“Okay, Jamie,” Coach says. “Four more pitches, and then I’ll have you try for a hit off the tee.”

I sit in the shade of a twisted old apple tree and watch my chubby, clumsy son struggle at the plate. My nail polish is chipped, my bare legs need a razor, and my bra squeezes a reminder that I’m 10 pounds too many.

It’s the third practice for 1^st grade, coach-pitch, Little League baseball. So far everyone but Jamie has eked out a hit, a pitched hit. Even the one girl on Jamie’s 13-player team.

Coach pitches. Jamie swings and slams nothing but air. “Nice swing, bud!” Coach cheers.

Coach pitches. Jamie’s slow, wobbly bat nips a bit of the ball. A couple of boys in the dugout laugh. Maybe not at Jamie, maybe they’re just goofing around over something else, but my son’s face reddens.

“All right!” Coach cheers. “You got a piece of that one, kiddo! Good job!”

Coach gets ready to pitch again. “Keep that bat up! Don’t move those feet! Eye on the ball, buddy!”

Jamie swings and misses.

“Okay, slugger. I’m gonna send a nice juicy meatball floating your way. Take a good crack at it.”

Swing-whish. The ball floats all right, right into the catcher’s mitt. Jamie’s head droops, his shoulders slump.

Coach ambles off the pitcher’s mound and calls for sturdy little superstar Michael-not-Mike to take his place on the mound. Michael’s blonde mom grabs the tee and follows her son out of the dugout. She gets to sit with the kids in the dugout whenever she feels like it because she’s the team’s Momager, responsible for snack lineup and team updates.

I watch her trot to my son with the tee. She places it in front of Jamie and pats his shoulder. “Just take a deep breath, Jamie honey. No worries. Y’all be sluggin’ out home runs real soon.”

Oh shit. She’s swinging her long tan legs my way. I return her smile and her wave even as Jamie’s bat slams my heart as surely as it slams the plastic post of the tee, so hard the ball on top pops off. Michael races in from the mound, snags the ball, and plops it back on top of the tee.

Michael’s mom has stopped to watch. “Way to stay focused, honey!” she calls out. I’m not sure if she’s talking to Jamie or Michael.

My ears burn. Jamie’s face turns bright red.

Silently I pray, hit the goddamn ball, Jamie. My fists clench. My nails bite into my palms. Jamie steps away from the tee, hefts his $100 aluminum bat high over his shoulder, and takes a few practice swings. Sun glints off its shiny green barrel. Jamie sleeps with the bat. His father and stepmother gave it to him for Christmas. Jamie’s father has a better son, only 4 and already riding a two-wheeler without training wheels.

Michael’s mom floats down next to me, scenting my air with peppermint.

“Hi Debra,” I chirp. Debra-not Deb. I smile so hard my jaw hurts.

“Hey there, Katie, how y’all doin’.” She stretches her long tan legs out on the grass. “Your Jamie looks so cute at the plate.” Her voice is soft, southern. She left Georgia for Chicago 20 years ago, but she still drawls. From a distance, she could pass for a college co-ed. Of course, she’s more than a college grad. Everyone knows she went to The University of Chicago Law School. Somehow that gets communicated the first time anyone meets her. So she’s gorgeous as well as smart. She’s legal counsel for the mayor of Chicago, but she still manages to find the time to be Team Momager. I can barely make it to all of Jamie’s practices without scrambling to find someone to cover my nursing shifts at the hospital.

“Look how your little man is grittin’ his teeth,” she says. “Oooh, the butterflies are dancin’ in mah tummy.” She cups her full glossy lips and shouts, “You can do it, Jamie!”

She blinks her large green eyes at me. “He really tries, doesn’t he. Ah give him props for effort. Ah always tell mah Michael, it’s the effort that gets you places. Don’t just think you can coast on the talent God’s blessed on you.”

I nod and keep smiling even though I want to squeeze her cruel kindness and shove it back down her throat.

Over Christmas break, Jamie had telephoned Michael for a playdate. Jamie’d been lobbying to have Michael over so he, Jamie, could show off all the cool stuff he’d gotten from Santa. The way Jamie talked, he and Michael were best buddies, though the only time I’d met Michael and his parents was at the school’s open house the first week of school. I stood nearby while Jamie punched in the number listed in the school student directory, my heart racing the way it always did when I watched Jamie try to achieve. I pressed the button to activate speaker phone.

“Hey Michael!” Jamie shouted. “My mom says you can come over today and play with the action figures Santa brung me!”

“Who is this?” I heard Michael say.

