Sandra lost her husband, Oliver, and became depressed, but a young cop from a local precinct started visiting her, although she had no idea why. One day, she walked him to his squad car and saw an old baseball cap on the back, which triggered a memory. She ran into her house, searched for an old yearbook, and discovered the truth that had been eluding her.
“Thank you for coming here today. It’s been 15 years since my husband’s death, and this day is just as hard. It never gets less painful,” Sandra thanked the young cop, Sam, who had started coming over every day for the last year after he saw her crying outside a supermarket. He dried her tears, comforted her, cooked food, and talked to her so she wouldn’t be alone. He had become her only solace during her worst days, but there was one mystery: why did he care? But she wouldn’t ask, as the company felt nice.
“Mrs. Ferris, I’m telling you. Everything will get better if you go back to teaching. You’ve been away from classrooms long enough,” the officer said as they exited her house. Sandra accompanied him to his car, and Sam again decided to discuss this issue.
She had told him about being a teacher and loving it. However, she quit after becoming a widow so unexpectedly.
Fifteen years had passed, and she had no idea if she could return to teaching. “I don’t think the school will hire me again, young man,” Sandra joked, adding humor to deflect the subject.
“You can get those caps everywhere,” Sandra thought, shaking her head, as she stared at the picture in the yearbook.
“Another excuse. I’m going to convince you to go back one day,” Sam promised, grinning. They reached his car, and he got on the driver’s side. He opened the passenger seat window so Sandra could lean in.
“I don’t know about that, but again, thank you for checking on me. It’s pretty kind of you,” she said, and her attention was drawn to something on the seat. It was a worn-out baseball cap. There was something familiar about it, although she couldn’t recall why just yet.
“Ok, I’ll see you tomorrow, Mrs. Ferris,” Sam said, starting the car. She leaned back and waved goodbye as he drove off. The image of the cap was planted in her mind for some reason. It was a generic cap from the state baseball team. Why would it be important?
A thought suddenly popped up. The cap alone was not significant, but the cap in Sam’s car was a different story. An image came to mind: a boy in her class wearing that same cap. A boy she hadn’t heard of or seen in 15 years.
She stomped her feet on her grass lawn as she rushed back into the house and went directly to her office. She kept some of her old yearbooks and photos in there.
Sandra started taking each one off the shelf desperately and discarding them when it wasn’t the right one. Finally, she found it.
Back then, she was a science teacher for 5th graders, and one student, Stan, was her favorite. He came from a sad background. His parents abandoned him and left the country, leaving his grandfather to raise him. But the man was older and couldn’t do much with him.
Sandra often invited Stan over to her house for dinner, and that’s how Stan met Oliver, her husband. They bonded over their love of baseball. Oliver bought Stan a cap, which the boy used every day to school since then. The hat looked awfully similar to the one in Sam’s car but older with age.
“You can get those caps everywhere,” Sandra thought, shaking her head as she stared at the picture of Stan in the yearbook. She refused to believe it. Stan couldn’t use the cap in the solo shots, but he snuck it in the class photos, and as Sandra stared closely at the kid’s goofy smile, she had the answer to the question she didn’t dare ask.
Fifteen years ago, Oliver invited Stan to see their favorite baseball team play at a local stadium in Seattle. It was the kid’s first time going to something like that, and they were both excited. Oliver and Sandra didn’t have children, so Stan had become incredibly close to them. But that night… every changed.
It started raining after the game, and Oliver’s car swerved, and the worst happened. Stan made it, but Oliver didn’t.
Sandra was inconsolable after. She quit, talked to no one, and kept to herself after her crushing loss. Most days, she didn’t get out of her bed.
Years later, she heard that Stan and his grandfather moved away shortly after the accident to start fresh because the kid felt guilty about it. Sandra never blamed him. It wasn’t his fault. Still, she hoped for the best for him.
Now she knew he was doing well. Because Stan was Sam.
***
The following day, when Sam came over, she showed him the yearbook right away, and his chagrin confirmed her suspicion.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t totally honest, Mrs. Ferris,” he said, scratching his head. “I didn’t know how to tell you who I really was, mostly because I still feel like it’s my fault.”
Sandra shook her head, and they sat and talked for hours and hours. She assured Sam it wasn’t his fault. That it was an accident.
She asked him about his life, and he revealed that his name wasn’t really Sam. He had changed it because his father had the same name, and he didn’t want anything to do with him. He changed his full name to honor his grandfather instead. Then he became a cop because he wanted to help others.
By the time Sam left, Sandra’s heart felt lighter. It was like something had cleared in her soul after seeing little Stan again, who she and Oliver treated like their own child. She went back into her office and stared at the yearbooks, perusing them again.
Suddenly, the itch to teach was back, so she called the school the next day to ask for her job again. They were only too pleased to have her back.
“I told you so,” Sam said after Sandra told him she was returning to teaching. They both laughed and knew they would be in each other’s lives for a long time.