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up there?” Mitchell asked.
    “Who?”
    “That guy up there.” Then, “Oops, he knows I caught him,” he told his dad. “He went back inside.”
    Joe figured it out; he’d heard how kids used imaginary characters to deal with stress. Mitchell must have invented this crazy game because of his mother’s absence. “I don’t know, son.” Best at this point to play along. “Of course he doesn’t live up there. He only sits up there during the games and keeps track of the teams and watches. He keeps score.”
    “He keeps track of
all
the teams?”
    “Yeah.”
    “So if I see him and you don’t, maybe he’s like an angel. Maybe he’s helping God,” Mitchell said. “Because he sits up high and keeps track of everything. Maybe that’s why I’m the only one who can see him.”
    “Yeah.” Joe had gotten somewhat distracted, looking for his wife in the crowd again. But he realized what he’d said and corrected himself. “No. Definitely
not
like an angel. Nothing to do with God. Because this is only a baseball game.”
    “You think he can see clear to the lake from up there?”
    “Who?”
    “That man up there. Does a guy stay in the scoreboard at every ballpark or just here? Does he make the clock run up there too?” (Which Joe might have answered, “No, Mitchell. The clock runs on its own. Each second takes care of itself. He doesn’t do that part.” But this barrage of questions overwhelmed him, and he didn’t know where to start.)
    “Does anybody ever see how he gets up there, Dad? Does he have a ladder? Does he have a trap door or something?”
    “You want to stop asking so many questions?” Joe removed Mitchell’s hat and punched it inside out to make it a rally cap; it seemed the Cubs always needed rally caps. “You’re giving me a headache.”
    Scores were being posted for every team playing that day. On the scoreboard, Joe noticed that the sign for the Marlins came in two pieces, Flori and da.
Somebody ought to make you take a class when you get to be a parent.
He had no idea what he ought to say. “And it isn’t heaven where he’s sitting, Mitchell. It’s just the scoreboard at Wrigley Field.”
    A passing vendor came by, clanging his cooler lid. “Water. There’s
water
here!” which started people passing dollar bills along the row. The bottles dripped cold on Joe’s knees as he passed them back. “You want water?” he asked Mitchell, but his son shook his head, looking unusually serious.
    “You sure?”
    “Yeah.”
    As soon as Joe settled into what was left of the game (he’d given up watching for Sarah any longer), Mitchell took off the paw. Joe looked down, surprised, when Mitchell grasped his hand.
    “What is it, buddy? What’s wrong?”
    “If that guy’s up there helping God,” the little boy said, “maybe he could help Mom show up for things too.”
    Mitchell’s words sent up an instant alarm. “I don’t know, kiddo.” Because to Joe, it seemed like nothing could ever change Sarah. Because he hadn’t wanted Mitchell to sense how bad things had gotten between them. It exhausted Joe, having to pretend that all was well for Mitchell’s sake.
    He needed to talk to Sarah, to give her some ultimatum, to make her understand how hopeless and overwhelmed he was beginning to feel. And if there was anything that made Joe more nervous than Mitchell asking all these questions, it was Mitchell asking all these questions about God.
    Joe didn’t want to stand here with his son chitchatting about the spiritual well-being of the world. Joe had gotten dragged to church way too often back when he was a kid. He’d listened to all the same stories Mitchell listened to and, with that same simple logic, had believed them.
    All that had changed now. Even though he and Sarah still attended services at their popular church in Lake Forest, Joe knew his adult convictions weren’t much to brag about. He had a hard time taking all this “relationship with God” stuff to heart. You