Chapter 1

This morning was just like every weekend morning; he had gone to the hospital to check on all of his surgical patients. He was able to discharge one and he had given orders to one of the interns to watch his other two patients more carefully. Now, pulling out of the hospital parking lot, he was heading to another part of town. The part of town no one liked to go to, the other side of the tracks so to speak. It was a trip he knew well, so well in fact that the car could have driven there on auto pilot. He enjoyed this journey very much. As the scenery changed outside the car, so did he. In the car on this trip he relaxed because he knew that when he got out of the car he can just be Mark.

As he came closer to the house, he realized the stark differences between his life and the life of the people he was going to see. He could have anything he wanted without having to think twice. Everything he owned was new. He never had to worry where he was going to find the money for dinner, the rent, and most importantly whether or not he could get good health care.

The Jacobs's on the other hand had to worry about those things. Ms. Jacobs worked a minimum wage job which was barely enough to pay the rent, put gas in her run down car, and try and find enough money to put food on the table. She was a really good Mom who worked hard to make a good life for her son Tim.

As soon as he turned into the driveway he could see a short boy with blue eyes his short hair going in all different directions sitting on the porch waiting for him, a smile on his face. As the door opened, he jumped u from the chair he was sitting in "Mark, I've missed you." Tim came running toward him giving him a huge smile.

"I've missed you too buddy," Mark said as he walked up to the porch a big smile on his face as well. "Your mom said that we needed to work on some math and reading today."

"Do we have to?" he whined looking up at marlk

"You know we have to," Mark said while his hand quickly messed up his hear even more The two of them made their way into the house. Mark hung up his jacket in the closet without having to ask where to put it. "But I promise that once you are done with your homework, I will take you out for ice cream."

"Hello Mark," Ms Jacobs said as she came walking in to grab her purse. "Timmy, why don't you go and get your homework out and get started. I need to talk to Mark for a minute." She sat down in one of the two chairs in the room. Mark took the other.

"What's going on Kathy?"

"Well," she began, "Tim had his end of the year parent teacher conferences last night and I wanted to share the results with you." She pulled a piece of paper out of her purse, and set it down on the floor," he is doing much better in all of his classes. He is still having difficulty with reading and math, but has shown great improvement over the last few months." Mark could hear the pride in her voice as she spoke, "He is willing to read in class now when called upon, which he wouldn't do before. The school psychologist has said that he has become more outgoing, but is still holding back some. We both know why that is though, and it is going to take time for that to change."

Mark nodded and agreed, "I know that it will take time. You know I will do whatever I can do to help, Kathy."

"I know you will Mark. Both Timmy and I are so lucky that you came into our lives. The other night when he was saying his prayers before he went to bed, he thanked God for bringing you into his life."

Mark was surprised to hear that, "I am lucky to have both of you as well. There is something I wanted to talk to you about. Timmy has talked to me about how much he likes baseball, and we have talked about why you don't want him to join the community baseball program here. Would you agree to let him play if he played in the suburbs?"

"I would love for him to play, but the teams cost more, and I just can't afford that right now," she said looking down at her hands.

"I know that Kathy, and I would like to pay for that for him, as his Big Brother."

"I can't ask you to do that."

"You're not asking me to, I am offering."

"But, you have done so much for him already."

"I love doing things with him, and for him."

"Okay its fine with me as long as I can work it out with my work schedule."

"If you can get him to the practice at night during the week, I will get him to the games on the Saturdays you have to work."

"Are you sure?" She looked up, Mark could hope in her eyes.

"Absolutely."

"Okay, I'll let you tell him," she said as she got up from her chair Mark followed her lead they walked into the other room. Timmy was sitting there, obviously struggling to do his homework. Mark pulled out a chair and sat down next to him.

"I just don't understand this," Timmy said as he threw the pencil down on the table.

"What don't you understand," Mark said.

"These math problems, I have been trying to do them while you were talking to my mom."

"Do you want to take a break from math; we could work on your reading homework first."

"Yeah let's do that first," a smile quickly replaced a frown. Mark got up from the chair at the table and went to sit on the couch. This was a weekly routine when it came to Timmy's reading homework.

I wrote something in school Friday that I am supposed to read to someone." Timmy quickly reached into his backpack and pulled out a sheet of paper, going to sit right next to Mark. Mark could see that the sheet had writing prompts along with Timmy's answers "See I was supposed to write about my best friend." holding the paper with both hands, Timmy looked at it intently as he began to read. "My big brother Mark happens to be my frirrend," He struggled with the last word, "friend," looking up at Mark with nervousness showing on his face.

"Good job, keep going." Mark said, putting his arm around Timmy. Truth be told, no one had ever considered Mark to be their role model. Timmy took a deep breath and continued.

