The Pyramid of Summers

Arthur stood before the glass case, his reflection ghosting over the pyramid of baseballs inside—thirty-two spheres of white leather and red stitching, each one a summer preserved in amber. At seventy-eight, he didn't run much anymore. His knees had called that particular activity quits a decade ago, and he'd been wise enough to listen.

"Still admiring your temple of sport, Grandpa?" Sarah's voice came from behind him. His granddaughter, now thirty-two herself, with her own daughter clutching her hand.

"It's not a temple," Arthur smiled, turning slowly. "It's evidence."

The little girl, Emma, pressed her nose against the glass. "What kind of evidence?"

"Evidence that your great-grandfather once swung a bat with something approaching competence." Arthur's eyes twinkled. "See that one on the third row? The one with the grass stain that never washed out? That was the day I hit a triple and thought I'd invented running itself. Could've outrun the wind that afternoon, or at least that's how I remember it."

Sarah laughed. "Uncle Joe says you were barely jogging."

"Uncle Joe," Arthur said with mock severity, "has forgotten the magic of selective memory. A grandfather's prerogative."

Emma pointed at the topmost baseball, faded and cracked. "What about that one?"

"That," Arthur said softly, "was your father's first hit. He was seven. Kept swinging until the sun went down, and when he finally connected, he stood there crying instead of running to first base. Said he didn't want to leave home plate."

He'd kept that baseball—Amy's baseball, she'd been gone six years now—because sometimes love is just standing still while the rest of the world rushes past.

"Mom says we're moving," Emma announced suddenly. "To Chicago."

The pyramid blurred. Arthur blinked.

"Well," he said, "you'll need this, then." He reached into his pocket and pressed a key into her small palm. "The case stays here. But the third row—that grass-stained triple—that's yours now."

Emma looked at the key, then at the pyramid. "Really?"

"Really. Because the thing about pyramids," Arthur said, "is they were always meant to be climbed—one story at a time, one generation reaching higher."