“Or maybe tell a teammate something the man had waited sixty years to hear,” Lucas’s mom said.

“You want to know the truth?” Gramps said to both of them. “Telling Tommy I forgave him was more important for me to say than for him to hear, if you can believe it.”

“I can believe it,” Lucas said.

Then he asked his grandfather if he wanted to coach the Wolves in the championship game.

“Sounds like you boys did just fine without me,” Gramps said.

“You always say what’s right is right,” Lucas told him. “It would be right for you to coach.”

“Probably doesn’t matter what we think is right,” Gramps said. “I figure they don’t want me. I figure they were just waiting for me to come back, if I came back, so they could tell me to my face that I was fired.”

They were standing by the front door by then. Gramps had his coat on, and his Celtics cap back on his head.

“But if they don’t fire you,” Lucas said, “you’d want to coach, wouldn’t you?”

“Would you want me to?” Gramps said.

The word was out of his mouth before Lucas knew it, almost as if it came out on its own.

“Yes,” he said.

“Guess that’s something I’ve been waiting to hear,” he said.

“They still might want to let you go, Sam,” Julia said.

“Not like I haven’t been let go before,” he said.

“But you’re not quitting,” Lucas said.

“I told you before,” his grandfather said. “I might screw up all over the place. But I don’t quit.”

He put his hand on the doorknob and started to open it, and then stopped, as if one last thing had occurred to him.

“You ever wonder how I came up with Winston as my new last name?” he said to Lucas and his mom.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” Lucas’s mom said.

“I borrowed it from old Winston Churchill,” he said. “I know you think I only read up on basketball history, Lucas, but I like to read about all kinds of history. And what I know about Mr. Churchill is that he got knocked down plenty of times in his life, especially when he was young. But England couldn’t keep the man down. If they had, he wouldn’t have been around when they needed him to save the whole darn country during World War II.”

Gramps winked at them then, and nodded.

“He said one time that he wore his defeats like medals,” Gramps said. “Said he learned more from them than he ever did from his victories.” He nodded again. “I always kind of liked that one,” he said.

He walked out to his car. But a minute later, he came back.