at me and smiled, bur neither of them seemed to pay me much mind as I left the room.