He’d made it two weeks earlier.
In crooked blue letters, it said:
SOCCER WITH DADDY
He showed it to Mark almost every day.
Mark always had a reason to wait.
After dinner.
After his phone call.
After the weekend.
Sometimes Theo put the ticket back into his pocket without saying anything.
Mark apparently hadn’t noticed.
***
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he continued. “You leave Sunday morning while he’s asleep. I’ll tell him you’re away on business.”
I stared at him.
“For one week.”
“Without telling him first?”
“He’ll get over it.”
“Then he’ll learn not to hide behind your skirts.”
I wanted to shout.
Instead, I asked one question.
“What exactly are you hoping he’ll learn?”
“That I’m his father. That he can come to me.”
Mark scoffed.
“When?”
I looked toward the stairs.
Then I smiled.
“Fine, Mark. I’ll leave.”
He sat straighter.
I picked up his plate.
I hadn’t agreed to frighten our son.
But I had decided Mark needed to see something.
That night, Theo asked me to sit beside his bed.
He was wearing pajamas covered in little green dinosaurs.
His stuffed rabbit lay under one arm.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Will Daddy play soccer tomorrow?”
“Maybe if I ask early?”
“Maybe.”
He reached beneath his pillow and pulled out the paper ticket.
The edges were soft from being folded so often.
“I can give him this again.”
I smoothed his hair.
“What if he’s busy?”
“Then you and I can play. We always have fun.”
Theo nodded.
But he didn’t put the ticket away.
“I think he does.”
“Then why doesn’t he play?”
I wished I had an answer that wouldn’t hurt him.
“Sometimes grown-ups forget to make time for things they enjoy.”
Theo considered that.
“I can try.”
He handed me the ticket.
I tucked it into the drawer beside his bed.
After he fell asleep, I took it downstairs, made a photocopy, and put the original back in his drawer.
Then I remembered something that had happened two weeks earlier.
Mark had forgotten his lunch at home.
I was taking Theo to a dental appointment nearby, so we stopped by Mark’s office.
Theo loved visiting.
There were glass doors, shiny elevators, and a machine that gave out little paper cups of water.
At the entrance to Mark’s work area, he held his employee pass against a scanner.
The door clicked open.
Theo pointed.
“What’s that?”
“My work pass.”
“Why do you need it?”
“So they know I’m allowed in, buddy.”
Theo thought about that.
“Everybody who works here.”
Later that afternoon, Theo asked me for a piece of paper.
“Can you help me spell soccer?”
I wrote the letters on a scrap for him to copy.
He made his ticket, decorated it with a ball, and carefully folded it.
I thought he was playing office.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
He’d seen how important his father’s work pass was.
Perhaps he’d decided he needed one too.
Sunday morning, I woke at five.
Mark was still asleep.
I checked on Theo.
He was sprawled sideways across his bed, hugging his rabbit.
Then I went to the garage.
We had a small plastic soccer goal that Theo usually dragged into the backyard.
I carried it upstairs and set it against the hallway wall, safely out of the walking path.
Beside it, I placed a folding chair.
On the chair, I taped a sign.
DADDY’S SOCCER OFFICE
Below it, I taped the photocopy of Theo’s ticket.
Then I added a second note.
Theo has been asking for an appointment with you for two weeks. I’m downstairs. He’s still asleep. We need to talk before he wakes up.
I went downstairs and made coffee.
At 7:15, I heard our bedroom door open.
Then footsteps.
A chair scraped against the hallway floor.
A few seconds later, Mark came down the stairs barefoot, gripping the sign and the copied ticket.
“What have you done?!”
His voice was sharp, but he kept looking down at the words SOCCER WITH DADDY, as though he couldn’t understand why they were written on something that looked like an appointment pass.
I set my mug down.
“Jennifer, what is this?”
“A soccer office.”
“Then what’s confusing you?”
He held up the copied ticket.
“Why have you put all this outside our bedroom?”
“Because Theo has been trying to get your attention.”
Mark looked at the paper.
“What does this mean?”
“Two weeks ago, he watched you use your work pass. He asked why you needed it.”
“You told him it meant you were allowed into your office.”
Mark glanced down.
“Then he came home and made that ticket,” I added.
He read the words again.
I waited.
“He carries it around?” he asked.
“Every day.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did tell you he wanted to play soccer.”
“Is it?”
Mark looked toward the stairs.
“Where is he?”
“Asleep.”
“And you’re still here.”
“Of course I’m here.”
I stood up.
“Mark, I was never going to let our son wake up thinking I’d disappeared.”
“You said you’d leave.”
“I did. And I shouldn’t have let you think I’d go through with it. But I wasn’t going to frighten Theo just to prove your point.”
He frowned.
“I don’t understand why he’d make an appointment.”
“He sees you making time for meetings. He hears you talking about your calendar. And every time he asks you to play, you’re busy.”
Mark studied the ticket.
“He doesn’t need an appointment with his own father.”
“Then stop telling him you’re fully booked,” I snapped.
For once, he had no immediate answer.
He placed the sign on the table.
“He’s never shown me this.”
“Saturday morning, before you went back to bed. Wednesday after dinner. Friday when you were on your phone.”
Mark looked away.
I picked up my coffee.
