Between worrying about Freddie, beginning to sketch out a Clarence royal foundation with Nick, placating Eleanor’s restlessness, and helping Lacey choose passed apps for her reception, I, at long last, had an extremely full plate. I have never been as grateful for baseball as when the postseason started and Eleanor could apply herself to the rigors of a multi-game series. Her Majesty actually changed her sleep schedule so she could be awake to cheer on the Cubs when they played, and hex the Red Sox, the Dodgers, and the Indians when they didn’t—basically, any team that wasn’t us that she thought looked good.

And improbably, impossibly, we did look good. Really good. We were the National League’s top seed. We took out the Giants. Booted the Dodgers. Made it into the World Series, and we hadn’t yet wet the bed. It sucked that Dad hadn’t lived long enough to experience this run, but it was also possible that the stress of it would have killed him if he had. Mom couldn’t watch; without my father’s booming asides, baseball was noise to her that woke up painful echoes. Lacey had enthusiastically accepted my updates, but preferred to gestate in Cambridge while I trudged over to Buckingham Palace at weird hours and then eventually maintained a guest room there for game nights and the subsequent mornings.

“I can’t believe I have to move in with my grandmother if I want to see you,” Nick said after we won game two. “Is this what people mean when they say they’re sports widows?”

“Yes,” I said. “And no offense, but I hope it becomes an annual problem.”

We promptly lost the next two games, both of which ended with me curled in the fetal position on the floor.

“I cannot believe you brought this idiotic team into my life,” Eleanor said, throwing the remote across her sitting room. “Wasting all that winning in August when they knew perfectly well they’d need it now. I’m finished. Forever.”

“Right,” I said. “Same time tomorrow night?”

“Be punctual,” she said. “I don’t want to miss your anthem. Everyone sings it so badly.”

I wasn’t, and we didn’t, and the guy from Staind did absolutely mangle the “The Star-Spangled Banner.” We won, and Queen Eleanor pointed at the sky in triumph while I, the Duchess of Clarence, screamed into a throw pillow that had probably once been leaned on by Queen Victoria herself. Either of them. When we took game six in Cleveland, I had to stack two cushions in front of my face during my yelling to avoid triggering a PPO panic.

Game seven. On the road. For all of it.