Three years after the next snap that did not get waited for, Rick came to a school conference because Cole asked both of them. They sat with a chair between. The teacher said Cole was fine and quiet and good at history. Lisa said he gets that from reading. Rick said he gets the quiet from this year. The teacher did not ask. They left in separate cars. In the lot Lisa said the quiet is not only from this year. Rick said I know. She said then don’t make it your trophy. He said I won’t. They meant it as much as either could. Cole, told later, said the chair between was weird and also fine. Lisa said fine was acceptable. He said pizza after? She said pasta here. He said deal. The deal held. Deals were their dialect. Here. Leaving. A period. A score texted from a friend’s house. A jersey that could be cotton again. A father on a schedule. A mother who had not sent him to the kitchen. A phone in a box. A wall that did not match a lock screen. A Sunday with wings, sound low, a small yes that was theirs.
That was the game after the game. No crowd. No commercial that knew her sister’s flute. A room. A boy who had heard the lie and had been allowed to hear it. A woman who had said get out before the next snap and had meant the man, not the child. The child stayed. The staying was the win she counted. The rest was time, and time, for once, was not a fourth quarter someone else had scheduled.
The morning after the truck left, Cole went to school in the replica because it was clean and because he did not know what else to wear that felt like Sunday. A boy asked if his team had won. Cole said he didn’t know. The boy said how do you not know. Cole said the sound was off. The boy accepted sound off. Cole carried the answer all day. Sound off was the truest sentence he had. He told Lisa at the door. She said that was fair. Fair was joining the shelf with allowed.
Rick bought a plant for the apartment and killed it in a month. Mike said that tracked. Rick bought another and read the tag. The second plant lived. He told Cole. Cole told Lisa. Lisa said plants are not a character reference. Cole said I know. He had said I know a lot. It was becoming his father’s receipt and his own boundary. Lisa heard the difference and did not correct it. Correction was for numbers. Three, not one. The plant could live without a speech.