“Mama, Mama, Mama!” Joanna cried from her blanket on the grass.
“What, honey?” Sandra tried not to sound annoyed.
Joanna pointed at the field and began to chant, “Peter! Peter! Peter!” It appeared the coach had put Peter back into the game. At six years old, Joanna worshiped her big brother. Sandra thought probably this wouldn’t last forever. She pulled her sunglasses down out of her hair and onto her eyes so she could watch the game without squinting.
Sandra had been sitting there in her folding chair for quite some time but hadn’t really had a chance yet to watch the game. She’d had her hands full keeping Joanna in sight and keeping baby Sammy from screaming.
But now Peter was back on the field, so now she wanted to focus.
A child on the home team, a portly youngster who seemed far too enormous to be in middle school, flattened one of Plainfield’s strikers.
The crowd behind her blew up. “How can you not see that?” one mom screamed. “Blow the whistle!” screamed another.
Sandra looked at the referee to see how he was handling such unsolicited feedback and was alarmed to see that he appeared to be at least a hundred years old. Well, good then, maybe he doesn’t hear well.
The play was long over, but the Plainfield coach was still screaming at the ref. Sandra was embarrassed. It was only their first game of the season, but they’d had several practices, and Sandra knew that Peter really liked his coach. She didn’t look forward to trying to explain to her ten-year-old why his coach was swearing at the referee during a middle school soccer game.
Just when she thought he’d calmed down, there was another scuffle at the eighteen, and the Plainfield coach, as well as the Plainfield parents, once again disagreed with how the referee pronounced judgment.
Sandra put her head in her hands.
“Why is everybody so mad, Mama?” Joanna asked, reasonably.
“Not sure, honey,” Sandra said quietly.
Peter got the ball. Sandra held her breath. He looked so little out there, a fifth-grade-David amidst a battlefield full of Goliaths. Peter dribbled the ball toward the goal, and then it happened. One of the Philistines came for him. And flattened him like a bug.
There was no whistle. The crowd behind her erupted again. Peter started to cry. Sandra stood up. Her first instinct was to run straight out onto the field and comfort her baby, but he wasn’t her baby anymore. Not really. The coach certainly wasn’t extending that type of compassion to her eldest.
“Come on, Pete, walk it off,” he said.
She knew that Peter didn’t like it when people called him Pete. But he did pick himself up and hobble toward the bench. Sandra couldn’t help herself from going to check on him, but she did manage to restrain herself from cutting across the field. It wasn’t lost on her that no parent did that—ever.
“Come on, Joanna, we’re going for a walk.”
“Is Peter okay, Mama?”
“Yes, I’m sure he’s fine. Let’s go.”
“Did the angels protect him?”
“Yes, I’m sure they did. Let’s go.” Her patience tank was running low.
Finally, Joanna stood up and took her hand.
She tried to push the stroller with one hand, but the grass made this difficult. She wished, not for the first time, that they’d sprung for one of those fancy jogging strollers. “I’m going to need both hands,” she said, wresting her hand free of her daughter’s sweaty clutch. “Just stay with me.” Even with both hands, progress was slow. They crept down the touchline and then rounded the corner to travel the goal line. As they did, Sandra sneaked a look at the ancient ref. He didn’t look so good. Was something wrong, or was he just too old for this gig?
Before she’d even finished the thought, the official wobbled a little and then his tall, lanky frame crumpled to the ground.
Everything stopped. Joanna stopped walking. The coaches stopped screaming. The other, much younger, ref stopped and stared at his partner. The crowd fell silent. The kids stopped moving and most of them knelt to one knee, something they were trained to do when a player was injured. The ball rolled to a stop in the grass. Sandra looked around to find the closest adult and then realized she was it. Looks like I’m going to run out onto the field after all.
“Stay here, honey. Stay right with Sammy.” She put her daughter’s small hand on the stroller handle, in the probably vain hope that this would tether her there.
Sandra was only twenty feet away from the fallen official, and it didn’t take long to reach him. His face was red, he was gasping for air, and he reached up for her as she knelt beside him. She took his wrinkly hand into her own.
“You’ve got to … stop them … stop them …” he forced out.
“Stop who?” she said, alarmed.
“White,” he said and then closed his eyes.
Many had followed her lead. The field was filling with grown-ups. As Sandra felt for a pulse, another woman touched her on the shoulder. “I’m a nurse. Let me help him.”
Sandra moved out of the way, grateful that there was someone more qualified. As she headed back toward her children standing on the goal line, the other referee grabbed her by the arm, not nearly as gently as she would have preferred, if given a say.
“What did he say to you?”
She yanked her arm away. “Nothing! Do you mind?” And she walked away, toward her family, wondering why she’d just lied to a soccer ref.