Details

A Story

"Love is in the details," my husband said to me.

In the dewy fall grass, on lawn chairs we bought as a rite of passage into suburban parenthood, we watched our son stand still on the soccer field.

"God in the details," I said correcting absently, trying to shade my eyes from the glaring light. I’d forgotten my sunglasses yet again.

"No, no. Definitely love." He wiped at his nose in the crisp air. "I love you in the details."

"Hmm. Deep," I said, waiting for the punchline.

"I thought you'd like it," he smiled.

Our son didn’t move. He stood straight, hands clasped behind his back, watching the action but going nowhere. Boys swarmed the ball like park pigeons on a bread crumb. My kid took a step left to watch the pack roll by. 

"This is torture," his father told me. "Why are we doing this?"

It was a good question. One I’d asked myself and the kid. And yet my 7 year old seemed so sure that this was where he wanted to be.

“It’s a sport, honey. You have to play your part or it hurts the team.”

He looked surprised by this notion but struggled into his shin guards anyway, and now we were all in our lawn chairs.

"Mommy!" my younger peaked out from behind me. He was 4. Like that single girl at a wedding, he got jealous and was hoping that a wilted bouquet, or, in this case, a soccer ball in need of air, did have magical powers. 

Two tiny hands poked at the flimsy mesh. He tried to dump both me and the chair forward. "Mommy!"

As if there were a satisfying answer to be had,  I asked, "What are you doing?"  

"Nothin'," he murmured, his blue eyes smiling at me. Seducer, that one was. Took me with him, wherever he wanted to travel.

“Go!” my husband shouted with other parents, only on him it sounded like a prayer.

My little one jumped into my lap, nearly crashing the plastic fabric. I was glad my husband convinced me to go for the upgraded model. 

He jumped in front of his father and squealed, "I'm hungry. You buyin'?" 

Even his father laughed at this. We all knew the way to his heart was the hot dog cart and the soggy fried everything van.

"Want something?”

He was standing over me. I couldn’t see my his face through the sun. He was all shadow; an overgrown boy in dark relief. 

"I want everything," I smiled.

"Settle for a pretzel?"

We loved each other, he and I. After ten years, we got a kick from being in the same space. Or maybe we loved the idea of loving each other. Maybe in a dark spot, in a low valley within us, we were desperate to get away. But maybe not. In the meantime, we ate.

He was right about love being in the details. Or maybe it’s life. Life is in the details we chose to focus on.

My sweet, lost, desperately serious son was watching before he jumped in. Though I couldn’t know for sure, I had faith there would be a moment that it all clicked in his brain, when he would understand the field in front of him and if not conquer, at least walk gracefully to the sidelines.

I checked with him again before we left that morning. "You know you're supposed to go after the ball?"

"I'm the smartest kid in my class," he told me. 

"So why don't you run, smart guy?" 

He kept his head down during these conversations, or away, like he couldn’t take the look of my face and the sound of my voice at the same time. I was curious, not angry.

"What if I have to push someone out of the way?" His aversion to touching scared me sometimes. He let people hug him, but grudgingly and in a way that left you feeling as if you’d pushed him. Once in a while he got mushy with me, but mostly when I didn’t have time. 

"You're a glutton," my mother said after last week’s game. "I’m not coming to these things anymore. Why do you do this to him?"

I took a deep breath. He will run, I knew. When he was ready. Like he did everything. Only what if they turned on him first? 

That very morning I’d made another child cry. The four-year-olds are training. That's all. No game. No score. One kid shoved my baby. The violence shocked him—a new experience for his psyche. His head scanned quickly, looking for me. I gave him a nod. He trusted me, kept going. The kid shoved him again. 

"Please," my husband, knowing my posture, hands on the sides of the chair, rocking as if to get up, said,"Let the ref take care of it."

I stared down the offending toddler. He either stuck his tongue out at me, or he licked the snot running down his cheek. It was difficult to tell. When he shoved my son a third time, I burst onto the field. 

"That kid's pushing!" I yelled at the adolescent ref. "Can't you see that? Idiot!"

I don't feel good about it now.

Details are a two way street. There are some we keep hidden. As we should. Success is also in the details.

My son came to me for a sip of his water bottle. "How about we go home?” I asked. “There's no failure in not liking something." 

"I like it," he said, surprised. 

"Give the kid a break. Let him stop," my husband said after the game, coming in and dropping the equipment in the hallway.

I realized he thought that I was doing this for me. Sometimes you can really miss the details. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t bother to correct him. I’d save it for later so I could use it as a weapon for an entirely unrelated argument. Who was I kidding?Delayed gratification was never my thing.

My son’s hair was the color of wet sand, and his eyes were the same hue. He studied maps and could name any country, capital and primary export because he liked to know these things.

I’d missed a few details. The boys had left the room and my husband was on his knees by the fireplace, carefully playing with the gas ignition until it lit. He turned to face me.

"You can't give him everything you didn't have," he said.

"I can give him some things."

"Soccer's not one. He doesn't want it." His voice was low suddenly, rumbling with anger.

Why did I keep my son’s secret? Why did I even make it a secret?

"I don't want him to feel like he can give up," I said, wishing he could see the roiling in my heart.

Abruptly, he was on his feet. "That hot dog's repeating on me," he said, patted his belly and headed for the kitchen. Flames rose, the heat of them made my face feel like was melting. 

"Let's go out," I said when he came back in.

He stared at me like he'd never seen me before.

"What is it?” I asked, unnerved by his sudden intensity.

He came to me, took a piece of hair from my forehead. "This scar, right here, what's that from?"

It took me a moment to remember. "My sister dared me to ride my tricycle down five step brick stoop."

"It must have hurt," he said. Tucked away in a fold of my forehead, it’s become less noticeable as the lines continue to deepen.

"I felt like an idiot. No one but myself to blame," I admitted.

"Love is in the details," he smiled. “All of them.”

DO *** DO *** DO ***

Shortly after I wrote this story and for no reason I ever saw, my son began to run. Shockingly, he became a legendary defender on the Sachem Hornets for a large part of his childhood.

This is a short story I wrote fifteen years ago. I am in Seattle visiting my older son for the first time as an adult. It is a strange and wonderful place to be. I woke up this morning remembering this story after he told me he is playing on his company’s team.

It was penned as fiction though many of the “details” are true. It was interesting for me to see how closely the voice mirrors the one of this blog, which I assumed had come as the culmination of years of study, practice and tortured self reflection. But whatever. I’m offering it here. Wishing you, my dear readers, many more details to appreciate.