Page 37 of The Progressions

On the field. I was on the field. Yes, I’d seen the players on Fan Day, and yes, I’d been even closer to them at the practice facility when I’d gone to lunch there. But now there was green under my feet and this was…it was…

“Kasia.” A ball flew through the air in a slow arc toward me and on instinct, I caught it. “Where’s your dad?” Tyler jogged over,frowned, and took the ball back. “Why are you crying? Did something happen to him?”

I shook my head and cupped my hands over my nose and mouth, fully aware that this was nothing like when Shay Galton cried. “I’m excited,” I croaked. She had spoken in a pretty quaver, while I sounded more like a frog.

“You’re that excited?” he asked, and now I nodded. “I bet my mother has tissues. She always does.” He put his hand on my shoulder and walked me over to a lady seated in a wheelchair and wearing a large brace around her leg, which stuck out in front of her. “Mom,” he called, and she turned and smiled. I saw where he’d gotten it, because hers was just the same, like she was spreading sunshine.

“She’s all right,” he said, when her expression turned concerned. “This is Kasia and she really loves the Woodsmen. Where’s your father?” he asked, speaking slowly like my crying had addled me.

“He’s at home,” I answered, and then I told Tyler’s mom, “Hello.” She introduced herself as Gail Hennessy.

“You call her ‘Miss Gail,’” he instructed. “It’s polite in Georgia.” His mother told him that it wasn’t polite to tell people what their manners should be, but I was glad because I hadn’t known it. She handed me a tissue, which I also needed.

“How about a picture?” a photographer asked, and then frowned a little as he saw my condition.

No, I wasn’t camera ready, but I also wouldn’t be posing with Tyler ever again. I scooted out of the range of the shot andhe knelt down next to his mother. They both lit up with their amazing smiles.

“Watch her,” he told his mom, and then ran off onto the field. That was wrong, though, because it was supposed to be the opposite. I was here to help her, not the other way around.

“Come here, baby,” she told me, smiling again. I knelt next to her chair like her son had. “I remember when I saw Reba in concert. I cried like this, too.” She hugged me over the armrest.

“Sorry,” I said. “I got overwhelmed.”

Miss Gail handed me another tissue. “You’re fine,” she said. “It is exciting down here.”

It really was. I stayed next to her and we talked about her trip and about her injury, and I pointed out the various players as we watched Tyler. It wasn’t too long before it was time for us to leave the sidelines and luckily another guard came over to show us the way, because it was like a maze in the lower part of the stadium. I saw way more than I ever had on all the Fan Day tours, which I now realized must have included only the tiniest smidgen of what went on here. It was overwhelmingly exciting, and I wished so much that my dad would have come. I took pictures, but it wasn’t the same. He shouldn’t have missed this.

Miss Gail was thinking that, too. “I was looking forward to meeting your father,” she mentioned as we went.

“I couldn’t convince him to come.” We got on the elevator and I positioned myself so that no one could bump against her leg without taking me out, first. Before we went to our seats, though, she wanted to go into the bathroom to “freshen up.”

“Let’s see what I have in here,” she told me, and opened her purse. It was clear, as per stadium regulations, and I could see that she had a lot in there. “Would you like a mint?” I took one and thanked her. “Why did your father need to be convinced? Tyler tells me that y’all are big football fans.”

“We’re big Woodsmen fans,” I agreed. I found myself saying more as she passed out makeup from the pouch that she found under the box of mints.

“He said that he was too tired to come, but that’s not really why.” I dabbed concealer around my nose because I was very red there. “He has this thing about enjoying himself.”

“He doesn’t want to have a good time?” She passed me an eyeliner pencil.

“He does, but he doesn’t think that he can. It was always hard for me to understand,” I said. “When I was a kid, we were doing ok with money. Not rolling in it, but he had a good job and we didn’t have a lot of expenses. That was because we never did anything. We never went anywhere or bought anything, but I don’t think that you have to spend a lot to have fun.”

“No, you certainly don’t.” She took back the pencil and handed over a tube of mascara.

“Are you sure you don’t mind me using your stuff?” I asked, and she said no, no, to go right ahead. “He feels guilty, which I can understand. I feel guilty right now about being here and seeing all this when he’s missing it. He’s thinking about my mom, his wife. She passed away when I was really little.”

“That’s too bad.” She seemed upset so I tried to reassure her.

“I don’t remember her,” I said, because it really did seem to make people feel better to hear that.

But not Miss Gail. “Oh, I’m sorry. My mother passed when Tyler was a baby and I think about her all the time. I wish that you had some memories to hold on to.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “I wish I remembered, too. We have a painting of her in my dad’s bedroom and I think of that instead of the real person. You know, like she was just a flat image rather than a mother who was here, talking to me in Polish and forgetting where she put her sunglasses, doing real things.” I looked at myself in the mirror and then asked, “Am I ok now?”

“You’re a beautiful girl,” she said. “Just lovely.”

“Thank you.” I looked down at the Hennessy jersey I wore. “Um, do you think that I should give this back?”

“What? No, Ty left that for you. Let’s get to our seats.”

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