"He my friend and I want to be him. When I'm older. He helps people." The next question on the sheet was what are some of the things you do with your friend? "Mark helps me with my homework every Saturday. After we do my homework, we go out and do things. I can tell Mark many things and kkknnnoow" Timmy looked up at Mark.

"Know" Mark answered for a Timmy when he noticed the Timmy was getting frustrated with that word.

Looking relieved Timmy continued to read, "he will not tell mom. We do fun things together all the time I see him, us...usually, on Saturday." Mark gave him a big smile and a squeeze. "He is like a brother to me." Tommy kept reading for a little while longer, when he needed help or just encouragement Mark gladly gave it. Mark was so surprised that he would look up to him that much.

Ms. Jacobs watched from the small kitchen and smiled. If anyone would have looked at the two of them they would have thought that it was a father and son reading together the way Tommy read and Mark smiled and gently corrected him when necessary. She was so glad that she applied to find her son a big brother. It was good for her son to have a positive male role-model in his life.

When Mark and Tommy finished the reading they took a break and Mark sat with him while he had a sandwich at the small run down kitchen table. Tommy had told Mark how much he had meant to him and he wanted to do the same and tell this little boy just how important he was to him, but Mark couldn't find the words to explain it. After Tommy had a snack it was time for the two of them to tackle the math homework. Math was much harder for Tommy; he had a hard time with both addition and subtraction. To help with this Mark took out twelve pennies from his pocket and using the first example from his worksheet, Mark looked at Tommy, "Okay we have 12 pennies now we need to subtract seven. What does subtraction mean?" Mark looked at Tommy

"It means to take away."

"Good so why don't you take away seven." Tommy slowly took seven away. "Good, now how many pennies are left?" Tommy counted the pennies that remained smiling he looked up at Mark

"Five"

"That's right."

"So twelve minus seven is five," Tommy smiled as he quickly wrote the answer on the sheet in front of him They continued to work this way on math for about an hour. Mark helped him when he needed it and just watched when he got the hang of it. Tommy finished his math homework and quickly put it in his bag "Now we can go for ice cream," Tommy got up from his chair excitedly.

"Hey Buddy, I have a surprise for you," Mark said before sipping his water he had gotten from Kathy while Tommy had been eating his sandwich. Kathy stopped washing the dishes, and came over and stood by Mark.

"What is it?" Tommy said, an enthusiastic smile on his face when neither his mom nor Mark said anything right away.

"Well, remember how you told me you wanted to play baseball?"

"Yeah." Tommy looked back and forth between Mark and his mom.

"Your mom and I have talked about it, and as long as I can find you a team to play for a few miles from here, you can join a team."

As Mark was finishing the last sentence, Tommy got up and ran over to his mother with cautious optimism he gave her a huge hug. A few seconds later he looked up at her with worry in his eyes, "But mom, you said I couldn't play because it would cost too much."

She looked down at her son; at the age of eight, he worried too much about money. He not only wanted to do this, but needed to do this. For a kid his age he had too much on his shoulders. He needed a chance to be a kid. "Don't worry about it. Just have fun."

Tommy took a quick look at his mother before jumping up and down, "I get to play baseball. I get to play baseball!" He ran over and gave Mark a questioning look. "Can we go somewhere and practice today instead of going for ice cream?"

"Sure," Mark watched with huge satisfied smile on his face as he watched Tommy run to the short distance to his room and grab his bat, ball, and glove.

"Come on Mark," Tommy happily said as he ran out by the front door, stopping only to put on his shoes. Mark quickly glanced at Kathy who had gone back to doing the dishes and the two of them shared a quick smile as he headed to the closet to get his jacket and put his shoes back on.

Mark and Tommy made their way down to the closest baseball field which was about a block away. It was no wonder Kathy didn't want her son playing on a team in this part of town, Mark thought as they walked. Mark noticed a bunch of kids drinking behind a house, one of whom was showing off a new knife he had just stolen. As they walked into the park they could see graffiti sprayed on more than one park bench.

For about an hour, Mark and Tommy practiced. First, Mark hit the balls and made Tommy field them, then Mark threw the ball and Tommy tried to hit it.

"Mark are you going to be able to come to any of my games? I know you're busy." Tommy asked while they were walking back towards his house.

"Yes. I wouldn't miss them. He smiled down at timmy

""He my friend and I want to be him. When I'm older. He helps people

As mark was driving away from this side of town, he couldn't help but replay that comment and the last couple of hours in his head. He had so much fun throwing the baseball around, but if he told anyone at work about this they would think he was joking because in their eyes Dr. Mark Sloan didn't care about anyone but himself.