Without Chase by Jo Frances Page A

accent. “Come on in. We’re just finishing up the children’s dinner, so the adults can eat.”
    Amy turned to Shelby. “I’m sorry, are we late?,” she asked, knowing full well they weren’t.
    Shelby gestured for them to follow her. “No, not at all! We just thought we’d serve the kids first so they can go home and go to bed.” She gave a slightly embarrassed laugh. “I mean, who has a child’s birthday party on a Wednesday at six at night, right? But this is Liam’s actual birthday day, and we wanted to celebrate, and of course, none of the dad’s were free until evening so… here we are.” They were now in the massive kitchen and family room area of the house. There were bright decorations with Liam’s picture in the center festooned all over the space. In a small table, covered with butcher block paper, were five children in various stages of cake eating. Chase noticed that each child had a woman hovering near them while off in the other side of the room were a group of younger women his age talking quietly to themselves. Seeing his glance in their direction, Amy whispered dismissively, “those are the nannies.”
    Before Chase had a chance to comment, he felt Liam tugging on his hand. “Yeah, buddy?” he asked him.
    “I have your wookie card,” Liam declared solemnly. “Wanna see it?”
    Chase knelt down and met him at eye level. “You do? Hey, that’s great. Do you collect basketball cards?”
    Liam turned to his father. “Dad, can you help me get my basketball cards?” Not surprisingly, Rodrigo agreed. “Let’s go upstairs and show Chase your collection, OK?”
    Chase followed the two of them up two flights of stairs to the top floor, half of which was Liam’s space. He expected a child like Liam to have his card collection behind plastic cases, as serious collectors did with valuable cards, but he was relieved to see Rodrigo take out a simple large binder filled with plastic sheets with slots for cards. Just like he used to have.
    “Aww man, this is great,” he said sincerely, sitting down on the rug. Liam sat close to him and opened it to the first page. “This is you.” Staring back at him was his rookie card, taken the first day of practice. The face was his, and yet it wasn’t. There was an openness and wonder in his expression that he knew wasn’t there now. Feeling Liam’s eyes on him, Chase forced himself to look away from the card and turn to the little boy in front of him.
    “I’m on the first page? What an honor, Liam!”
    “Yeah, this card isn’t worth as much as your real wookie--ROOKie card.” Liam’s face twisted with the effort. Chase wondered if the poor kid was going to a speech therapist for not being able to pronounce his “R”’s; something he remembered being teased about himself.
    He nodded appreciatively. “Yeah, it’s not my official rookie card, but I like this one better, too.”
    Liam beamed. “Who else do you have?” Chase asked.
    For the next ten minutes, they went through his book, Liam explaining each player and which team they played for as if he were reading Chase a book. Because of his competitive nature, Chase used to go over all the scouting reports the team provided even when his teammates would just throw them away. He knew all the stats Liam was now reciting but still Chase nodded thoughtfully throughout, occasionally asking an easy question about the player that he knew Liam would have the answer to.
    Rodrigo sat in a chair a distance from them, watching his son with a proud smile on his face.
    Later, after Liam was being put to bed by his nanny, the two men walked out of the room together. Before they got to the kitchen, Rodrigo stopped and shook Chase’s hand in the hallway, the voices of the rest of the guests coming up faintly from the floor below. “Thank you...he’s going to be talking about you for a long time,” Rodrigo said with a father’s true gratitude.
    Chase shrugged, guiltily remembering that he was no role