mine.
“Mom, what’s happening?”
“I have no idea, Captain.”
We turned.
Several familiar people were walking down the stadium steps toward us.
At the front was Ray, a hospital employee Ethan affectionately called Coach Ray.
He was carrying something beneath his arm.
A battered plastic tabletop football game.
Behind him came a nurse from Ethan’s hospital floor, a teenage patient named Cody, and Cody’s mother.
Then I noticed another man.
Leo.
The moment Chris recognized him, his face lost its color.
He hadn’t spoken to Leo properly in months.
And the reason was something my husband deeply regretted.
But when Ethan saw the little plastic football game, he burst into laughter.
“No way!” he shouted.
Suddenly, I realized our son knew something about this surprise.
Something he had kept secret from both of us.
And as I would soon discover, his real wish had almost nothing to do with football.
