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Bobby saw the splatter of sauce on her hand. "You okay?"

"I'm just fine," she answered, brushing off his concern as she rushed out of the kitchen. Her footsteps disappeared down the foyer.

At the kitchen table, Christopher had his arm deep into a box of crackers, intently watching the television, depositing one cracker after the other into his mouth like coins into a piggy bank. In the dining room, his father placed the utensils methodically, solemnly. Bobby figured that he, too, would have preferred to be somewhere else.

Clouds of steam rose from a pot of boiling water, while next to it, bubbles broke the surface of a pan of Alfredo sauce. Bobby put down the dishes and opened the refrigerator, wanting more than his usual ration of seltzer. As he reached for a can of Coke, he felt his father's firm hand on his shoulder.

"Solid win today. Should get you a good seed for the regions. Anything less than a second seed will be unacceptable."

His father had given this a lot of consideration. Too much. Bobby wanted to say,
How about a simple congratulations and leave it at that?

"You've got that single-mindedness I've been telling you to have all season," his father went on. "It's all Bobby Zane. It's got to be that way."

Bobby answered with a halfhearted nod.

Soon, the dining-room table was set—utensils placed and china plates centered in front of each chair. Bobby's mother came back into the kitchen, wearing a long-sleeved shirt, the same one she wore when working in the flower garden during the summer. She had combed her hair, Bobby noticed, but it didn't change the harried look on her face.

She turned the stove off. "I'll strain the pasta."

While his father sat at the head of the table, Bobby took a seat to his left and Christopher to his right. His mother took the chair at the opposite end of the table. For much of dinner, utensils clinked against the dishes and glasses, but otherwise, an anxious silence filled the dining room. His mother and father said little to each other, passing dishes back and forth more often than words.

"This is good," his father said, swallowing a mouthful of pasta. His voice had little emotion. Bobby's mother acknowledged him with hardly a nod, crushing a red pepper between her fingers and sprinkling it on her food.
They might as well be a thousand miles apart,
Bobby thought.
Probably be better for all of us.

"A shame Kenny lost," his father said, taking a sip of wine, then setting the glass down. "Anthony, too."

"They weren't ready," Bobby said. "I could tell."

After a half plate of fettuccine, Bobby set his fork down. His stomach had reached its limit. Though his hunger craved more, he couldn't force anything else down.

His mother gestured. "I hope you're finishing that."

"I'm done," Bobby said.

Her eyes narrowed. She, too, sat back. "Always starving yourself."

"No, I'm full."

"Well, there's a lot of food left," his mother said. "I worked too damn hard to let it all go to waste. Too hard."

Before Bobby could open his mouth, his father snapped, "We all did."

His mother looked up. "What's that mean?"

"You know what that means."

"No, tell me."

"It means we all helped out," his father said.

"Oh,
you
did?"

The dining room was instantly in a storm, and though these storms had become more regular, the speed at which this one hit was starding. Only a few hours earlier, Bobby had held his arms high, as Griffey lay flat on his back. An avalanche of cheers rushed over Bobby for those few fleeting moments, in front of his teammates, his hometown crowd, his family and friends, in his gymnasium. But it had been only a brief break from the winter-long foul weather.

The skies had closed again, reality rushing back. The black clouds of Carmelina's pregnancy from the east; his parents' rotted marriage, in a flash of wind and lightning, from the west. The two converging, raining down deception and bitter anger.

"Where'd you go last Thursday night, Robert?" his mother said, with a harsh laugh. "Come on, tell the boys."

His mother's challenge froze the table. His father held a tight smile. "I'm having dinner right now."

"I'm asking you."

"Let us eat, Maggie."

She slammed a plate down, shattering it into pieces. "I don't know where the hell you went!"

His father wiped his mouth with a napkin. "You're out of line with this one."

Through the shouting, Bobby heard the muffled cries of his little brother. He looked at Christopher, who sat in his chair, looking very scared.

Bobby put his hands up. "I'll eat, okay? I'll eat everything on the plate."

