We crawled to the hotel and our plush beds after the game. Quinn, asleep since the ninth inning, curled pup-like around his exhausted big brother. I watched them sleep the day’s dramas away and hoped I could do the same, especially now that I wouldn’t be replacing them with new dramas in the shower.
Adam and I collapsed into our bed, careful not to touch toes.
Rather than hit the road immediately the next morning, we decided to hit the National Zoo for Take Two on Family Fun. I wanted to replace the image of me acting like a big ape the day before with that of a real ape scratching his bald butt. The zoo was a huge success. We didn’t rush around trying to see everything, but managed to hit the highlights at a leisurely pace and emerged a few hours later, happy and fulfilled.
The kids talked ball and panda bears for weeks after as Adam and I nursed our wounds. We talked in that quiet raw way one talks in grief. Had we picked up on war vibes at the back door of the White House? Guess the peace-protestor vibes linger out front. We slept not touching toes.
A month after our trip, I filed our photos into an album. Looking at the pictures, the meltdown was now a minor blip on a great long weekend. When Adam reached the self-portraits of miserable me at the baseball game, we laughed …
and laughed …
and cried …
and laughed …
and touched toes.
