Michelle says it’s too fuckin’ bad about Alex, but he’s not her kid. Momma starts screaming, “Don’t cuss at me,” and, “I am your mother,” and Michelle starts yelling, “I’m getting out of this shithole,” and they yell at each other like that all the way upstairs. Then some doors slam.

When Momma comes back to the kitchen she tells Alex he will go to the stadium with her because there will be no one at home to watch him and he’s too little to be by himself in a big house all day. “It’s like when you watched the Ducks with me.” Usually Grandpa would watch him when she was working, but when he couldn’t or wouldn’t because he and Momma were fighting she brought Alex to the stadium and said he was a volunteer from the Cub Scouts. Mostly the ticket people believed her, but one game it didn’t work; the ticket person asked to see his ticket, which he didn’t have, so Momma left Alex in the car with the car keys and told him to sit there the whole game. She said to hide in the back if anyone came looking because they might try to steal him and the car and then what would they do? If you’re cold turn on the heater, Momma said, because it was rainy and cold that day. You remember how to do that? And Alex nodded because he did. Good. Be careful, she said, and kissed him on the top of his head and then watched him lock the doors. Sitting in the car, Alex could tell when Oregon scored because it was so loud the whole stadium shook and the parking lot shook, too, and the hula dancer that Momma stuck to the Buick’s dashboard started swaying. Then the game was over and Momma was knocking on the window looking scared until he sat up and let her in. He’d fallen asleep on the floor of the back seat, a space that wasn’t big enough for an adult and wasn’t even big enough for Michelle but it was plenty big for Alex. Oh, honey, you scared me, Momma said, and, I couldn’t see you, and, It’s cold outside, how’d it get so hot in here? He’d turned on the heater, he said, just like she told him to.

Now it’s Friday and Alex is up early. Alex and Momma give Michelle hugs and wish her good luck on her test and Momma apologizes for what she said at dinner about Michelle being too smart for her own good. Then they drive to the stadium. There are hardly any other cars in the lot so they park close to the entrance in a section marked PLAYERS ONLY. “You ready, sugar?” Momma asks, and Alex nods because he can’t wait to go inside to see the field made of a river made of salt. He wants to find the talking stick, too, but Momma tells him it is hidden out past the outfield so good no one can find it. Alex says he bets her a million dollars he can find it and she says, “Deal.”