"No," his father said. "If you don't want to eat, don't eat."

Bobby jabbed his fork into the fettuccine, scooping the pasta sloppily into his mouth.

His mother smiled wickedly. "Where were you, Robert? Can't answer, can you?"

Christopher's head bobbed gently with each sob.

Bobby stared at his mother, his father. "Let's not go through this now," he said. "Not with Christopher—"

"No, Bobby, this is between your father and me."

"Drop it, Maggie," his father said. He sounded too even-keeled, oddly casual. He picked up his fork, lifted a few strands of fettuccine and twirled them, then guided the fork into his mouth.

"Who called before, Robert?"

His father didn't look up from his plate immediately.

"Who was on the phone?" she said louder. "I saw you pick up the phone. Tell me, who was on it?"

"No one. I told you the person hung up."

She shook her head. "I don't believe you for one goddamn minute. Who was it?"

"Someone hung up. That's the end of it."

"Maybe it was Carmelina," Bobby interrupted. "You know she hates calling here and having someone else answer. I bet it was her."

His mother smirked and shook her head. "Oh, no, it wasn't Carmelina. She called just when I got home. No, this was someone else. Robert, are you going to answer to our family?"

Bobby threw down his fork, the loud clank stopping both his parents from speaking another word. He hid his face in his hands. The muscles in his neck ached, and he was confused and too tired to face the fighting anymore. For a few moments, there was a tense quiet again.

Then Bobby raised his head. His tone was powerful. "Christopher and me are done with dinner. We're getting up from the table. Going upstairs. And getting away from this insanity."

With that, Bobby stood up from the table, tall and unflinching, not unlike his posture before the championship match that afternoon. Without looking at either of his parents, he held his hand out for his little brother. "Come on."

Christopher wiped away the tears and scooted off the chair. He held on to Bobby's hand tightly as they walked out of the dining room, through the kitchen and foyer, then up the stairs. In silence.

Bobby waited for his parents to say something, to yell at him for getting up from the table, or at each other for driving him from the table. But his mother and father said nothing, nor did Bobby hear plates being stacked, glasses being collected, or the faucet running. Maybe they just sat there, forced to face each other, no more games to play Bobby chose to imagine them that way. That made for a better truth.

And while he held Christopher in his arms as they thumbed through comic books together in his bedroom, the silence remained.

Ivan stepped out of the Nova and watched his father walk to the mailbox at the end of the driveway. His father pulled out a handful of envelopes, most of which, Ivan knew, were letters from college coaches. We're this. We're that. We're the best. They all said the same things.
Have one coach write the letter,
Ivan thought,
and let the others sign their names at the bottom. It'd save a lot of time and paper.
For Ivan, the only envelope that meant anything would come with an Arizona postmark. And, as Coach Riker had told him, that wouldn't come until the end of April.

"We will go through these later," his father said. "For now, you will enjoy your victory.
We
will enjoy your victory."

Patches of soiled ice and snow dotted the front yard. Soon, these last signs of winter would disappear. Along the edging of the driveway, his father suddenly stopped and knelt down, dark blue work pants pulling taut over his thighs. "Too many stones."

His thick, scarred fingers picked at the pebbles that had spilled onto the lawn from the crush of the Nova's tires. Ivan wondered why his father would be concerned. If the two of them had worked for hours at removing the pebbles, they
might
have made a noticeable difference. Why now? Many questions about his father remained unanswered. For the time being, however, with the districts quietly behind him, Ivan didn't care about the answers.

"Papa, I'll rake later."

Perhaps what he said made sense. His father picked a few more pebbles, then slapped his hands free of dirt. Ivan reached out to help him stand.

"I am okay," his father said, a grimace on his weathered face. "I am not an athlete like you. Imagine if I had to do those moves you do."

"Bet you coulda when you were my age."

"No, you are special. You are a champion."

And he was. District champ for the fourth time, most-valuable wrestler for the second year in a row—both Lennings records. But neither meant much to Ivan. "I should've pinned that guy in the finals faster."

