I have a problem.
I work on Sunday.
I try not to do that. 

I’ve been trying not to work on Sundays for my entire adult life. But, it’s a five-day gig with my favorite client, so I said yes. 

Also, I didn’t think I had to work until 5pm. So, timing-wise, it’d be ok. Just barely. 

But, as it turns out, I have to meet the lead instructor at the storage unit to get the gear and load it in before 5pm. 

This is going to be a problem.

Because it cuts right into game time.

Kick-off is at 1pm.

And I don’t miss games. Ever. Not even when my grandparents would schedule family brunches on Sundays and explicitly tell us we couldn’t check the score of the game at the table. Which is fine, because—conveniently—I’d always have to pee a couple times during those brunches and I’d always have to take my purse with me, just in case. I’m a lady, after all. You never know when you might need a tampon.

Or need to check the score of the football game while peeing in a bathroom stall at a nice restaurant in northern Virginia. 

So, I don’t miss games.

Which is why I’m sitting on my couch the Wednesday before this work gig staring at an empty message field on my phone, trying to get up the courage to ask the lead instructor for what I want. 

I have another problem:
I really don’t want to be unprofessional.

And another:
I’ve never worked with this person before. I don’t know how he likes to do things.

And one more:
He’s a retired Navy SEAL. DEVGRU. These guys usually like things done in a particular way. Their way. 

My ex-husband retired from the military too. He hated any time I changed a plan, even a little.

Turns out I have a lot of problems.

I stare at the message field. 

Fuck it, I think.

In the text box, I introduce myself. I ask, as professionally as I can, if we can be loaded in before 1pm. I tell him I’m a huge Commanders fan and I’d hate to miss the game, if possible. 

I hit send and immediately question my decision to do this. I should have just waited for him to reach out and done whatever he asked. I’m the assistant, after all. He’s the boss.

Within minutes a little “HaHa” bubble appears next to my text.

Then three grey dots. 

“Love it,” he replies. “We can work around the game for sure.”

Holy shit. This is amazing.

I heart his message and send my own: “Are you laughing at me for stating my needs and preferences? I’m very stressed about this.”

“Nope, I’m so down,” he replies.

I invite him to join me.

He—Danny—says he’d love to.

—

When I met my ex-husband he was stationed in Hawaii and I lived in Maryland. 

Cautious about breaking my two dating rules—no military and no long-distance—I decided I needed to go visit him, to see if what I was feeling was real. 

“Mom, I think he’s the one,” I told her the weekend after we had met.

He offered to pay for my flight.

“There’s no way I’m letting a man pay for my ticket,” I said to my best friend. 

So we split it.

When I walked into his apartment, the first thing I did was check his closet for dead bodies, just in case he was a serial killer and I didn’t know. Then I started to unpack. I took my toiletries bag into his bathroom and saw his toothbrush sitting in a Redskins cup. I put my toiletries down and walked out of the room. He was sitting on his bed. 

“Did you put that cup there just because you knew I was coming?” I asked. 

“No,” he said. “It’s always been that way. I’ve always put my toothbrush in that cup.”

It might’ve been that moment when I fell in love with him. 

I’d visit him in Hawaii two more times before he got into a program that brought him back to the DC area. One of those times, I stayed on island for six weeks, over Christmas—a major perk of working for yourself.

On game day we’d set our alarm for 5:45am. We’d roll out of bed, change real fast, and hop in the car to go watch the game at a bar. They opened early. Kick-off was at seven. 

I never missed games.

We’d sidle up to the bar and order coffees, Bloody Marys, and omelets. 

One particular Sunday we walked in and found our usual spot. Nautical decor hung from the ceiling. Out the window you could see the bright morning sky. Palm trees swayed in the gentle winter breeze. My heart was already racing.

It was the 2013 NFC Wildcard game against the Seattle Seahawks and we always lose to the fucking Seahawks when it matters. Tensions were high. I had a couple Bloody Marys before switching to beer—something light. It was Hawaii and Sam Adams Octoberfest—my traditional season-starting beverage of choice—was off the taps, as always, this late in the season.

