Chapter Ten Kiersten
Chapter Ten
Kiersten
On Saturday afternoon, Kiersten herded her children to a lonely corner on the left side of the dugout for Matt’s second game of the day and set up camp.
The other team parents sat together in a little cluster of lawn chairs on the right side of the field, a settlement that did not welcome outsiders.
Most of the kids on this travel team had been playing together for years, and their parents had apparently decided they didn’t have space in their lives for new friends.
She didn’t blame them. How many times had she done the same thing? Engrossed in a conversation with her buddies, failing to notice, much less include, someone new, someone she didn’t know.
She’d tried to focus on the game but found no comfort there either.
Matt had pitched four perfect innings in the first game; then he fell apart.
In the second game, he struck out early and missed an easy pop fly.
The coach benched him and put someone else on the mound as he sat in the dugout, icing his shoulder.
Gratitude stole over her, followed by a sharp pang of guilt as she realized the combination of a second loss and torrential rain in the forecast meant tomorrow morning’s game would be canceled.
If they won, they’d have to stay over. But if they lost, they could go home tonight.
Was there a German word for this parental mixed feeling of relief and guilt, like loserfreude or guiltenschnapple?
With her other boys playing happily with a gang of younger siblings and a soccer ball a few yards away, and Matt sitting on the bench, she gave up all pretense of watching the game and reached into her purse for the diary she’d found in the basement.
After a furtive glance at the loyal and committed baseball parents who cared deeply about the outcome of the game, she managed to shield the open diary with her purse and began to read.