“And young man?”
Parker froze and looked toward the field.
Cole pointed at him.
“You did the right thing giving it back.”
Parker’s face went red too, but for a very different reason.
Then Cole looked toward our section once more.
“Now I’d like the little girl and her mom to come down here for a minute, if they’re willing.”
Maisie turned to me so quickly I thought she’d hurt her neck.
“Mom.”
I was still trying to understand what I’d heard.
“Mom!”
“Yes, I heard him.”
“Are we going?”
An usher was already walking toward us.
I laughed through my tears.
“Apparently we are.”
Denise stared straight ahead while the people around us applauded Maisie.
Nobody yelled at her or called her names.
They didn’t need to.
She had spent the last several minutes insisting her
son deserved the ball because he was the real football fan, only to have an entire stadium watch him return it to the eight-year-old girl she’d mocked.
For someone who cared so much about who “deserved” attention, becoming the center of it clearly wasn’t as enjoyable as she’d expected.
The usher led us through a hallway beneath the stands.
Maisie held the football so tightly I was surprised she could breathe.
“Do I say something cool when I meet him?”
“Probably.”
“What?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
She gave me the look Gavin used to give me whenever I was useless during football conversations.
Then a door opened.
Cole Brennan was waiting on the other side.
Maisie stopped walking.
For the first time all day, she was completely silent.
Cole smiled and crouched slightly so he wasn’t towering over her.
“You’re the girl with the sign.”
Maisie nodded.
He
looked at it again.
“What was your dad’s name?” Gavin.”
Cole’s expression softened.
“He was a big fan?”
“The biggest.”
I laughed quietly.
“That’s unfortunately true.”
Maisie finally smiled.
“He said you were the best receiver on the team even when you dropped easy catches.”
Cole put a hand over his heart.
“That sounds like a loyal man.”
“He yelled at you a lot too.”
“That sounds even more loyal.”
Maisie laughed, and hearing that laugh in a stadium Gavin had always wanted to bring her to nearly broke me.
Cole asked for the football.
Then he pulled a marker from his pocket.
“I usually just sign my name, but I think this one needs something better.”
He wrote slowly across the white panel.