As the fourth quarter approached, I turned my hat inside out—a tradition I picked up from the seasons I tried to be a Mets fan when I lived in New York City. I believed in order to claim a place as home you had to be a fan of at least one sports team from there, and fuck the Yankees. And the Giants.

We were seven points down with just over six minutes left in the game. We had possession of the ball. Our quarterback, RGIII, had been playing most of the game with a bum knee. Doing well, so far, but looking a little rough.

There’s a photo of me after what happens next. Elbows on the bar, head in my hands, Redskins cap on backwards and inside out. I couldn’t watch as our QB somehow managed to walk himself off the field.

We lost the game.

My boyfriend was very concerned for my wellbeing.

Fucking Seahawks.

He’d propose later that year. “I want you on my team forever,” he said.

At our wedding, we cut our wedding cake to Hail to the Redskins.

—

I toss on my jeans, my old Redskins fleece jacket, grab my bag, and meet Danny at the storage unit. We load the gear into our cars. We drive to the site, unload the gear, and meet with the client who wanted to speak with us about some things. By this time it was past one o’clock—kick-off. I see Danny glance at the clock.

I tried to be nice. Professional. “Should we set the stuff up now?” I ask.

“No,” he says. “The game’s already started. We can do it after dinner. You gotta go. C’mon.”

I stare at him.

—

When I was a kid, my aunt drove a white Honda Accord with burgundy interior. The license plate had her initials on it along with the number “44,” for John Riggins—her favorite Redskin of all time. She took me to my first game—a pre-season game against the Miami Dolphins, at RFK. It was loud. The stadium shook. There was an entire room in her townhouse that was filled with Redskins memorabilia.

One of the earliest memories I have is standing in a family friend’s basement. 

It was very late, way past my bed time. The grown-ups were partying. The basement had carpeted floors and a large brown sectional couch. The TV—large, boxy, grainy—was centered at my eye-level. I was the only kid there. It was very cold outside but I was wearing a T-shirt my aunt gave me. It was burgundy with gold lettering that said, “I root for two teams: the Redskins and whoever’s playing Dallas.” 

“Fuck Dallas,” was the only time I was allowed to say fuck in my house.

We won the Super Bowl that night.

Decades later, I’d marry a man who also grew up hating Dallas. He bought me Redskins shirts for our first anniversary—cotton. We put burgundy and gold collars on our cat and dog. When we got stationed in Hawaii, we bought NFL Sunday Ticket and watched games on the couch with coffee and eggs. Every time the military brought us back to DC, we bought season tickets.

One game, as the team retreated to the locker room at halftime, we watched Terry McLaurin give one of his gloves to a kid in the front row of our section. The kid waved it in the air for almost the entire second half.

“Little Dude,” we called him.

We talked about Little Dude at every game after that. How much we loved that moment. How much we loved Terry.

—

Danny and I walk out of the building and down the street to a bar-meets-arcade place that I found on Apple Maps. It was the closest place to the venue that would be showing the game. I didn’t want to waste time driving or walking further than we had to.

I wouldn’t have chosen a place with arcade games if I didn’t have to. It reminded me of my ex—”The Fight That Ended It All,” as I refer to it. But, desperate times.

We find a long high-top table and take a seat next to each other so we can both see the screen. The waiter comes by and asks for our order. I stick with water. I’m not really drinking anymore.

While we wait, I remember The Fight.

I had walked into another arcade bar and found my husband sitting at the bar. The place was packed. Games rang and lights flashed and people laughed and my feet stuck to the floor a little as I walked toward him.

I tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. I asked why he wanted me there. Did he want me to take him home? 

He half-stood out of his chair. He got in my face. He yelled.

“Do you want me to come home?! What do you want, Alli?! What do you want?!”

I took a sharp breath in. The room around me spun—the lights, the sounds, the people.

And suddenly I was back at a Washington football game the year before. Third quarter. My husband was in my face and all I heard as the stadium slipped out of my vision and turned and twisted around me was, “You want attention? How’s this? I’ll give you attention.”

