Page 24 of The Seal's Promise
Dalton’s stomach twisted and his heart ached for Max. He lost one of the most important relationships a kid could ever have and he didn’t really know it. But something told him that Max was starting to figure it out.
“That’s a shame, because I saw you at bat last weekend and you hit that home run.”
Max’s smile was contagious—how could any man not want to spend time with their son?
“My coach says I could be the next Babe Ruth. I had Mom look him up on her phone and read to me about him. Did you know he’s a Hall of Famer?”
“I did know that he’s a legend in baseball. Why don’t we find a book about him after we pick a few chapter books, then we can sit over there and read a little, see if any of them make it past the first chapter test.”
“What’s that?”
“The first chapter test is about how much time you should give a book to grab your interest, like when you start a movie you can tell in the first five minutes if you’re going to keep watching.”
“Oh, that makes sense.” Max leaned closer to Dalton. “Mom doesn’t know about that test,” he whispered.
An hour later they were sitting in two bean bag chairs by a window and Max was halfway through the story of Babe Ruth when Brooke walked up. Her brow was creased and her shoulders looked tense, but Dalton bit his tongue and said nothing. She sat down next to Max and kissed his head but avoided Dalton’s eyes again. They sat there listening to Max finish the page, and Dalton ached to reach out and comfort her, but he suspected she needed space.
“Mom, did you know that Babe Ruth isn’t even his real name?”
“Well, I was wondering why his mom named him Babe.”
Max started to giggle. “How funny would that be? Can we invite Mr. Dalton to come over for lunch?”
“Actually I have another errand to run, but I’ll be at your game later.” He didn’t want to push Brooke when she clearly had a lot on her plate today. “But first I want to hear which books you think passed our first chapter test.”
Max had two stacks of books and he was looking at them like he couldn’t believe he was really going to admit he found several books he wanted to read.
“You read the first chapter in all these books?” Brooke asked.
“Well, mostly, we could tell after a few pages if a book wasn’t going to be my style. But Mr. Dalton says you gotta give a book at least five pages to give it a chance to interest you.”
“That is a good rule of thumb,” Brooke said. “So can you put the rejects on that cart for the librarian to put back, and then we’ll take these to the desk to check out.”
“And then we can go hit a few balls?” Max asked. “You promised if I was good at the library we’d go to the batting cage.”
“Yes, baby.”
“Mom, you can’t call me baby in front of men.”
They both laughed while Max jumped up and took a stack of books to the librarian’s return cart.
“Sorry about that, he was asking me what it means to be a man.”
“Wow, I’m telling you, these kids will be talking about snot and gummy bears and then the next thing you know they hit you with a really deep question.”
“I can see that. He’s really sharp, seems like a great kid.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I just said that as real men our word means everything, that we’re honest and truthful.”
She nodded. “What did he say?”
Dalton sighed. “That he only knew a few men and that he didn’t think any of them lied to him. But he wondered if maybe his uncle Miles lied about his dad always being so busy.”
Brooke bit her lip. “This is the part about being a single parent you can’t really prepare for.”
Dalton couldn’t resist wrapping his arm around her. “You’re doing a fantastic job. Max is awesome.”
