Evenings like this....

I watch the landscape change as we drive home from dinner out.
It has been a nice evening, great food, a menu in English and I didn't stand out from the crowd.
We pass the sports complex.
Soft, green, manicured grass, lights on the softball field. Men, mid-thirties toss balls and kick up dust and slap each other on the back , "at-a-boys" abound. I see my husband glance over his shoulder, the lights reflecting in his eyes.
I know he wants those moments. On a field like that, on a night like this. I would be comfortable in the stands, I would fit right in to this....

We would walk back to the suburban after the game, camping chairs and kids in tow. He would recount each play, ask if I had seen him catch that fly-ball like a maniac. I would pat his sweaty back and say "yeah Babe, that was awesome!" We would smile. He would glory. The boys would sport-talk with Dad all the way home. He would revel. I would laugh.

After showers and kiddo bed-time and monogrammed Pottery Barn pillow-cases, we would lie in bed and small talk about our day, our "stuff". He would tell me about work, I'd remind him about upcoming dinner plans with friends. We'd talk about house renovation, maybe a vacation...we'd plot our course, navigate our way through the American Dream.

It is the life that will never be, the dream that merely passes through my mind on evenings like this.