Chapter 6 Wren Get on the Jumbotron at a Ravens Game #2
Arthur wondered if Wren ever felt like that as a kid. People, even her own family, knowing she was broken, not knowing how to help, and finding it easier to just look away.
The train lurched to a stop, squeaking horrifically the whole way, and the doors slid open.
“This is our stop,” Wren said. The mass of people exited with cheers and tipsy Let’s gooooos, but Arthur grabbed Wren’s hand.
“Maybe we shouldn’t do this. We could go home, order in, watch on TV.”
“Watching on TV isn’t on the bucket list.”
“I just…don’t want anything to happen.” It’s my job to take care of you and the baby, he thought. And he was really doing a bang-up job so far.
“I’m not really going to get you beat up. But…I am getting on that jumbotron. One way or another.” She pulled him toward the doors. “You coming?”
It didn’t really feel like he had a choice.
Their seats were so high up, by the time they’d finished climbing the never-ending stadium ramps, Arthur was sure they had reached a new climate.
Not unlike Everest. There was altitude here, along with a slight haze in the air.
Were they actually inside a cloud? Only a few rows from the very tippy top of the stadium, the wind whipped around and the August evening felt twenty degrees cooler.
They could see the whole field, but the massive human beings inhabiting it looked tiny from where they sat.
“I leave you in charge of buying the seats and this is what happens,” Wren said as she awkwardly squeezed her belly past the other people seated in their row.
“I thought ‘corner end zone’ sounded good.” The price tag also sounded quite good.
They’d worked incredibly hard to build up their savings, forgoing this exact kind of activity: expensive nights out without coupons.
Not that he hadn’t looked for discount codes for the ticketing app.
He wasn’t about to blow all their hard work now.
Sadly, he found none and had to pay full freight.
The climb had left Wren famished, and so once they were settled in, he departed again in search of food. She needed good nutrients for the baby, for her overtaxed body and the growing life inside her. “Get me anything covered in nacho cheese,” she had said.
Shortly before kickoff, he returned with an array of rations.
“What’s this?” Wren looked at him as if he were holding a dirty diaper out for her to examine.
“Only the best snacks M he wanted to be able to buy her Section 126, fifty-yard-line tickets.
The best money could buy. When the stars finally aligned, it was going to be perfect.
He dreamed of driving Wren and Charlie downtown and surprising them last minute with the tickets he’d scored.
Being the hero. But he could never seem to get as good a deal as he wanted, and the car needed new brakes one season, and another he needed a crown at the dentist. Somehow his plans always ended up getting derailed by one thing or another, usually because something expensive broke. “But we’re here now, aren’t we?”
“Sure are,” she said.
“This really means a lot to you,” he said as they walked down the steps, getting closer and closer to the sideline.
“It does. I’ve never missed a game, on TV anyways, and I never will.”
He truly didn’t get it. Didn’t get what she saw in this violent, boring game.
One thing he’d never considered, until now, was how they would spend their Sundays as a family.
Would they have to give up trips to the park, say no to birthday parties, forgo visits to the museum, and basically structure their whole life around not missing the football game?
Arthur didn’t mind throwing it on when it was just the two of them, but he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of it being such an integral part of their life for the rest of time.