The nets are torn and mostly gone. There is rust at each joint, the once bright white now bleeding brown. The one opposite, by the back fence, is twisted, stuck in mid-bow. This one, closer to the house, is upright, rigid, still waiting for the ball that no one has kicked for—is it ten years now? Ever since ankles started getting sprained from lightest kick—not once, not some quirk of fate to be remarked on, laughed about later after the swelling went down—over and over, and not just ankles; elbows and knees, too (hip once, crossing vacation sand); and more dislocations than we could count. So many that we for a time even tried—and failed—to banish laughter because a laugh was all it took to rip the bone out of his shoulder socket again. No surprise, then, that soccer stopped being played in this small backyard, which was once home to so many games and small excitements and goals. Before the countless tests and then, diagnosis. Maybe that is why they are still here, these accidental trellises for spreading ivy. Because the end of such games came too early and too painfully. To put them away then would have only brought more pain, would have said louder than any words: it’s over, the games, the play—that was before, this is after, a time of pain and loss—no more soccer, no more sports: name it, we’ll take it away. So, we left up these cheap fitted poles long after he outgrew them, long after we stopped noticing them. We left them so long they morphed into installation art. All that’s missing is the mission statement. Last week, my son left for college. I have too few and too many memories of this square of yard. If I think of it tomorrow, I will throw out these abandoned goals.
Nathaniel Lachenmeyer is an award-winning, disabled author of books for children and adults. His first book, The Outsider, takes as its subject his late father’s struggles with schizophrenia and homelessness. His most recent book is The Singing Rock & Other Brand-New Fairy Tales. Nathaniel lives outside Atlanta with his family.