Robbie stands at the edge of the light behind the softball diamond. His tongue snatches a line of sweaty mucus from beneath his nose. On the other side of the old backstop the lights abuse the infield with a harsh white that dims into the nether reaches of the outfield. That is where the grass is growing damp and where his stepfather, Lance, will soon send the ball.

Robbie glows in the light through the mesh while behind him an elongated shadow stretches across the street almost touching his mother where she sits beneath a streetlamp in her car. He turns to look as she drops a cigarette out the open window. The smoke billows around her head in the still night air.

The crowd in the bleachers on the home side stands and begins to chant: Lance, Lance, Lance. Robbie steps closer, threads his fingers through the wires in the backstop as Lance approaches, measures the bat against home plate. Two fierce practice swings foreshadow the homerun he will garner for Village Farm and Home.

The crowd falls silent as the pitcher takes his spot on the mound. Behind him Robbie hears his mother call, Robbie, Robbie! It’s time to go. He begins to run to the car then stops in the middle of the street and turns again to the diamond. Lance, obviously one strike down, pounds the plate, glances back toward Robbie, smiles and points his bat at him as if to say this is for you Robbie.

Get the hell in the car, his mother yells, almost beside him. She grabs as much of his crew cut as she can, opens the back door and pushes him in head first. Robbie sits up, rolls down the window and leans out until he sees Lance still at the plate. An obvious second strike has him staring at the mound.

The car jerks as the transmission clunks into gear. Can’t we wait, mom? He asks. Damnit no, Robbie, she says, we won’t make grandpa’s until eleven as it is and he’ll be pissed if we have to wake him. The streetlamp casts a shadow off the high edge of her cheekbone reflected in the side mirror. He catches her chin lifting, her eyebrows rising as she looks toward the diamond. She closes her eyes and he holds his breath. She swallows. Roll up your window, she says over her shoulder.

The car eases out of its parking spot onto Main Street, picking up speed. The sound of Lance’s bat on the ball is dull and uncertain but the roar of the crowd sneaks through the sliver still open at the top of his window. Robbie sits back in the seat. The back of his mother’s head reflects the shadows moving through the car as they drive out of the light.