I got up to go to the bathroom. In the stall my heart hammered in my chest. I peed. I flushed. I pulled up my pants and checked my pockets. I had my ID, my phone, my credit card, my keys. I stepped out of the stall. I washed my shaking hands.

I did not return to our seats.

I headed to the exit.

“If I leave, can I come back in?” I asked the security guard at the gate.

“No,” he said.

I panicked.

I had to leave.

But I couldn’t leave the game.

I do not miss games.

I watched the rest of the game on the small TV by the exit. I texted my husband and told him I’d meet him there.

The morning after the arcade bar, my husband and I fought.

The next day he told me we had problems in our marriage: trust, communication, sex, finances. And he didn’t think he wanted to work on it.

He was done.

—

At this arcade bar, Danny asks if I want to share some french fries.

The answer is always yes. I would always like to share some french fries.

So we order them.

While we wait for the food to arrive, I find myself staring at the game and sharing and sharing—how long I’ve worked for the company, how I got involved, how long I was married, that I’m divorced, that I kissed a married guy and on and on—a total unbroken disclosure, interrupted only by my own “c’mon”s and “he was totally out”s and “that’s total bullshit”s. I barely take my eyes off the game.

Then I stop talking.

I look over at Danny. He’s been watching me.

“I’m really sorry,” I say. “I don’t know why I shared all that.”

I turn back toward the TV.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m a safe person.”

I look at him. I look down at the fries. I take one and pop it in my mouth and turn my attention back to the TV.

—

Before I met my husband and the military made us, I moved a lot. 

I went to college in Baltimore—when the Ravens won the Super Bowl—convinced every Ravens fan was a fair-weather Redskins fan. I moved to Los Angeles and met a guy on a TV set that I’d have sex with a few times. He was an Eagles fan—a dangerous choice. 

Because of the team. 

Not the sex. 

I moved back to DC and dated a Giants fan. I bought us tickets to a game—his team vs. mine, on my home turf—and stashed the tickets in the hip band of my thong. When he grabbed my hips, I whispered, “Surprise.” 

A Giants fan, slightly less offensive than fucking a fucking Eagles fan. 

I moved to New York—the land of Giants fans, who had the audacity to win a Super Bowl while I lived there. 

But at least it was against the Patriots.

I worked on a show with a Chiefs fan—long before the era of Reid and Mahomes and Kelce—so he understood my pain. We’d meet at a bar to watch our respective teams lose, then go home together afterward. We’d have incredible sex, he’d make me stir-fry for dinner, and we’d watch The Wire.

Never have I ever made out with a Dallas fan.

During my final year of grad school in New York, my classmate Andy and I were watching a game together for the first time. 

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Alli,” he said, “but in all our years together I always thought you were a Redskins fan just so you could be, like, “I like football” to get guys or whatever.”

I stared at him, insulted. 

“Andy,” I said, “If I was trying to like football to get guys there’s no fucking way I’d choose to be a Redskins fan. No one chooses to be a Redskins fan. You’re born into it.”

I turned back to the TV and took a sip of my Oktoberfest.

Everywhere I lived, I’d find them—on the subway, at parties, sitting at bars across the country in burgundy and gold—little bits of home finding me wherever I was.

I’d smile and say, “You’re from DC!”

I knew they’d always say yes, because no one would choose to be a Redskins fan.

But no one is actually from DC, so we’d get into the nitty-gritty: Maryland or Virginia? Where’d you go to school? 

“Maybe this year will be our year,” we’d always say.

—

I woke up on a Sunday morning in October, after The Fight, alone in bed as I had for the last month since my husband decided to start sleeping in the guest room. I walked downstairs and found him lying on the couch, a blanket pulled over his head, our dog lying next to him. 

He stirred.

“Hey…” I said.

“Hey,” he said, and pulled the blanket down to reveal his face.

He looked so sad.
I felt so sad.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

He shook his head no.

“I don’t think I can go to the game today,” he said. We had season tickets.

“OK,” I replied.

“I want to go to the aquarium.”

The aquarium. His happy place, with the fish. He loves fish.

“I feel so bad,” he said.

I told him it’s ok, he should go. 

