Saskia

She brought the thermos full of water to every soccer game she played. She would let its plastic body bounce against her leg, swinging from its handle, as she walked across the field before the match. She would take long sips from it at every opportunity, savoring the grippy feel of the plastic against her palms.
### Her father gave it to her. For good luck, he said. But she never wondered where he got it, even though it was very old.
### One afternoon, sweaty and red-faced after a game, she looked up at her father, cast in shadow by the sun behind his head, and asked him where the thermos came from.
### He cleared his throat and looked at the ground. "Good game, sweetie," was all he said.
### For a second the smell of past cigarette smoke seemed to hang in the air, with the charged feeling of a poker game and an expensive raffle ticket.
### Then the girl's father took her hand and led her away across the soccer field.