Close To The Tree

"Is that a black eye?"

"No," said my youngest.

"Yes it is," I said. "How'd you do that?"

"Remember when I slept over at M.'s house two nights ago? You drove us over there and on the way you were asking him about basketball and then we were talking about the time a couple years ago we played that one team and he tried to make a shot from the corner and his dad yelled at him and then he said he could have made it anyway and then his dad yelled at him some more?"

I already regretted this conversation. "What are you talking about?" I demanded.

"After you dropped us at his house we ate dinner and played with the dogs for a while."

"The dogs gave you a black eye?" I asked.

"No."

"Then why are you telling me about them?"

"Don't be stupid," said the boy.

"Sorry," I said.

"After we played with the dogs we went outside to play baseball."

"You got hit with a baseball?"

"I told you to stop being stupid," he said.

"Sorry," I repeated.

"We couldn't find a baseball. So we were going to play with a tennis ball. But we couldn't find one of those either."

"What did you do instead?" I asked, long past the point of actually caring.

"We used a basketball."

"Oh, you got hit with the basketball."

"No, M. pitched the basketball to me," he continued. "When I swung at it, the bat bounced back and hit me in the eye."

"You hit yourself in the head with a baseball bat?" I asked.

"Sort of," he said.

"And I'm stupid?"

"Yes," he said.

"Okay, then," I said.