Chapter 3 - What He Actually Wanted
A stadium staff member offered us a quiet family room where Noah could rest before deciding if he wanted to go back to our seats. I said yes before Mark even finished the sentence — Noah had started leaning into him, and I could see the day catching up with his body.
The room was small and strangely silent after the roar outside. Gus set the tabletop game on a little table, and one plastic player immediately toppled over.
"Cheap equipment," Gus muttered.
"Bad coaching," Noah shot back.
Marcus laughed. The adults lingered for a minute, but Gus seemed to understand something before I did. He clapped his hands once.
"Alright, people, clear out. Rookie's got a family meeting."
Noah's head snapped up. "I do?"
"You do now."
Gus herded everyone toward the door. Danny went last. He and Mark looked at each other for a long, silent second, and then Danny gave a small nod and stepped out.
The door clicked shut. It was just the three of us.
Noah sat on the couch with the plastic field beside him. Mark pulled a chair close. I sat on Noah's other side.
"Rookie," I said, "what exactly did you tell Gus?"
"Nothing, Mom."
Mark pointed at the door. "Nothing? He drove here with a dozen plastic football players and a goalpost that hasn't stood up straight since February."
"They're athletes, Dad."
"Fine. Athletes."
Noah bit back a smile, picking at a loose thread on his jersey. I waited him out.
Finally I asked, "Why was it so important that they be here today?"
He shrugged. "Because."
"Noah."
His eyes met mine, then dropped to the phone still sitting in my hand.
"They're people from the hospital who act normal around me," he said quietly.
Mark blinked. "Normal? As opposed to what?"
Noah looked immediately sorry he'd said it. "I didn't mean it mean, Dad."
"What did you mean, Rookie?" I asked.
He stared down at the little plastic field instead of at us.
"You pause the game every ten minutes to check if I'm tired, Dad." He looked at me next. "And you take pictures of me eating cereal, Mom."
I looked down at the phone in my hand.
"You kept my hospital bracelet from the night I threw up on your shoe," he added.
"That was a very memorable evening, sweetheart."
"Mom."
"Sorry."
He rubbed a thumb over the tiny plastic scoreboard, then looked back at Mark. "You used to just yell at football. Now you yell and then look at me to see if I'm okay."
"I still yell at football, buddy," Mark said.
"No, Dad. You yell, and then you check on me. It's different."
Mark didn't answer that one.
Noah turned to me. "And you used to just yell at the refs."
"Bad refs."
"All refs, Mom."
I almost laughed, but then Noah said, "That's why I picked football," and the room went completely still.
Mark leaned forward. "What do you mean?"
Noah's face crumpled, frustrated, like we were making him spell out something that should have been obvious from the start.
"I wanted you guys to have fun with me. Not sad fun. Regular fun." He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Everybody keeps acting like everything has to be special now, just because I'm dying."
I set my phone facedown on the couch. He glanced at it, and then he said the sentence I would hear on a loop for the rest of my life.
"Sometimes I just want stuff to be stuff."
Nobody said anything for a long moment. Then Mark reached over and covered Noah's small hand with his own.
"I'm sorry, Rookie."
Noah shrugged, but his eyes stayed fixed on the little plastic field. "I know you're sad. I'm sad too."
"I know you are. But you're still here, Rookie," Mark said, voice rough. "And I've been acting like my job is to watch every second of it instead of actually being in it with you."
Noah finally looked up at him. "So you're saying I'm right?"
"Absolutely not."
Noah grinned. "Too late. You already said it."
A soft knock came at the door. Danny stood on the other side, hands shoved in his pockets.
Mark hesitated, then got up and opened it.
"How's your boy doing?" Mark asked.
Danny looked surprised by the question. "Good. Home. Driving his mother up a wall."
Mark smiled, and it wasn't forced. "Good. I'm really glad to hear that."
It was a small thing. But it was the first piece of someone else's good news Mark had let himself actually hear in months.
A few minutes later I turned to Noah. "You ready to head home, Rookie?"
He looked past the glass toward the field, and I caught myself already reaching for my phone. I stopped and asked instead, "What do you want to do?"
He thought about it. "Ten more minutes."
Mark nodded. "Ten."
We went back to our seats. No cameras found us this time. No players jogged over. Nobody handed Noah a signed jersey. The game just kept going, exactly the way he wanted it to.
Mark griped about a bad play call. Noah told him he clearly didn't understand the rules. A referee threw a flag, and I was on my feet before I even thought about it.
"Oh, COME ON!"
Noah cracked up. "Mom, you don't even know what happened!"
"I know injustice when I see it."
My hand drifted toward my phone out of habit. I stopped myself. Noah noticed.
"You're not taking a picture?"
"No."
"Why not?"
I looked at him. "Because I'm watching."
He studied my face for a second, then nodded slowly, like that finally made sense to him.
Late in the fourth quarter, our team scored. The whole stadium erupted. Mark shot to his feet, and Noah grabbed his dad's arm with one hand and mine with the other, laughing so hard he could barely get a sound out. The tabletop game slid off his lap. One tiny plastic player popped loose and rolled under my seat.
I saw it happen.
And for the first time in weeks, I didn't immediately drop down to rescue it. Noah was laughing. Mark was shouting. I was shouting too. The game kept going, and none of us needed to freeze the moment to prove it mattered.
Only after the noise died down did Noah glance at the floor. "Mom! My player!"
I reached under the seat and handed it back to him. He snapped it back into place on the little plastic field.
May you like
"Everybody plays," he said, mostly to himself.
Then my Rookie turned back toward the field, and so did we — not to watch him watch it, but just to watch the game, together, like it was any other Sunday we still had left.
