We’ve played soccer in the front yard for countless hours. We’ve fired innumerable shots into our neighbors’ yards. We’ve retrieved every single ball, no matter where it’s gone. Until tonight. L’s shot went wide, sailed into the neighbors’ yard, rolled down the ditch, passed into the culvert, and disappeared, for his culvert doesn’t just pass under his driveway: it empties into a basin with another culvert and the drains into the creek behind our house. That basin is covered with an enormous concrete cover that we could not possibly move to retrieve the ball, so chances are, it’s gone.

That wouldn’t have been a big deal if it had been his old, beat-up, scratched, and scared ball. The ball we’ve kicked into the same neighbors’ yard countless times. But this was his new ball. His birthday gift ball. Which he got only on Friday.

He’s heartbroken about it.