Bellatti crashed his speeding Mustang into the life of the Reid family in 2010, resulting in one death and a family left in pieces. They met again this spring.
The Reids wait for his arrival. They pace and check their watches. They, too, are transported 13 years back, to the accident and the funeral for their beloved David and their relentless pain and grief.
Now here they are on a hot day during spring training, a new season dawning. Bellatti pulls into the driveway of a house ESPN has arranged as a meeting place for both parties. He's with his wife, Kylee, 3-year-old daughter and brother-in-law. His face, already flushed."Hello," Lyn says in a sing-song voice as they enter. Garrett stands next to her.
Andrew Bellatti attended Steele Canyon as well, and graduated a year before Garrett Reid . Bellatti, the youngest of three children, was a star on the baseball team. He was known as the "Strikeout Machine" and dreamed of making it to the majors and playing for the hometownAfter the Rays drafted him out of high school in 2009, Bellatti made his first big purchase: a brand-new, red Mustang. He loved the color, the speed, the sound system.
Bellatti does not remember much about the accident, nor the days immediately afterward. He was able to play rookie ball with the Princeton Rays before returning to San Diego to face criminal charges. I'm sorry to Garrett and Katy, because I couldn't imagine what they are going through, losing their father. I am so very sorry, Garrett and Katy. I'm very sorry to you, Mrs. Reid. You do not deserve this at all, and I can't imagine how my mom would feel if my dad was gone. It's so hard to write this letter, but I just thought that you should know how I felt and to say how sorry I truly am.
"I howled," Garrett says. "I realized what I was living with, and the pain. It was primal. I was filled with malice. Rage. I lived with that rage and nightmares and fantasies for quite some time, for several months. It wasn't until I realized that hate at such a severe caliber was consuming me: waking moments, days, nights, dreams. It was all consuming.""Evening the score," he says. "Truly at the heart of it, in the darkest moments, it was ending his life.
"With time, the tide got lower," he says. "I still have to live with the loss of my father for the rest of my life, and that will be my own journey. But even when I had processed that rage and gotten rid of it, if I'd have a meltdown around a success, like, 'I wish I could call my dad and tell him,' it was never a slim thought of, 'Screw. He took that from me.' There's still the pain. But it's softened. The edges are rounded out versus sharp.
Around the time the Phillies made the World Series, Lyn got a call from The Philadelphia Inquirer. During her conversation with the Inquirer reporter, Lyn learned Bellatti had mentioned he never heard back after he wrote the letter. She thought, "I have to reach out.
"And you had a hand in her," Bellatti says, motioning to his daughter, Brylyn, who is playing with toys near the couch. "So I also want to say thank you.""I'm so proud of you because it's really easy to just lay down and play dead, and it's really hard to come back around and create a life," she says. "You did it. Accidents happen, and the one who would've been the most forgiving is Dave. It was just a bad time, and a bad day in the wrong place.
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