Austin was up early the next morning. His dad was already outside, boarding up the side of the garage. His mother was brewing coffee in the kitchen.

As was habit when he didn’t know what to say, Austin stood in the doorway entering the room, shifting his balance from right foot to left and back again, making the floorboards creak to get his mother’s attention, hoping she would start the conversation.

“Good morning, Dukes,” she said, using a nickname he’d had since he was a baby, when he would clench his fists and pump his arms when excited, “Putting up his dukes,” his father would say.

“Hi, Ma,” Austin said softly.

His mother walked slowly over to him, kissing him on the cheek and holding him tight.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Everything will work out fine.”

“It’s OK, Ma,” Austin replied. “I understand.” He paused a while, waiting for his mother to head back to her coffee. He could talk to her, but he hated the sullen look she’d get on her face when the topic was unpleasant.

“How’s Dad?”

His mother turned to him and tried to put on her best face. “He’s out there already…has been since 5:30. He had a tarp in the garage we never used. Says he can double it up and patch the mat, make it OK…”

Austin hugged her from behind as her voice trailed off. He opened the screen door and made his way to the garage.

There was his dad, in jeans and an old Brooklyn Dodgers sweatshirt, kneeling next to the hole Austin had tore through the garage. He’d sawed down board to nail over the hole already, and had stitched the tarp, triple folded, to the back of the mat.

Austin stood next to him, speechless.

“Good thing I came out here early,” his dad said. “Ya chipped the headlight.”

“Sorry, pop.”

His dad laughed. “Sorry? For doing what you do? Son, don’t EVER apologize for anything you’re working for, got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I thought maybe later we’d head over to the park, I’d catch for you.”

Austin knew then how much his dad was hurting. Always by his side, always urging him on, his father hadn’t been able to catch for him in years, once he threw too hard for his dad’s hand — wounded in WWII — to take.

His dad didn’t back down, of course. Hell, he was the toughest S.O.B. Austin ever knew. Austin had to tell him he wouldn’t pitch to him anymore, after his dad’s hand swelled to almost twice it’s normal size following one session. He couldn’t close it, and even today his handywork is extra effort because of the pain. But it always gets done, and he never complains.

“I can’t throw much today, Pop,” Austin said. “I threw a lot last night.”

“I know, pal. Just wanted to help you out a bit.”

His dad paused. “Just do something to help,” he said, looking downward and starting to walk away.

“You always help me, Dad,” Austin replied. “Always.”

The two walked back toward the house, smelling the fresh coffee from inside.

“When you served, did you get scared?” Austin asked.

“No,” he replied quickly. “No time to be scared. We had a job to do and we did it.”

Austin knew his dad was telling the truth. But that bred a follow-up question.

“You ever been scared?”

As they approached the steps to the back porch, Austin’s dad rubbed his shoulder firmly. He stepped ahead and held the back door open for his son. Austin stopped and looked his dad in the eye, awaiting an answer. When it came, it both shocked and relieved him.

“Not until now.”

The walls were a pale blue, but you’d never know it. Austin’s room was filled nail to nail with posters…Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Juan Marichal…and his favorites on his beloved Mets (fresh off their Miracle), Jerry Koosman and “The Franchise” Tom Seaver.

Baseball Digest, newspaper clippings, books, magazines…anything baseball he had ever encountered was kept — surprisingly organized — in his room.

He lay in his bed that night, baseball in hand as it usually was, his fingers stretching, contoured sometimes in ways that would make Austin laugh, knowing he could never actually throw a ball with that grip. But he loved to experiment while throwing, and even while just holding the ball. Anything that could trigger something he could use.

His mother had calmed down, but she and his dad both sat quietly in the living room. His dad was in denial, his mom convinced the sky would fall on him completely…Austin came across as being in denial, too, but he wasn’t firing missiles that night with no motivation. He was angry, too. He knew it was possible.

He was bright, always a good student, but he couldn’t ever wrap his head around why we were in Vietnam in the first place. It always seemed to him we went with the best of intentions, but when it became clear we didn’t belong there, our leaders couldn’t bring themselves to withdraw and admit we lost lives to accomplish nothing. So instead they cost more.

But he also knew he didn’t know the whole story. He loathed protests that targeted soldiers…young men assigned to a job nobody wanted. He knew what he felt, and that was enough.

Now, what he felt was fear.

He put his glove and sneakers in his closet. On the top shelf, protruding slightly, was an old plastic machine gun toy he had gotten years ago. He took it down and held it in his hands, staring at it…through it.

So much raced through his mind, at the same time a blank, or at least muddled, slate. Reflexively he put both hands near the bottom and made a slow, striding, swinging motion as with a bat.

He sighed a deep sigh, rested the toy against the wall, slumped into bed and without a sound cried himself to sleep.