"He was a good wrestler," his father said. "Just because you pin a boy does not mean he is no good. You were not nervous, were you?"

"Nervous?" Ivan said. "
No.
"

"It is good to be nervous. Nervous means you are alive. Nervous means something is important to you."

Ivan looked at him, oddly.

"You do not believe me. But you should. I know about nervous." He stopped at the walkway, letting Ivan settle under his arm. "How about sausage for dinner, with peppers that make you cry and onions as big as grapefruits? That is what men eat."

Ivan walked with his father up the front porch steps. The paint along the door frame was chipping. His father stopped to pick away a few curled flakes, dropping them to the porch floor. Always doing some kind of work on the house, but never catching up.

"When I was young, I thought I would run around this world, my own man. Alone. Like a conqueror." He paused and smiled. "Then I met your mama. She changed me. Made me a better man." The craggy features of his eyes and wrinkled cheeks smoothed.

"I was nervous when your mama and I married. And I was most nervous when you were born. You were so little in my arms. But I felt as alive as I would ever feel." He turned the key and pushed through the door. "And that is when the hard work began."

"When?"

"With you." He shrugged off his jacket.

"I wasn't hard work. Was I?"

"As you are now. Like this old house. Always a lot of work, never finished. Are you coming in?"

"Wait a second, Papa," Ivan said. "I'll be there."

Ivan, still standing on the front steps, pulled the front door closed and looked across Farmingdale at the Peter-sons' house. Their car sat in the same spot it had earlier this morning, but there was no sign of Shelley. They hadn't spoken in four days, longer than any time in their lives. Would she be mad forever? Would she continue to make him pay for that single mistake?

Behind Ivan, the front door opened and his father stepped out. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Come inside, then. We will eat."

Ivan took a last look at Shelley's window, wishing with all his heart that she saw him and felt his apology. He had searched for her after his finals match, but she had left the gym before he could find her. Wind blew across Ivan's face, drying his eyes. He blinked, but his eyes wouldn't stray from her window. Then, finally, he went inside.

His gym bag slung over his shoulder, Bobby pulled his jacket tight across his body and trudged up the walkway, toward the house. Lights were on, he noticed vaguely, consumed with thoughts about the weekend's region tournament and his top seeding. At the driveway, Bobby stopped. Oddly, his father's Jaguar was parked there, not in the garage. He started toward the back door of the house, when something in the car caught his eye. He looked closely. There was luggage—two pieces, maybe three—and overcoats were draped over the front seat. Boxes of law books were stacked in the back.

Bobby ran to the back door and bolted inside to the kitchen. "Hello?" he called out, sensing uneasiness in the house.

He listened; upstairs, his father was talking. To Christopher, he could tell. Bobby walked in farther and could see into the family room, where his mother was huddled on the couch, staring off somewhere faraway. A place Bobby could only guess.

"I'll be there Friday night." His father stood in front of Bobby in the kitchen. His eyes were bloodshot, his shoulders sloped. "And Saturday, too." He strained a smile, as if waiting for Bobby's response. "You know I'll be there to watch you win, right? You understand that. You understand that, right?"

"Sure, Dad," Bobby said, not really knowing what he was saying.

His father reached out to hug him. "You have to be strong, Bobby. This is your time. This weekend. And next."

His father's eyes were welling up. It was the first time Bobby had seen that. Their embrace released a pain that had overwhelmed Bobby. And he started to tear, thinking of one thing.

Betrayal.

An ugly word. And yet it was an intimate part of Bobby's world, explaining the mountain of anger he now had for his parents and what they had brought upon his family. All his life, they had taught "family this" and "family that."
What the hell's it all mean now?

He had been duped. Tricked. Told the biggest he in the world. What had once been pleasant memories, memories that defined his family, were no longer. Now they were painful. And if Bobby dwelled on them long enough, stomach wrenching. Worst of all, there was nothing he could do about any of it. He felt isolated, alone.
All you can control is yourself,
he had told himself. Now he even doubted that.