“It’s me! Jamie!”

“Jamie? Do I know you?”

“I sit two desks behind you. I’m in Mrs. Dorman’s, your class!”

I felt my own cheeks flame just the way my little boy’s were suddenly flaming.

“Oh yeah. Uh, I’m not sure. I gotta ask my mom. Mom?”

On speaker phone, Jamie and I listened to muffled voices, then silence. The silence went on a long time. Then Michael said, as though reading from a script, “Thank you for the invitation, Jamie, but I’m sorry. I have other plans. Perhaps another time.”

Jamie never again asked to call Michael. And I never suggested it either.

*

Michael waves at us from the pitcher’s mound. Jamie looks at me, a puzzled frown pinching his face. Maybe he’s wondering why I’m sitting with Michael’s mom. Why I’m smiling at and chatting with someone way above my social rank. Though of course Jamie’s too young to think in those terms. Not consciously anyway. But subconsciously, sure. Kids get stuff like that way before they learn how to tell time or read.

I know Jamie is intimidated by Michael the same way I’m intimidated by Michael’s mom. And I know it’s jealousy and resentment fueling our feelings. I know I’ll have to have a heart-to-heart with Jamie one of these days. I’ll have to try to convince him that the Michaels and Debras of this world don’t deserve anything but indifference from us. It’s just that in Jamie’s world, he believes everyone is better than he is. And to my secret shame, I believe it, too.

Jamie starts taking practice swings before he tries again to hit off the tee.

“Hit to me, I want it, want it,” Michael begins to chant. “Hit to me, I waaaant it!”

The other fielders take up the chant. “Hit to us, we want it, want it. Hit to us. We want it!”

My ears ache with the sound of sweet little boy voices. To my ears, their teasing support is verging on taunting. Jamie suddenly laughs. He lowers the bat to his side and shoots me a thumbs up.

My heart stutters. Jamie must see something awful in my face—his smile droops. He hefts his bat and once again squares off in front of the tee.

“Isn’t this just a Norman Rockwell moment?” Debra drawls. She pats my arm.

“It certainly is.” I manage to keep my voice steady. I look at Michael. He stands tall on the mound, punching his mitt as he chants “encouragement” at my son.

Michael is a 7-year-old superstar. He can missile the ball from short center to home plate. He’s one of only three players in the entire coach-pitch league who can actually and reliably catch flies and get a glove on grounders.

Worst of all, he can slam pitched balls to the outfield.

Again Jamie flails his bat into the tee post. This time the ball falls off and dribbles a few feet toward the pitcher’s mound.

Again helpful superstar Michael charges the ball and places it back on top of the tee post.

“Thanks, honey!” Debra shouts.

But Michael doesn’t back away from the tee fast enough.

Coach is distracted by Austin, the team troublemaker, who is banging his bat against the aluminum bench in the dugout.

My Jamie swings his bat. It’s a beautiful swing. I hear a whoosh, though probably it’s not the bat parting air that I’m hearing but my own breath, finally exhaled.

Or perhaps it’s Debra’s gasp I’m hearing, her quick, shocked gasp. Then her scream.

Michael’s head has somehow cracked into Jamie’s bat.

Michael topples to the ground, and Jamie swings again, and SMACK! The baseball sails high, high, high, over the fielders’ heads, though there are no longer any fielders in position, for everyone is running to the fallen Michael.

I run too, just behind Debra. She drops to her knees next to her son, who is lying face up on the grass. “Call 911!” she screams. “Someone call 911! Oh my God!” And then she begins to mewl like a terrified kitten.

I stand behind Debra, look down at her son.

Yellowish fluid, thin as straw, leaks from Michael’s nose. His eyes are open. He seems to be looking at me. One pupil is enlarged, like a cat’s prowling the night.

I’m a nurse. I’ve seen that before. I know what that means.

I stumble away from the noise and parents and children surrounding Michael. I look at my Jamie. He is galloping from second to third. Apples bloom in his cheeks, and effort twists his round little face into a gargoyle’s mask of bared teeth, bulging eyes, knotted flesh.

I run to him, gather him into my arms before he reaches home plate and the fallen Michael. I hold my son until his breathing returns to normal, and his face smooths back into sweet innocence, and all that remains of his first hit is the bloom of apples in his cheeks.

– Marie Anderson

Author’s Note: My children, all grown now, played sports from preschool thru college. I saw how parents’ jealousy and resentment of  “better” child athletes can bring out toxic qualities in the parent. I wrote “First Hit” to dramatize how that parental jealousy and resentment can infect the child and lead to harm.