Free See No Color by Shannon Gibney

me, they had loved me all this time, that there was no one else in the world who had any right to me? But more than saying it, I wanted to feel it. And I didn’t.
    In the living room, the TV blared with the muffled cheers of fans. Someone must have hit a home run—there was no mistaking that particular sort of cheer. And just like that, the familiar daydream fought its way to the surface: I would hit a home run some day in the majors, I would make sure of it. I still wanted to do all the things that Dad hadn’t had the chance to do because his career got cut short and he had to focus the rest of his time and energy on Jason and me.
    â€œCome on,” Dad said, helping Mom up. He gestured to Jason, who looked like a statue in the doorway. Jason and I started walking toward the living room, Mom in tow. “Go get your sister,” said Dad. “We’re having family time at the game. We got three more innings to watch.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    H ot Milwaukee summer and the cool of popsicles at the price of perpetually sticky fingers and carpet. “Everything is sticky!” Mom says, throwing up her hands.
    Interleague game with the Twins. Dad’s September call up and strong spring were turning heads. He’d been starting at first base and was batting second.
    Jason and I are sitting too close to the huge new TV Dad bought with his first “Major League money, Rachel! We’re going to make it.” But Jason and I are more interested in the popsicles because Major League money hasn’t replaced the minor league air conditioner that Mom is trying to get to blow something other than hot air.
    Then the familiar crack, the one Jason and I already know like we know our names.
    The camera pans to Dad, holding his glove open, anticipating the throw. The pitcher whips the ball toward him, but he’s off balance from the sliding catch. Dad sees this, adjusts his position in a split second, and stretches down the first-base line, hoping to still bag the catch. Mike Perry is one hop from the base, running like a freight train, and determined to get on.
    And then it happens. In some ways, it’s still happening.
    â€¢ • •
    I know now that Dad’s agent had made the most of his client’s strong September the year before, turning it into a 1.5 million dollar one-year deal. And I also understand now that the Brewers saw a feel-good story in Terry Kirtridge—the thirty-one-year-old dad who’d never given up on his dream, not even after playing nearly a decade in the minors.
    But I didn’t understand any of that when I was sitting too close to our new TV that day. I just knew Dad was hurt. When Perry crashed into Dad and knocked his shoulder out of joint and the ball out of his glove, my stomach and my popsicle dropped. Dad hit the ground in high definition, and I screamed and dug my fingernails into the flesh of my palms. Perry leaned over Dad and started talking to him. Dad didn’t respond; he lay there, motionless. The Brewers’ trainers ran out of the dugout and made their way toward first base.
    The announcer said something about it being “a shame since the Brewers feel-good minor-league miracle was looking like he was headed for the DL.” All the while Dad lay motionless on the ground. We watched in strained silence as the trainers leaned over Dad. Even without a close-up, you could see he was in agony. In the end, they had to take him away on a stretcher.
    There’s a clip of the whole thing up on YouTube that I still watch from time to time. You can see in the slow-mo that Perry was bound to run into Dad one way or another, that Dad had placed himself in a precarious position with his left shoulder blocking the base. I don’t think that Perry would think twice about knocking him down if Dad was in his way. He was a professional ball player, after all—still is today. But even though Dad called, and still calls, Perry every swear