Page 79 of Sportsball is for Lovers

A little girl—maybe three or four years old—stares at us.

“Aunt Sadie! What are you doing?”

“Hi.” She waves awkwardly at the kids. “I didn’t know this was a playroom.”

The kids descend on the toys in the corner. The preteen pulls out a phone and drops onto the beanbag chair.

Her sister sneers. “I’m sure.”

Tamar. That’s it. Even though I didn’t study the family tree, I’ve heard enough from both Sadie and Yoni to know this is the bitchy sister. She seems to take it personally that Sadie is out living her best life while she’s trapped in a life she hates.

It doesn’t help that for a while, they lived together when Sadie first moved to Boston. Tamar went to Newton State College in the Boston suburbs and moved to the city after graduation. Sadie managed to share a space with her older sister for six whole weeks before she moved out of the condo their parents had bought and into a sketchy share house on the bad side of town.

Tamar took it personally. Even when she moved back to Scottsdale a few months later, for whatever reason, she maintained the grudge. Even now, she’s cold and aloof.

Sadie squeezes my hand. “We should go.”

“Yeah, that’s probably best,” Tamar snipes.

I roll my eyes. Her tangible frustration is adorably petty. If she would just let it go like Elsa, she would be so much happier.

Standing, I straighten my clothes as Sadie does the same, then immediately reach for her hand.

Her hand is shaking. I squeeze, and she relaxes, letting me lead. The kids are ignoring us, more absorbed by the toys than by any grown-up drama.

As we descend the giant staircase, I can feel eyes on us. Sadie seems to shrink, hiding behind me. I keep my hold on her firm and sure. I’m not going to back out. I’m not going to change my mind.

The strong, vibrant woman I’ve known the last few weeks is nowhere to be found. It’s devastating that her family has such a stronghold on her. They don’t deserve her. They don’t treat her well.

Still, I can’t fault her for not giving them up quite yet. When they’re all she’s ever known, when all the media she consumes tells her they’re the only ones who are going to love her, when everything points to a lifetime of just barely having her needs met…

It makes sense. A deeper part of her recognizes her parents will never love her the way she wants, so she writes happily ever afters where the families do treat their loved ones that way. She thought she’d never find a romantic partner of her own, so she writes love stories to experience some of their love, too.

I’ll spend the rest of my life proving to her that she is worthy of love. Yoni, her friends… it won’t be hard to convince them. We love her. We want the best for her—the actual best, not just the perfunctory mediocre baseline her family is partial to.