One Last Game

Melanie Ezell

What is love? Sometimes it's giving up everything you want for the sake of someone else's happiness -- even if just for one last game.

For the BCTS November story challenge

~~@~~

She looked ridiculous, walking down the stairs in the oversized jersey and too-baggy jeans that had once been some of her favorite clothes. She had her hair tucked down the neck of her shirt, and a baseball cap pulled down tight on top of her head, hiding her feminine eyebrows as best she could. And yet, even with all that effort, the creature standing before Nigel was undoubtedly female.

"Hey, dad, what's up?" She asked him, in a voice forced as deep as she could, sounding very false and comical coming from her pouty mouth. She walked over and flopped onto the couch next to him, consciously keeping her legs splayed in a masculine sitting position. "Is the game on?"

Nigel felt the tears rolling down his cheeks as he looked at her. "My son," he heard himself sob. "Marcus..." In his mind's eye he could still see the young boy that had sat on his lap and watched basketball with him, who he had taken to the dirt track to watch the races, who he'd given "the talk" to over their first beer together. He could still see traces of his little man in the young woman before him.

"Dad, I..." Her eyes hidden by the baseball cap, she would not look up at him as her voice broke into a more feminine register. With a cough, she worked to take it back down. "Dad..."

She never got to finish what she was about to say, as Nigel wrapped her in his arms in a crushing hug. He had always told Marcus that real men shouldn't cry, along with all the other advice that fathers give to their sons, but if Marcus was man enough to break those rules, then Nigel knew he should be able to as well.

"I love you, Dad." He could hear the pain in her voice as her tears soaked his shoulder, and Nigel gripped his daughter even more tightly.

"I love you too, sweetheart," he said. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

With one final squeeze, he said goodbye to the son he had loved more than life itself, and embraced the daughter he knew he would always love just as much. She had given him his chance to make peace ... how could he not accept?

Neither one knew how long they had sat there before turning back to the ball game on screen, and neither cared. In only a couple of hours, Nigel knew, Mary would be back in her own clothes, but for the moment he simply let himself enjoy one last game with his son.