Do Not Fall For The Baseball Captains novel Chapter 82

3 How Do You do n

Dad, How Do You do It?

Elijah’s POV

I leaned my shoulder against the doorframe, my eyes fixed on the bed across the dark

room.

My mother lay there, perfectly still, her face pale against the white pillowcases.

My father was leaning over her, carefully pulling the heavy duvet up to her chin to keep out the evening chill.

He lingered for a long moment, simply staring down at her unconscious form with a look that made my throat tighten.

Finally, he reached out, pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, and reached up to click off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into the dim grey light of the moon.

When he turned around and walked toward the door, he looked completely spent. His charcoal work suit was wrinkled, his tie loosened just enough to breathe.

He hadn’t even had time to change when he got home from the office.

Madame Paris’s frantic call about my mother having another episode had completely derailed the evening, forcing him to rush straight into the house to handle the fallout. As he reached the threshold, our eyes locked. My dad stopped, his expression lined with a deep, crushing exhaustion.

He reached out, his heavy palm clapping against my shoulder, squeezing firmly as he offered me a strained, tired smile.

“Come on, son,” he murmured.

I took one last look at my mother’s silent silhouette before nodding.

I pulled the door shut behind us, the latch clicking softly into place, and began walking down the long, carpeted hallway beside him.

The house was quiet, the air thick with a familiar, suffocating tension that always seemed to follow her episodes.

I kept my gaze fixed on the floor ahead of us, the question that had been eating at me for years finally slipping past my lips.

“Dad… how do you do it?”

He didn’t stop walking, but his pace slowed.

“Do what, Elijah?”

“How do you still look at her like that?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “How do you keep loving her exactly the same, despite… despite how much she seems to

Do You do a?

resent all of us? Despite the hate?”

My dad let out a long, heavy breath, tucking both of his hands behind his back as we

turned the corner toward the stairs.

His shoulders sagged underneath his suit jacket.

“You have to try to understand her, Elijah. What your mother went through… the trauma she carries every single day… it’s not something a person just wakes up and heals from. It alters who you are at your core. She isn’t trying to punish you. She’s just trapped inside a reality none of us can fully comprehend.”

I didn’t argue. We both knew the details of the past too well to state them aloud, but knowing the reason behind her condition didn’t make the emotional distance any easier to bear.

By the time we reached the dining room, my older sister, Sophia, and our eight–year–old brother, Alex, were already seated at the table.

Sophia looked up the moment we walked in, her fingers tightly gripping a linen napkin.

“How is she?” she asked, her voice laced with anxiety.

My dad offered a small, reassuring nod as he took his seat at the head of the table.

“She’s resting now, Sophie. Everything is fine.”

We all sat down, the clinking of silverware against porcelain the only sound filling the large room as dinner was served.

Nobody had much of an appetite, but we forced ourselves to go through the motions for Alex’s sake.

The silence dragged on until a small, whimpering sound broke through the room.

“Daddy?” Alex whispered.

We all stopped, our eyes turning toward the end of the table.

Alex was sitting with his hands buried in his lap, his small shoulders trembling as a single tear escaped his eye and rolled down his cheek.

He looked so incredibly small in his chair.

“Hey, buddy,” my dad called gently, leaning forward. “What’s the matter?”

Alex sniffled, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “Why doesn’t Mommy love me?”

The entire room went dead silent. Sophia winced, looking down at her plate, while my dad’s posture stiffened completely.

“Alex, that’s not true,” Sophia said quickly, her voice cracking slightly. “Mommy loves you so much. You know she does.”

“But why don’t I ever feel it?” Alex cried softly, his lower lip quivering as he looked

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between us. “Why doesn’t she act like the other moms at school? Jimmy’s mom

comes to all his games and hugs him and bakes cookies, but Mommy won’t even look at me when I walk into her room. Did I do something bad?”

A heavy, painful look passed between my dad, Sophia, and me. The absolute

innocence in my little brother’s voice made my chest ache.

My dad took a deep, shuddering breath, and I could visibly see the toll the

conversation was taking on his stamina. He looked like he was about to crumble right/ there at the table.

Wanting to shield him, I reached across the corner of the table and placed my hand over my father’s forearm, offering him a small, supportive smile. ‘I’ve got this,’ I tried to convey with the look.

I shifted in my chair, turning my full attention to Alex.

“Hey, look at me, Al.”

Alex turned his big, tear–filled eyes toward me.

“You remember that cartoon we watched last week? The one with the superhero who got hit by that weird alien energy beam?” I asked, keeping my voice gentle and patient.

Alex gave a small, hesitant nod. “Yeah. The one where his powers got too heavy for him to carry?”

“Exactly,” I said, leaning in.

“Well, sometimes, real life has things that act just like that alien beam. A long time ago, before you were born, Mommy got hit with something really heavy. It didn’t make her stop loving us, but it built a giant, invisible wall around her mind. Sometimes, the wall is so thick that she can’t hear us, and she can’t show her feelings properly. It takes a lot of time and energy for her to try and fight her way through it. But it has absolutely nothing to do with you, okay? You are the best thing that ever happened to this family.” Sophia jumped in seamlessly, her expression softening as she leaned across the table to wipe a tear from his cheek.

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