“Night, Code,” I said softly.
“Dad,” he answered back as he put his foot on the bottom stair, “would you come up and lie with me for a while, watch TV until I fall asleep?”
I was surprised, humbled. It seemed such a long time ago. “Sure, man.”
I lay beside him on the narrow bed, the TV tuned to a late West Coast game—Suns and San Antonio, Nash and Duncan in a seesaw battle for first place in the division. I looked around the room at the relics of the delicate tipping point of the boy changing into the man: the Beanie Babies—little leopards and dogs and dolphins with their name tags still attached—on shelves next to sports trophies, the MVP shirt from an elite summer camp in the Poconos, the posters of NBA players in flight above the rim. His breathing lengthened and he turned his face toward the wall. I started to leave. But as I moved he turned and gently reached out to pull me back.
“Dad,” he said in a sleepy, distant voice. “Thanks.” And then he turned his face to the wall again, his breath evened, a slight twitch, and stillness.
I gently extricated myself and stood beside the bed watching him sleep, grateful for the brief moment back, the soccer fields in some other guise, the ongoing play in changing form. Marveling at it, wondering whether it would come again, and if so, in what form. Appreciating the sweetness and the aching transience. Wonder—a profound state of mind produced by something unexpected or surprising.
The light from the television softly suffused the room, the figures on the screen running and leaping in beauty in an arena thousands of miles away. “Good night, Mijo,” I spoke softly into the darkness as I turned off the flickering images of muted light and closed the door quietly behind me.
This story was selected by Abigail Thomas as a runner-up in Chronogram’s fiction contest in our fall 2007 Literary Supplement.
