a girl needed someone to stand beside her.
I stood two feet behind the scorer’s table in my maroon booster club sweatshirt, my hands pressed flat against my thigh seams.
Beside me, Mason reached up and took my thumb, his small dress shoes quiet on the rubber floor runner.
“Mom,” Mason whispered, looking up at my face while the crowd cheered around us. “Everybody is standing up for Grandpa.”
“I see them, Mason,” I said.
“Did Travis tell him to come?” Mason asked, his heels kicking light against the metal legs of the scorer’s table.
“No,” I said. “Grandpa came on his own.”
“Why is Travis staying down there?” Mason asked.
I looked at Travis sitting in row one, his head turned toward center court, isolated in the middle of a standing crowd.
“Because he made his choice,” I said quietly.
Across the floor, the booster mothers who had whispered
