Today is Daddy’s thirty-fifth birthday.
There’re balloons all over the dining room.
Blue and gold streamers hanging down from the lights.
A papier-mâché mountain in the living room.
I made it from old newspapers,
painted it green and brown
and drew OVER THE HILL in bright gold letters around it.
Soon a taxi will be pulling up with both my grandmothers
and my daddy’s older sister,
who I call Auntie Nan.
Soon the house will be filled with people I’ve known forever.
It’s been over a year since his last football game.
I am sitting at the window
trying not to listen to Mama talking
to Uncle Sightman’s wife, Kim,
but I hear them anyway,
hear the way Mama’s voice drops down.
He has his good days. And then he’s someone else.
And then it’s him again.
Day to day, I don’t know which Zachariah I’m getting.
Hear Kim cluck her tongue, say
Um-hmmm and I hear you and Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry.
Sightman’s one of the lucky ones, Kim says.
But every time I turn around, seems another player
is struggling like Zachariah.
I stare out over the yard,
trying not to think about Kim’s words.
When the ball was still made of pigskin
all those years ago, did players still
hurt like this? Did their brains get messed up
like this? Did they come back from over the hill
or stay on the other side?