Higher Dad! Higher! yells my son. Genuflect to the earth, arm coiled, wrist cocked-- I fling the chewed old tennis ball high above the Norfolk pines, soaring, high, higher, high as a hope.
I can still wing it, goddamnit. My shoulder aches from it, goddamnit. He is on that disappearing dot, drifting, back, back, over just a bit… Now it grows, yellow again, hurtling. And with the slightest lunge at the end, he takes it with still soft hands. Eight years old.