Lower Bowl, Madison Square Garden, New York City
Wendy sat in her seat, her eight-year-old daughter beside her, her teenage son one more seat down. “These are great seats!” She had never been to a game before, it not something she could afford as a single mother, but a contest at the office had her with a set of three tickets only a dozen rows back.
“There’s so many people!” exclaimed her daughter, her mouth full, her hotdog already under attack.
“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” She glanced at her son who was already on his cellphone, texting, pretending to be bored, but she knew better, his breathing a little faster than usual, his eyes a little wider, this one of the biggest outings they had ever been on as a family. She still couldn’t believe she had won the contest, and to be frank, she was pretty sure when she won it had been rigged.
Who offers a prize of three tickets?
Everyone knew how hard things were for her since her husband had died from pancreatic cancer, their savings drained, their home sold, their lifestyle sinking from middle-income to poverty line almost overnight.
And it hadn’t saved him in the end.
Yet she would do it all again, even knowing how difficult things would be, those precious few extra months with her husband, with her children’s father, so important. It had given them the time to get to know each other again, to fall in love again, to say the things that needed to be said.
To get the closure.
And tonight they would all forget their troubles and enjoy an evening out on her friends, the “contest” even including cash for the concessions and shirts for the kids, both already wearing jerseys as they tugged at their drinks between bites of their hot dogs.
The crowd roared and she saw dozens of men in military uniforms standing in the audience, waving, her brain catching up to the announcer who had just asked the audience to thank their men in uniform. She clapped and added her own Whoop! Whoop! as her daughter joined in, her son blushing in embarrassment.
Teenagers!
The lights went low, music started to blare, and she put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders as the crowd roared.
“Here they come!”