Constant Fear

CHAPTER 4

Jake drove up Ellie’s driveway in his Chevy Tahoe. Kibo came running like his best buddy suddenly materialized out of thin air. As Jake came to a stop, the muscular German shepherd stood on hind legs, slipped his nose under the front passenger-side door handle, and lifted his head. No scratches left behind. The door latch disengaged, and Kibo used his head to pry the door open the rest of the way. He jumped inside and gave Jake’s face a proper licking.

Jake had seen Kibo do the door trick countless times, but he never tired of it. Ellie’s dad had trained his dogs to open car doors, and Ellie did the same with Kibo to honor her father’s memory. As for Kibo, he didn’t care how he got to Jake. He was just glad they were together. Jake grabbed Kibo’s fur, gave him a good petting, and laughed as the dog licked his face.

“You miss me, boy?” Jake asked in a high voice, which always sent Kibo’s tail wagging. “I missed you. Yeah, I did.”

Two years ago, Jake’s much-beloved Rottweiler, Cinnamon, had died from bone cancer. There were no bad breeds, Jake believed, only misguided handlers, and Cinnamon was the sweetest, gentlest, most loving dog Jake had ever known until he met Kibo. Andy would be leaving for college soon, and Jake would think about getting a dog when the quiet really started to get to him. Who knows? Maybe he would help Ellie train a shepherd-apprentice with her, even.

Jake got out of the car, and Kibo did the same. Now that they could get closer, Jake ruffled Kibo’s thick fur and gave him a hug, which turned into a wrestle. On the ground, Jake found a red rope bone, and soon the toy was locked in Kibo’s powerful jaws. A game of tug-of-war ensued, in which Kibo growled his enjoyment and Jake marveled at the animal’s natural strength. If the day ever came, Jake would want Kibo to come live with him-which meant he’d want Ellie to come along, too. But, of course, that meant confiding in Ellie about a part of his life he kept secret.

Ellie crossed the grassy lawn where Jake and Kibo were tussling. Kibo had probably just been with Ellie, but he sensed her coming and set off running as if she’d been gone for years.

Jake propped up on his elbows and took in everything about the moment. He had been in a few long-term relationships since his exwife, Laura, had left. All had ended amicably, but this felt different. Ellie was attractive, smart, tough, fun to be around, and maybe, just maybe, Jake had met the one.

Ellie came over to Jake, with Kibo heeling at her side. She gave him a kiss hello, but it felt different, guarded, cooler.

“We need to talk,” Ellie said.

Five minutes later, Ellie sat on the sofa in her living room, with three German shepherds lounging at her feet. To Jake’s eyes, they looked like one big happy pack. Two of the dogs were being trained for future owners, but they still treated Ellie like the alpha she was.

“So, what’s the big talk about?” Jake asked. He took the armchair across from the sofa so they could face each other. “I hope we’re not breaking up.” Jake’s smile didn’t lighten the mood any.

“I guess it depends on whether you want to start really opening up to me.”

Jake felt a knot in his chest. His last two girlfriends had ended their relationship because of his lifestyle, and he was keeping Ellie at arm’s length to prevent a number three.

“Well, what do you want to know?”

“I Googled you, Jake. I didn’t before, because it felt kind of creepy. Like I didn’t trust you. But something has been missing for me with us. So I did a quick search and, well, I know all about the accident.”

Jake understood right away. This was the other part of his life he liked to keep secret for as long as possible. His baseball career was more than a decade in his past. He liked his new persona as the head of maintenance at a prep school, and he wanted Ellie to think of him as just that. Besides, opening up about baseball risked revealing the secret about his avocation. In many ways, baseball had turned Jake into a prepper. Of all the things Jake was prepared to deal with, the truth wasn’t one of them.

“So, what do you know?”

“Everything,” Ellie said. “But I want to hear it from you.”

Jake looked resigned, but his deep, audible exhale made it known he was not entirely pleased.

“Where do you want me to start?” he asked.

“At the beginning,” Ellie said.

“Guess we’ll start in high school, then.”

“I’m sure you were cute.”

“Extremely,” Jake said with a wink. “I was also in love with Laura, Andy’s mom.”

“I want to know more about her. And about you.”

“She left us after the accident. Well, after the accident and after Andy got his diagnosis. Bad things come in threes, isn’t that what people say? I crashed my Beemer while driving drunk and shattered my elbow, Andy got sick, and then the love of my life walked out on us.”

Jake had made it a point to show Ellie the scars from his many surgeries. He had told her he had arm surgery, but intentionally had left out some critical details.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Jake shrugged. “Because it’s embarrassing,” he said. “Because I was going to be a superstar major-league pitcher and I tossed it away so I could get drunk at a teammate’s bachelor party. Not something I’m proud of. I keep that part of my life just where it belongs, in the past. I’m different now.”

Ellie seemed to accept his explanation. “What does that have to do with high school?” she asked.

“I was a kid blessed with a golden arm,” Jake said. “My high-school coaches ignored my grades because of my talent. I went to a two-year college, but didn’t graduate because I was just there to showcase my skills to the big-league scouts. The Red Sox eventually took me and I did my time in the minors, but I was on my way to ‘The Show.’ That was given, until I turned my elbow bones into confetti.

