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The Lisbon middle school soccer field was like a back road in a Maine March: there was a pothole every six feet. Sandra was spending so much time looking at the field, making sure she didn’t fall into a sinkhole, that she wasn’t really watching the game. Moose mentioned this, when he stopped the clock for an injury. One of Lisbon’s halfbacks had indeed fallen into a crater that was almost as big as she was.
Sandra tried to defend herself, but Moose cut her off. “Oh, I know. This field is treacherous, but we still need to watch the game. If you break an ankle, you can sue.” He held his belly with both hands and laughed as if this was hysterical. “I haven’t been lucky enough to break an ankle yet.”
She wasn’t so sure it was luck. She looked at the sky, wondering if one of Bob’s tasks was keeping refs from falling into the abyss. Then she wondered why she was looking at the sky. She wasn’t sure Bob even spent any time up there. If he did, she certainly couldn’t picture it. And just where had Bob been lately? He was the worst investigative partner ever. No, that wasn’t true. She’d rather work with an elusive angel than with Detective Slaughter.
She took off her hat to give her head a few seconds to cool off. She hated to do this, as she felt more exposed with her hat off. She was delighted with how much anonymity the hat granted her, even if it was mostly in her head. But right now, she needed a break from the black fabric. It was eighty-two degrees out with a hundred percent humidity—unseasonably hot for September. But this was Maine. So on Saturday, when the youth pastor needed some heat, it would be forty-six degrees with a wind chill of twenty.
The trainer helped the injured girl off the field, and the substitute trotted out into her spot. As Moose put his whistle to his lips, Sandra put her hat back on and got into position. She couldn’t believe how sweaty she was. Her clothes were soaked. She’d be embarrassed, but no one would get close enough to her to know how gross she was, so it was okay.
The clock started and Sandra refocused herself and didn’t let herself look at the ground. Bob will keep me on my feet. Once she’d stopped hyper-focusing on the holes in the field, she began to find her rhythm. She missed a few fouls, but Moose called them from the other side of the field, and the Lisbon moms seemed to be a pleasant bunch. For starters, there weren’t very many of them, and those who were there were looking at their phones.
She did get hollered at once, by the away coach, but she knew she’d made the right call, so his screaming didn’t affect her much. She was surprised at this. In other parts of life, having a man scream at her in public would’ve wreaked havoc on her emotional health.
At some point, Sandra realized she was having great fun and almost giggled in surprise. When the ball rapidly changed direction and she had to turn and sprint down the field, she felt like she was flying. She wasn’t, of course. On a logical level, she knew she couldn’t be going that fast. She was chasing young girls, and they weren’t very fast, yet she felt like she was soaring. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so free, and she didn’t want the game to stop.
Then, at halftime, Moose said something about a second game, and a voice in Sandra’s head suggested that maybe she should be pacing herself. “There’s a second game?” she asked, breathing hard.
Moose laughed. “There sure is. There are usually two games when you have a middle school assignment. This is the seventh-grade girls. The eighth-graders play next, and you’ll be surprised how much stronger and faster they are. A year makes a big difference.”
Uh-oh. Sandra wasn’t sure she had the energy for a second game. She put her hands on her hips, still panting. “I think I might die, even if the sinkholes don’t get me.”
Moose laughed again. “This humidity isn’t helping. But you’ll be fine. Make sure you drink your water.” His sparse hair was dripping wet, and he used his sleeve to wipe some sweat from his eyes. “We can always go a lot farther than we think we can.”
“You should put that on a T-shirt,” she said as she trotted back across the field for the second half—without touching her free water.