Million Dollar Throw

Nate, his mom, and Abby are at a SportStuff, his favorite sporting goods store. Nate has just turned 13 and as a gift, his mom and dad are paying for half of a collectible football signed by Nate’s favorite athlete, Tom Brady. The football costs $500, and Nate is paying for the other half with money he has been saving for a year: “Nate was smart enough about collectibles to know that this wasn’t the only signed football from Brady in the world. He knew from asking the man at the store that this particular ball was part of a new ‘limited edition’ from Brady, and it came with a certificate of authenticity” (7).

The fact that his parents are paying for half of the price of the football is significant considering that they are barely able to pay their bills right now. Since Nate’s dad lost his lucrative job, he’s been working two jobs to get by, and Nate barely sees him anymore. Nate thinks back to one of the most memorable Patriots games in his life:

He didn’t understand everything that was happening in the game, didn’t understand everything the announcers were saying, no matter how patient his dad had been at explaining things. Nate just understood in his heart that there was magic in the room that night, not just because he was getting to stay up later than he ever had to watch the ending of a game, but because he was sharing this night and this ending and this one amazing football game with his dad (10).

Nate buys the signed Brady football, and Abby signs Nate up for the chance to make “‘The SportStuff Million-Dollar Throw’ […] the chance to make one throw—from thirty yards away, through a twenty-inch hole—at halftime of the Patriot’s Thanksgiving night game against the Colts” (12). On the day of the drawing, Nate watches the TV to see that the numbers on his are called, meaning he has won the chance at the million-dollar throw.

Nate winning the drawing has brought him local recognition: “Suddenly Nate was famous, at least as famous as a thirteen-year-old from Valley, Massachusetts, could be” (15). Nate and his friends are watching a special news story about him on SportsCenter. According to Nate’s friend Pete, gaining the attention of SportsCenter “is as fresh as it gets” (15). Nate thinks: “It didn’t matter what age you were or what sport you played, being on SportsCenter was like having every sports fan in America going to your Facebook page” (16).

Nate’s male friends leave, but Abby stays for dinner. She starts drawing, one of her favorite things to do, and Nate thinks about how she is “good at just about everything. She was the smartest kid and the prettiest girl in the eighth grade in Valley—not that Nate would ever say the pretty part out loud, to her or to anyone else. But she was the best at drawing” (18). Abby is going blind, and she seems to fervently draw and paint lately, as if she’s trying to get it all in before she can’t see anymore.

Nate remembers the first time “he had known there was a problem with Abby’s eyes. It was a year ago, and they’d decided to go to the movies on a Saturday afternoon in the summer even though most of the guys had gone over to the public pool at Coppo Park” (24). Nate and Abby were trying to walk down the dimly lit aisle, but she stopped because suddenly she couldn’t see where she was going. She brushed it off back then, but looking back, Nate realizes: “Only now he knew that was the real start of it, everything that was happening to her, and there was nothing anybody could do to stop it” (26).

After the movie theatre incident, Abby’s sight begins rapidly failing. She starts bumping into things and is extremely sensitive to light; she’s supposed to wear special glasses to filter the sunlight, but she doesn’t wear them often because she thinks they make her look silly. She keeps a positive attitude about it, even telling Nate: “Sometimes I feel like I’m painting better than I ever have” (27). However, this outlook makes him angry because he doesn’t understand why such an unfortunate thing could happen to such a good person.

Abby has “retinitis pigmentosa,” and there isn’t a cure, which essentially means that that she will eventually go blind; but the disease is progressing much quicker than it should be. Despite this, Abby remains Nate’s number one fan, acting as if “the only thing in the world that mattered was Nate making his throw” (28). One day after school they go to their favorite Coppo Park and play catch with a football. 

Nate says that he’ll only play catch with Abby if she wears her special sunglasses. She reluctantly agrees since they’re the only two people around. At first Abby catches Nate’s throws with no problem, but after a while she trips, and the ball knocks the glasses off her head. He immediately says sorry and helps her up, and she says, “Thanks, Brady […] For putting me in the game one more time”(36), implying that her sight is fading so rapidly she doesn’t think she’ll get any more chances to play catch with Nate again.

Nate's relationship with his father has changed for the worse, and the emotional distance between them quietly weighs on the teen:

There were times when Nate could actually trick himself into thinking things were the same as they’d always been with his dad. At least, when his dad was around. They would sit at the kitchen table and talk about last Sunday’s Patriots game, unless it was time to start looking ahead to next Sunday’s game (37).

His dad lights up when talking about football but jokes about how it’s “a good thing nobody was rating him on how he was selling real estate” (38). Nate’s dad seems to talk more about finances than anything else. Nate’s dad isn’t usually home for dinner anymore. However, on this night he is, and after eating they go to Coppo Park to throw the football. This is something Nate and his dad have always done: “On nights like these, Nate’s dad would laugh and act as if he didn’t have a care in the world” (38). Nate’s dad used to play football, so the game has always been a point of bonding for them.

On the nights that Nate’s dad worked until late into the night, the next mornings “there would be no conversation about sports or anything else at the kitchen table because his dad would already be at the tiny office he kept for Brodie Real Estate” (39). After visiting his dad’s office, Nate realized “that Brodie Real Estate was only his dad and that his ‘office’ was a desk and a telephone and a small window looking out on Elm Street” (39). His dad tries to comfort Nate by saying that things will turn around soon, and Nate hopes he’s right because their home is for sale and it’s the only home Nate has ever known.

One night, Nate wakes up to his parents arguing about money. Nate’s dad is almost yelling, saying how he hopes someone buys their house before it’s foreclosed on. His mom says to be quiet so that Nate doesn’t hear, but his dad says, “Do you think he doesn’t understand what’s going on around here? Do you think the boy doesn’t see what’s happening to us? Do you think he actually believes us when we tell him not to worry about money? He’s too smart for that” (41). Then his dad says that they could sure use that million dollars, and Nate feels anxious.