Free Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genova Page A

When the Sox win a postseason game on a Saturday, everyone is typically fifty shades of drunk, gloating and looking for either a party or trouble, and it’s a long night of crowd control for the Boston Police.
    But tonight is Thursday night. Everyone who has a job has work in the morning. The kids have school. Win or lose tonight, the Sox will go on to play Game 3 in St. Louis. Most everyone will be looking to go home as quickly as possible when this is over. Joe hopes.
    He wiggles each aching foot and does a few deep knee bends. His shoulders shrug, like earlier, but instead of fighting it, Joe uses the opportunity to stretch one arm above his head and then the other. He scratches his head. He twists his torso side to side, trying to take the vertical pressure off his spine, even for a second, and groans. His back isn’t any happier than his feet.
    â€œHey, Jane Fonda,” says Fitzie, reading his phone. “Bottom of the ninth. Still four–two. Two outs.”
    Joe closes his eyes, prays to God and his lucky shirt, and knocks on his service baton, wishing for the Sox to win. The street is eerily quiet, as if all of Boston is holding its breath.
    â€œJust struck out Nava,” says Fitzie. “Game over.”
    They all hang their heads and say nothing, a solemn moment of silence before they have to get to work. It takes only a handful of minutes for the sold-out crowd to begin pouring out of Fenway. The police have already blocked all side streets with barricades, creating a narrow channel banked by officers. The goal is to disperse the crowd and herd everyone out of the city. Soon, thousands of people are walking past Joe, all in the same direction. It’s a fast-moving river with only one way for the fish to swim.
    A young boy, probably around six, meets Joe’s eyes as he passes by on his father’s shoulders. Joe nods and smiles. The boy’s eyes widen, startled, as if he never expected Joe to move, as if Joe had been a statue that suddenly animated. The boy then slumps his shoulders and turns his face away, resting it on the top of his dad’s head. The father is holding his boy’s leg with one hand and his wife’s hand with the other.
    Family after family inches by, and Joe regrets that he didn’t get to spend more time like this with Rosie and his kids when they were young. In twelve years, he’ll be retired. JJ and Colleen should have a few kids by then. Joe knocks three times on his baton. The girls will hopefully be married with kids, too. He knocks again, once more for Rosie.
    It worries Rosie that the girls are so unsettled, dancing and Downward-Dogging without a steady boyfriend, not even a prospect for marriage in sight. Both the yoga and dance worlds are predominantly populated by women. It seems that the few eligible men who are in the ballet company are gay or from Eastern Europe, owning last names Rosie can’t even spell, and the yoga students who aren’t women are Toonies. Rosie’s long-held assumption that her daughters would someday marry nice Irish Catholic boys from the neighborhood is growing more and more far-fetched, absurd even. As long as they eventually marry someone. And he isn’t a Protestant.
    In twelve years, Patrick might even be settled or at least living somewhere else. Hopefully all of Patrick’s progeny will be legitimate.
    Retirement and grandchildren. He’ll be fifty-five, still plenty young enough to enjoy kids. He’ll take them to Fenway and spoil the hell out of them.
    Lansdowne is now empty but for a handful of dumb fish who resisted the current. Six college-age boys remain in the middle of the street. Joe gathers from three of the T-shirts and two of the hats that they go to Boston College. They’re alldrunk, laughing and hawking spit, being loud and moronic. Probably not BC’s best and brightest.
    The street is lined shoulder-to-shoulder with cops who’ve been standing for seven hours