Caleb nodded.
Hayes smiled. “Sounds like you did the same thing.”
“What you did wasn’t a game.”
Caleb didn’t speak.
His eyes filled before mine did.
Hayes reached into a bag and pulled out a pair of gloves.
The gloves he’d worn during his final home game.
He signed one.
Then he handed them to Caleb.
“Sounds like you did the same thing.”
“These are yours.”
Caleb stared.
“I can’t take those. They’re your last-game gloves.”
“I know. I want you to have them.”
For months, Caleb had been measuring his life by everything the accident had taken away.
Now the player he admired most was putting a piece of the game he loved back into his hands.
“These are yours.”
Caleb held them against his chest.
Hayes said quietly, “Keep going back for your people, okay?”
Caleb nodded.
***
That night, Caleb asked me to hang Hayes’s gloves beneath the old jersey beside his bed.