“He isn’t trying to choose me over you. He’s trying to get you to notice him.”
“Then why does he always want you?”
“Because I’m there when he asks.”
Mark pulled out a chair.
I could tell he wanted to argue.
Instead, he asked, “What does he even want to do? He doesn’t know how to play soccer.”
I almost laughed.
“Neither do I, according to Theo.”
“Half the time, the goal is a castle. Sometimes the ball is a dragon egg. Last week, I was a goalkeeper named Princess Pickles.”
Mark stared at me.
“Princess Pickles?”
“Apparently, she’s very good at blocking dragons.”
He rubbed his face.
“That sounds ridiculous.”
I sat opposite him.
“But he laughs the whole time.”
Mark looked at the ticket again.
I didn’t try to convince him any further.
“There’s a field near the playground,” I said. “I’m taking Theo there this morning.”
“You’re taking him?”
“What about me?”
“You’re welcome to come.”
Mark said nothing.
“But I’m not going to make him pick between us. And I’m not disappearing so you can win his attention.”
He folded the paper carefully.
“What if he doesn’t want me there?”
“Then you can keep showing up until he feels comfortable asking you.”
Upstairs, Theo’s bedroom door opened.
I stood.
“Coming, sweetheart!”
Mark watched me head toward the stairs.
Then he called after me.
“Jennifer?”
I turned.
“What time are you going to the field?”
He glanced at the clock.
“Okay.”
At 9:45, Theo was struggling to put on his sneakers.
“Mommy, this one feels funny.”
“Wrong foot.”
He switched them.
Then he noticed Mark standing in the doorway.
His father was wearing sneakers and an old sweatshirt.
Theo looked surprised.
“Daddy?”
“Hey, buddy.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
Mark cleared his throat.
Theo looked at me.
I smiled.
“It’s up to you, sweetheart.”
He turned back to Mark.
Mark crouched beside him.
“Actually, I was hoping I could play.”
Theo stared.
“With us?”
“If that’s okay.”
For a moment, I thought he might refuse.
Then Theo ran upstairs.
He returned carrying the original ticket.
He held it out to Mark.
“You need this.”
Mark took it.
Theo nodded seriously.
“Now you’re allowed.”
At the field, Mark discovered that soccer had very little to do with soccer.
Theo announced that the goal was a castle.
A dragon lived inside it.
And nobody could score until the dragon gave permission.
Mark stood beside the ball.
“How do I ask the dragon?”
Theo looked at him as though the answer were obvious.
Mark faced the goal.
“Excuse me, Mr. Dragon. May I score?”
Theo shook his head.
“He’s a lady dragon.”
“Sorry. Mrs. Dragon.”
“Her name is Sparkles.”
Mark nodded.
Theo grinned.
“She says no!”
Mark kicked anyway.
The ball rolled wide.
Theo burst out laughing.
“That dragon distracted me.”
“Try again!”
Mark chased the ball.
For the next forty minutes, he ran, missed, argued politely with imaginary dragons, and let Theo invent increasingly complicated rules.
I sat on a bench nearby.
At first, Theo kept glancing toward me.
Then he stopped.
He began explaining to Mark why dragons weren’t allowed to use their hands.
When Mark finally sat down, breathing hard, Theo climbed onto the bench beside him.
“Was that fun, Daddy?”
Mark looked at his sweaty sweatshirt.
Theo smiled.
“Can we play again?”
Mark glanced at me.
I didn’t answer for him.
He turned back to Theo.
“Let’s check when I’m free and pick a day.”
Then he leaned against his father’s arm.
Mark stayed where he was.
That evening, after Theo fell asleep, Mark found me folding laundry.
“I was wrong,” he said.
“About making you leave.”
I put down a towel.
“You wanted our son to wake up thinking his mother had disappeared so he’d have to come to you.”
Mark sat beside me.
“I didn’t think about how scared he’d be.”
“He’s not weak because he wants a hug, Mark. He’s five. He needs you to show up. Not compete with me.”
“I’ll do better.”
Over the following weeks, he tried.
He learned Theo liked cinnamon cereal, not chocolate.
He helped with bedtime, even when Theo requested the same dinosaur story three nights running.
Sometimes Mark got impatient.
But he apologized and tried again.
At Theo’s school family afternoon, his teacher smiled at Mark.
“So you’re the famous dragon goalkeeper!”
Mark looked confused.
Theo giggled.
“Daddy’s terrible at soccer!”
“Apparently,” Mark admitted.
But he was smiling.
Three months later, I came downstairs to find Mark making pancakes.
Theo appeared holding his worn paper ticket.
Mark grinned.
“Soccer today?”
Mark accepted the ticket.
“You know, buddy, you don’t need this to ask me to spend time with you.”
“Even when you’re busy?”
“You can always ask. And if I can’t right then, we’ll pick a time and I’ll put it on my calendar.”
“Promise.”
Theo climbed onto a chair.
Mark poured batter into the pan.
The result looked suspiciously like a potato.
Theo frowned.
“Where’s his tail?”
Mark examined it.
“Maybe he lost it fighting a dragon.”
I started laughing.
Mark reached for more batter.
“All right. One tail coming up.”
Theo leaned against his arm, supervising.
And when the pancake began burning, neither of them noticed until I pointed it out.
