“Not as long as you keep trying to outrun your mistakes. Dad, what happened to Tommy back home was an accident.”

“Didn’t you just call it one of my mistakes?”

“Stop it. I won’t hear that talk anymore. It wasn’t your fault. I knew it. Everyone knew it. The only one blaming you for Tommy dying is you.” She came around the table and knelt at his side. “Dad, God rest Tommy’s soul, but it’s over. It’s behind us. He’s in a better place. What matters now is now. And right now you’ve got a game to coach—a game that only you can win. I stayed with the team last night at the Butlers’ house. I’ve seen what they can still do. Your team, Dad. They played better than I’ve ever seen them. You must have pounded those plays in well, because they remember them even in death.”

He shook his head. “It’s crazy.”

“Of course it’s crazy. This whole place is crazy. So what’s holding you back?”

“Fear.”

“Of what?”

“Of seeing more boys hurt on my watch.”

“Dad, it’s football. It’s a contact sport.”

“Basketball is a contact sport. Football is a hitting sport.”

“They’re dead, Dad, they can’t feel pain.”

“Who’s to say they won’t try and eat me the way they did Thedford Blunt?”

“Well, they seem to listen to Cole. They’ve shown no sign of hostility toward him yet. Seeing as how you’re the only other surviving member of the team, I don’t see why they wouldn’t extend you the same courtesy. It’s a risk we’ll just have to take.”

“Who’s to say they won’t eat their opponents?”

“All the more reason they need a good coach, Dad—some firm discipline.”

“I’m not kidding, Savannah.”

“Neither am I.”

“Why does all this mean so much to you?”

“Because I know it means so much to you. If you want to pack up and leave the game for good, that’s fine. In fact, you’d have my blessing. But finish what you started here. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to those boys’ parents. Remember, at the end of all this, they’ve still lost their sons. The players deserve to taste victory, Dad, district-level victory, one time … if only for a few moments. And you’re the only one who can give it to them. So what do you think, Coach?”

He gnawed the inside of his cheek, his eyes staring intently at the table before him. Minutes passed before he finally looked up. “Well, I don’t think we’ll get a yard on the Badgers unless we put the squeeze on their front men and spread out their secondary.”

Savannah smiled. She came to her feet and kissed her father on the forehead. “I love you, Dad.”