“What are you going to do?” he asked me.

“I don’t know.”

I wondered if I could get someone else to go to the game with me at the last minute. I couldn’t think of anyone. I couldn’t think of much.

I made myself some coffee, some breakfast. He got dressed and headed to the aquarium.

I sat alone on our couch and thought, If he is going to divorce me, I’m going to have to be able to go to a game by myself. I cannot give this up.

I looked at the time. It was late. Just an hour before kick-off. I got up, let our dog out, ran upstairs and changed into jeans and a Commanders shirt. I put on my shoes, walked out the door, and went to the game by myself

That year, we made it to the NFC Championship game for the first time in over 30 years. I woke up that January morning alone in our townhouse. The month before, my husband told me he wanted a divorce. He had moved out. He was sure.

I made a cup of coffee and drank it from a mug printed with the front page of The Washington Post from the morning after we won the Super Bowl—the last time we had made it this far. The night I stood in a basement in my “I root for two teams” T-shirt.

I posted a photo of the mug on Instagram.

“LFG!!!” the caption said.

Later that morning, I put on jeans and a new Commanders sweatshirt my family had given me for Christmas—my first Christmas as a soon-to-be single person.

I drove an hour to my friends Sarah and Adam’s house. Adam and I had gone to middle school and high school together. His sister was one of my closest friends, then. We had reconnected just months before, after their father died. From cancer. 

I had never been to Adam and Sarah’s house. I had never hung out with Sarah. I had never met their kids.

I walked in and it was chaos.

“Drinks are here, food is there,” Sarah said. She told me the jersey she was wearing was good luck. “Superstition about sports runs deep in this house.”

Everyone was in burgundy and gold.

Five adults. Six kids. Seven dogs. One large TV on the wall with the game on.

I sat at one end of the couch. Nervous. Sad. But also excited.

Our team had made it.

Our team.

I looked around.

A family, I thought.

And I was welcome.

—-

At the bar, as the game winds down and our food is cleared, Danny turns to me and says, “Wait, how long have you been divorced?”

“Depends what you count,” I say. “Finalized? About three and half months. Told me he wanted a divorce? Just over nine. ”

He looks at me and says gently, “That’s nothing, Alli. You don’t even know who you are yet.” 

I stare at him. How did he know? 

“I guess that’s true,” I reply.

Then I look up at the game on the TV.

At least there’s always been this, I think.

—

After my divorce was finalized, I couldn’t afford season tickets. I got a subscription to Hulu and if I wasn’t at Adam and Sarah’s, I watched the games at home alone on my couch.

Towards the end of that football season, I was diagnosed with cancer.

After many months of treatment I found myself in the pavilion of the cancer center where I went, having coffee with a contact from the philanthropy department that I had been introduced to months before. He was also a therapist.

“I’m not very good at this,” I said to him, “But I’m going to ask you for…”

“For what you need?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m going to ask you for what I want.”

He smiled.

“Do you do anything with the Commanders?” I asked. “I don’t qualify for Salute to Service anymore, but can you get me tickets to a game in October? For Crucial Catch?”

He didn’t.

He got me tickets to the Commanders home opener. Twenty eight rows back from the field, at the 50-yard line. With exclusive access to the premier club—free food, free drinks. And free parking. 

We were playing the Seattle Seahawks.

“I got you four tickets,” he said. “Do you have people to go with you?”

I sure did.

—

As Sarah, two of her boys, and I take our seats, we talk about the weekend before.

We had stood in Katie’s living room staring at the TV, jaws dropped, as our quarterback was carted off the field after a terrible end-of-half play.

Not the first time we’d seen a scene like that.

And yet, here I am.

Here they are.

And here’s our team.

There has always been this.

We stand in the lightly falling rain as the game clock ticks down. Less than two minutes to go.

We look at each other, afraid to say out loud what we think might happen.

Maybe.

What maybe might happen.

When the clock ticks to zero, we scream and jump and high-five strangers and hug and scream some more.

And this time, we beat the fucking Seahawks.

 

---

 

If you liked this post, you may also like “Over or Under.”

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