In Chap­ter Twen­ty of “If These Wings Could Fly,” the excite­ment of a crowd­ed foot­ball sta­di­um envelops the char­ac­ters, specif­i­cal­ly focus­ing on Leighton, Juniper, and their par­ents. Arriv­ing late, the fam­i­ly parks along the road due to the packed lot and makes their way to the game. Juniper eager­ly begs for fun­nel cakes, and after Mom grants her wish for just one treat, they find a spot to watch the game from the side­lines.

Sofia, a cheer­leader, notices Leighton and rush­es over, excit­ed to see her. They exchange pleas­antries, and Sofia asks Leighton for help track­ing play­er num­ber thir­ty-six, Liam McNa­ma­ra, whom she is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in. Leighton agrees but is inward­ly annoyed at being roped into cov­er­ing the game. As the game pro­gress­es, Leighton encoun­ters Campell, who joins her to help track Liam.

Fol­low­ing a few moments togeth­er, they part as Leighton makes her way up into the stands. From there, she spots Amelia, who warm­ly wel­comes her to join. The two share the expe­ri­ence of watch­ing the game, with Amelia cheer­ful­ly root­ing for Liam. Leighton finds her­self caught up in the thrill, feel­ing a rush when Liam scores a touch­down. Around them, the McNa­ma­ra fam­i­ly cheers for Liam, high­light­ing the impor­tance of famil­ial sup­port.

Sud­den­ly, the atmos­phere changes when Leighton notices her par­ents engaged in a tense con­ver­sa­tion with Mr. Dil­lard, which hints at under­ly­ing fam­i­ly issues, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing her father’s strug­gles with his con­struc­tion busi­ness and past regrets about foot­ball. The dynam­ic proves uncom­fort­able, espe­cial­ly as com­ments about her father’s knee injury sur­face.

Just as the ten­sion becomes pal­pa­ble, Bill DiMar­co, an acquain­tance of the fam­i­ly, arrives to break the ice. His pres­ence tem­porar­i­ly alle­vi­ates the strain, but the dis­com­fort remains large­ly unad­dressed. Mom’s efforts to steer the fam­i­ly away from the con­ver­sa­tion only trig­ger fur­ther anx­i­ety in Leighton. The chap­ter ulti­mate­ly cap­tures the con­trast between pub­lic cel­e­bra­tion and pri­vate tur­moil, as the fam­i­ly nav­i­gates the com­plex­i­ties of their rela­tion­ships against the back­drop of a live­ly foot­ball game.