What the hell, let him deal with it.

“Come on, Tommy! Clean stroke! Good at bat!”

Stepping back into the batter’s box, he shoots me a glare. Also a grin, like he knows Mom can’t help herself.

The pitcher, a husky kid who looks as if he’s been taking steroids—hasn’t, I’m sure, but he has that beefy look—peers in for the sign, flings back his arm and delivers the ball. Not exactly a fastball—I’m guessing 70 mph or so on his dad’s radar gun—but straight and true and heading right for the catcher’s mitt.

Tommy steps into the pitch with his bat level, swinging slightly up, and bonk! He’s made contact. The ball carries over the short-stop’s outstretched glove and rolls all the way out to where the left fielder waits, then scoops it up. Drops the ball, gets it again, makes a wobbly throw to the cutoff. Cutoff drops the ball but keeps it in front of him, very good. By which time Tommy is sliding into second—an unnecessary act of daring, but the boy loves to get his uniform dirty—and the winning run has crossed the plate.

Pandemonium. Our players throw their gloves in the air, letting out war whoops and girlish cheers, and Fred Corso, our bullnecked manager—he’s also the Fairfax County sheriff—punches his fist in the air and then strides out of our cinderblock dugout.

“Yes! Way to go, Tomas! Good hit, son!”

I keep forgetting, Tommy wants to be called Tomas now. Probably hasn’t reminded me more than a million times in the last two weeks, but good old Fred has remembered. Feeling a little chastened, and resisting the impulse to run out on the field and give my boy a hug, I remind his excited teammates that it’s time to line up and shake hands. Congratulate the opposing team, the Fairfax Red Sox, on a game well played.

We’re trying to instill sportsmanship and doing a pretty fair job of it, if I do say so myself. The losers look sheepish, slapping five without much enthusiasm, but everyone is polite and they get the job done.

I catch Tommy from behind and lift the hat off his head. Give his raven-black hair a scoodge—his word—and face him, grinning. “Nice going, Tommy! You really smacked it!”

“Thanks, Mom.” But he’s already backing away, afraid I’ll spoil his moment of manly triumph with a kiss. Then he stops, sidles up next to me, looking deeply serious. “You know what, Mom?”

“What?”

“I think I deserve an ice-cream sundae.”

I fork out the necessary money and he runs off to the snack trailer, which is parked next to the field for the games. Runs by Karen Gavner and her husband, Jake, who have twin girls on the team. Not especially gifted athletes, but good kids. Connecticut blondes, both of ’em, and studying to be heartbreakers. I’ve seen the way they look at Tommy, but if he’s discovered girls he hasn’t let me know about it. Which he might not, come to think of it.

“Meet me at the van!” I shout at his back.

He acknowledges with a bob of his head and then vanishes into the milling crowd of parents and players, high-fiving as he goes.

And that’s the last I see of him.

2 in my chair

The hated minivan. My poor Dodge Caravan has recently become the object of Tommy’s scorn. Am I not ashamed to be seen in the pathetic “Mini-Vee,” as Tommy calls it? What does it tell the world about me, to drive such a totally boring car? Actually, his phrase is “hideously boring,” not totally boring. Totally was last year’s favorite modifier. Everything is hideous now. Just the other day he ticked off all the reasons I should trade in the hideous Mini-Vee for a really cool Mini-Cee. Of course I bite. “Mini-Cee,” it turns out, is Tommy-talk for Mini Cooper.

“You mean that funny little car?” I asked him. “The one at the circus where all the clowns get out?”

“It’s made by BMW, Mom,” he informed me. “It’s not funny looking. It’s way cool. It would look good on us, trust me.”

It would look good on us. Where did that come from, the idea of a car as a fashion accessory? Of course I know exactly where it comes from. TV, Internet, magazines, the neighborhood, in roughly that order. Beemers and Audis and Mercs are the vehicles of choice in our part of the world, but I’m aware of the Mini Coopers that Tommy so admires, because there are two of them just down the street, prominently displayed in the Parker-Foyles’ driveway. His and hers, color coordinated.

“No chance,” I told him. “Put it out of your mind. I’m a Caravan kind of girl.”

At which point his eyes rolled so high I thought they might get stuck in the back of his head. And that makes me laugh in recollection. Hey, I remember being embarrassed about the car my mother drove, too. My mother’s stodgy old Ford Fairlane station wagon, how embarrassing. And shame on me for thinking so at the time.

So I lean against the van on a perfect summer evening, waiting for my son. Scanning the field and parking lot for Tommy. Not seeing him.

Waiting.

For the first few minutes I’m not terribly concerned. There’ll be a line at the snack trailer. Friends to talk to. More hands to slap, kudos to receive. But then traffic clears enough for me to see the snack trailer, and there’s Jake Gavner closing the window, shutting down—sold out, no doubt—and my mom radar is drawing an empty screen. Can’t seem to pick up Tommy. Did he run back into the school to use the boys’ room? Unlikely. We’re ten minutes or so from home and I happen to know Tommy prefers to use his own bathroom whenever possible.

So I’m trying not to act overly concerned as I walk over to the closed-up snack trailer and rap my fist on the back door.

“Yo!” from inside.

“Jake! It’s Kate Bickford.”

The door swings open and Jake is there, flashing a quizzical smile. Nice-looking man with slight rosacea on his cheeks and a comfortable paunch he never tries to hide. Great with kids—somehow he remembers all the names, and who belongs to who.

“Hey, Kate! Dogs are gone.”

“Excuse me?”

“Hot dogs. We’re out. No slumming for you today.”

He winks. For the life of me I can’t think why Jake Gavner would be winking at me, and then I get it. The hot-dog conversation. Couple of weeks ago I was starving and ordered a dog with extra kraut. As I chowed down, we chatted about comfort food. Joking around that if any of my customers saw me eating hot dogs I’d lose business. Either that or they’d be expecting cheap tinned sausages as appetizers at the gala banquets. Wasn’t exactly a scintillating conversation, come to think, but apparently something about it stuck with Jake.

“No, no, I’m fine,” I tell him. “By any chance, did you notice where Tommy went?”

“Tommy? Nope. You lose him?” He looks around sharply, eyeing the empty field, the near-empty parking lot.

“He came over to get an ice cream,” I tell him. “Chocolate with chocolate sauce, hold the nuts. Thought you might have noticed if he wandered off with some other kids.”

“Tommy, huh? Nope. No ice cream for Tommy, that I recall.”

“He never showed?”

“I’d remember, Kate. The kid won the game. I’d have comped him a sundae. Always do that for game winners, if they try to pay.”

“Really? That’s nice of you. Um, maybe Karen served him?”

He shakes his head. “I had the counter and the coolers. Karen was on the grill.”

“Is she around?”

“She took the extra coolers home. Got to get the stuff back in the freezer, you know?” Jake studies me, senses my anxiety. “Call her. Maybe she saw him. But he probably went home with somebody else, is my guess.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Thanks.”