“Guess I could blame my buddies for not taking my keys that night, or the coaches, who made me think I was above it all, the golden boy with a golden arm-but in the end, who did I have to blame but myself?”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Ellie said. The coldness Jake had felt was all but gone from her eyes, replaced by a look of deep sympathy and genuine concern.

“My dad was a soft-spoken guy,” Jake said. “Made a nice career for himself in the insurance industry. He tried to warn me about the dangers of believing the hype, but at that time I wasn’t into hearing anything negative. I was twenty-two, had a lucrative contract with a big-league ball club, a step away from pitching in the majors, married to my high-school sweetheart, and now a father to a precocious three-year-old boy. I didn’t think anything could touch me.”

“The stories I read online weren’t kind,” Ellie said.

Jake laughed at the understatement. “Guess you uncovered old headlines from the New York Post.”

“The Web is like faraway stars. It illuminates the past.”

Jake smiled, thinking of those fall nights when he and Ellie had huddled on a blanket on her front lawn as new lovers, gazing up at the night sky.

“Let me see if I can remember what the Post had to say.” Jake ruminated. “ ‘You’re Out,’ right? They ran that headline above a picture of my crushed BMW. And the Daily News, I think they wrote, ‘Booze Ball,’ but now that I think about it, maybe I have those two mixed up.”

“The Globe was a lot nicer,” Ellie said.

“Yeah, well, that’s because the only person who got hurt in the accident was me.”

“What happened after?” Ellie asked.

The more Jake revealed, the closer he felt to Ellie. For this reason, Jake was glad Ellie had forced the conversation, but parts of his life remained off-limits.

“After that, I sank into a depression,” Jake said. “I missed everything about the game. The teammates, the camaraderie, the competition, everything-I loved it all. Then, about six months later, things got worse.”

“Andy,” Ellie said as if reading his thoughts.

“All the classic signs were there. His weight loss was especially alarming for a kid that skinny. Laura would say, ‘How does that boy put away so much food, but we can’t keep a pound on him?’ Then one afternoon I put Andy in front of the TV and went to go make lunch. When I got back, he was conscious, but so lethargic. I panicked and rushed him to the hospital, where we got the diagnosis.”

“That’s a lot to handle in a short amount of time,” Ellie said.

Kibo picked his head up and gazed at Jake with watery black eyes, as if to say he concurred. Ellie gave all three dogs some attention.

“There was some money set aside from baseball to help pay for Andy’s care, but not a lot. Before the accident, Laura figured we were on easy street, and she spent money like that was our permanent address. But a hefty signing bonus only goes so far. I saw it all adding up, and I didn’t do a thing about it. I let Laura handle the finances so I could concentrate all my energy on studying batters and working on my pitches. So when baseball ended and money got tight, Laura and I started fighting. One night, after a particularly long battle to get Andy’s insulin levels just right, Laura left a good-bye note. That was the last I ever saw of her. I did my best to find her-my dad even paid for a private investigator-but she was gone. Vanished. Wasn’t even in touch with her parents. I’m guessing she changed her name.

“Anyway, I got divorced by a motion to serve. Essentially, you just show a judge all your documented efforts to locate your spouse, and if a judge agrees you did your best”-Jake clapped his hands and rubbed them together-“you’re divorced.”

“How did Andy take it?”

“He was three. Hardly knew his mother at all. After Laura left, my depression got worse. Some days I couldn’t get out of bed, and my parents had to help me take care of Andy.”

“But you’re not like that now,” Ellie said.

“I guess I grew out of it,” Jake said. “Sometimes you’ve got to look adversity right in the face and stick out your tongue.” Jake did this and made Ellie smile while Kibo licked his chops.

“Eventually my brother saw I was getting better and helped me get a job at Pepperell Academy.”

Ellie gave this some thought; then she said, “Don’t get me wrong. I admire what you did and what you’ve overcome, but you could have stayed in baseball, couldn’t you? What about becoming a pitching coach or something?”

Jake shrugged off the suggestion. “I thought about it,” he said. “But I couldn’t be close to the game without getting a hollow pit in my gut. I knew if I didn’t leave the game completely, I’d live the rest of my life in the past. So I walked away and never looked back. That part of my life came to an end-and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.”

Ellie got up from the couch and crossed the room with a kind of hip-swaying action Jake found hard to resist. She dropped into his lap and kissed him with passion.

“I like history,” she breathed in his ear. “I feel closer to you. Much closer.”

Ellie kissed Jake’s neck as he ran his hands along the contours of her back. They were kissing again, but Jake saw Kibo looking at them and he stopped.

“Maybe this history lesson should continue in the bedroom,” Jake said.

Ellie took Jake by the hand and led him down a narrow hallway. On the walk, Jake thought about what he hadn’t told her. Maybe he would. Ellie seemed receptive to one part of his past. Would she embrace the other?

Back then, Jake had needed a new sense of purpose. He found it in the writings of Thomas Wiggins, the founder of a popular survivalist blog. Everything Wiggins said about the coming collapse resonated with Jake in ways he found surprising and inspiring. With Wiggins’s guidance, Jake felt empowered to take control of his life once more. He devoted himself to becoming an expert survivalist. He learned how to use weapons-guns and knives. He improved his physical conditioning and built up strength in his injured arm. He learned about food storage, DIY fuel, gardening, raising livestock, medical supplies, and first aid. In essence, Jake became reborn: stronger in some ways, but weaker in others because for him, the future was always something to fear.