So for now at least everybody’s there—Dad, Mom, Granma, me, like a normal family. It feels weird seeing him again, especially since I’m covered in sweat. I don’t want to hug him and get stains on his suit. But he waits for Mom to let go of me and then he hugs me, too.

“I’m sorry we lost,” I say into his shirt. “It was my fault.”

“Nothing’s your fault. You played as hard as you could.”

Pete has walked away. His dad is this real Texan-looking guy, with super-clean blue jeans and sunglasses on a string around his neck—I think he’s a dentist. His mom is there, too. She has the kind of hair where every hair is exactly where she wants it to be, and you feel like, don’t touch. Next to them, Pete just looks like a kid. Mabley says hi to his parents, but Pete just wants to leave, and Mabley has no one to talk to—she wanders back to us.

“Who’s this?” my dad says, so I say, “This is Mabley; she lives next door,” and Mabley says, “I thought Ben played great. You must be proud.” She’s good at talking to grown-ups; at least, she says the kinds of things they like to hear. But she also looks basically like a crazy person, with her face covered in paint, in orange and black like a hornet; the colors have run together.

Mom has her purse out—she’s trying to wipe the mascara off her cheeks. Maybe she also wants to give us a little space. Maybe she also wants to look nice for Dad; at least, less like an emotional wreck. Granma is just kind of standing around, like she doesn’t want to get in the way of our reunion. When she’s tired, I notice, sometimes she rubs her swollen hand, like it hurts. The game is over, there’s really nothing to do. Everybody’s waiting for somebody to say, I guess we should go, but then I remember Mr. Tomski. A lot of kids are going home in their uniforms, they’re leaving with their parents, but I still have to get everything together—the balls and towels and water bottles, and the practice uniforms and everything else.

So I say to my dad, “I’ve got to do something,” and just . . . I just leave. I walk over to the bench on the other side of the court, by the scorer’s table, and start picking stuff up.

Mr. Tomski is there. He’s talking to one of the parents, but then he sees me. “I can do that, Ben. It’s all right.”

“That’s okay, it’s my job.”

He sort of looks at me, and I sort of look at him. I wonder if he’s thinking, “That’s his dad over there,” but I don’t want to say anything about it. And I kind of feel sorry for him, too. After my mother shouted at him, in front of all those people. I feel like . . . in a funny way I feel like . . . I’m going to miss him, even though he’s right there—as if something has changed, or is going to.