Thomas ran down on the fast break and dumped a pass off to Paul Williams. Terry Zobel was open to score, but before he could shoot, the referee blew the whistle and threw the yellow flag. Freddie Friednash, a middie on Thomas’s team, was sent off for a one-minute slashing penalty. The fathers in the corner had a group conniption: “Are you kidding me, ref?” “Bad call!” “You gotta be blind!” “That’s BS!” “Call them both ways, ref!”

The coaches caught on and started in too. Even Freddie, who had been jogging off at a brisk pace, slowed and shook his head at the referee. More parents joined the chorus of complaints—the herd mentality in action.

“Did you see the slash?” Corinne asked.

“I wasn’t looking over there.”

Becky Evans, Tripp’s wife, came over and said, “Hi, Adam. Hi, Corinne.”

Because of the penalty, the ball was in the defensive zone now, far away from Thomas, so they both glanced toward her, returning the smile. Becky Evans, mother of five, was almost supernaturally cheerful, always with a smile and a kind word. Adam was usually suspicious of the type. He liked to watch these happy moms for the unguarded moment, when the smile would falter or grow wooden, and for the most part, he always found it. But not with Becky. You constantly saw her cruising the kids around in her Dodge Durango, the smile alit, the backseats loaded up with kids and gear, and while these mundane tasks eventually wore down most in her maternal order, Becky Evans seemed to feed off it, to gain strength even.

Corinne said, “Hi, Becky.”

“Great weather for a game, isn’t it?”

“Sure is,” Adam said, because that was what you said.

The whistle blew again—another slashing call on the away team. The fathers went nuts anew, even swearing. Adam frowned at their behavior but stayed silent. Did that make him part of the problem? He was surprised to see that the jeers were being led by the bespectacled Cal Gottesman. Cal, whose son Eric was a quickly improving defenseman, worked as an insurance salesman in Parsippany. Adam had always found him to be mild-mannered and well-meaning, if not somewhat didactic and dull, but Adam had also noticed of late that Cal Gottesman’s behavior had grown increasingly odd in direct proportion to his son’s improvement. Eric had grown six inches in the last year and was now a starting defender. Colleges were buzzing around him, and now Cal, who had been so reserved on the sidelines, could often be seen pacing and talking to himself.

Becky leaned in closer. “Did you hear about Richard Fee?”

Richard Fee was the team goalie.

“He’s committed to Boston College.”

“But he’s only a freshman,” Corinne said.

“I know, right? I mean, are they going to start drafting them out of the womb?”

“It’s ridiculous,” Corinne agreed. “How do they know what kind of student he’s going to be? He just got into high school.”

Becky and Corinne continued, but Adam was already tuning them out. They didn’t seem to care, so Adam dutifully took this as his cue to leave the ladies and maybe stand by himself for a bit. He gave Becky a quick cheek peck and started on his way. Becky and Corinne had known each other since childhood. They had both been born in Cedarfield. Becky had never left the town.

Corinne had not been so lucky.

Adam moved toward a spot halfway between the moms and the dads in the corner, hoping to carve out a little space for himself. He glanced over at the group of fathers. Tripp Evans met his eye and nodded as though he understood. Tripp probably didn’t want the crowd either, but he was the guy who drew it. Local celebrity, Adam thought. Deal with it.

When the horn blew, ending the first quarter, Adam looked back toward his wife. She was chatting away with Becky, both women animated. He just stared for a moment, lost and scared. He knew Corinne so well. He knew everything about her. And paradoxically, because he knew her so well, he knew that what the stranger had told him had the echo of truth.

What will we do to protect our family?

The horn sounded, and the players took the field. Every parent now checked to see whether his or her kid was still in the game. Thomas was. Becky continued to talk. Corinne quieted now, nodding along, but she kept her focus on Thomas. Corinne was good with focus. Adam had originally loved that quality in his wife. Corinne knew what she wanted from life, and she could laser in on the goals that would help achieve it. When they met, Adam had fuzzy future plans at best—something about working with the underserved and downtrodden—but he had no specifics about where he wanted to live or what kind of life he wanted to lead or how to form that life or that nuclear family. It was all vast and vague to him—and here, in stark contrast, was this spectacular, beautiful, intelligent woman who knew exactly what they both should do.

There was a freedom in that surrender.

It was then, thinking about the decisions (or lack thereof) he had made to get him to this point in life, when Thomas got the ball behind the goal, faked a pass down the middle, drove to the right, cranked back his stick, and shot a beauty low and in the corner.

Goal.

The fathers and mothers cheered. Thomas’s teammates came over and congratulated him, slapping him good-naturedly on the helmet. His son stayed calm, following that old adage “Act like you’ve been there.” But even at this distance, even through his son’s face mask, even behind the mouth guard, Adam knew that Thomas, his oldest child, was smiling, that he was happy, that it was Adam’s job as a father, first and foremost, to keep that boy and his brother smiling and happy and safe.

What would he do to keep his boys happy and safe?

Anything.

But it wasn’t all about what you’d do or sacrifice, was it? Life was also about luck, about randomness, about chaos. So he could and would do whatever was possible to protect his children. But he somehow knew—knew with absolute certainty—that it wouldn’t be enough, that luck, randomness, and chaos had other plans, that the happiness and safety were going to dissolve in the still springtime air.

Chapter 7

Thomas ended up scoring his second goal—the game winner!—with fewer than twenty seconds on the clock.

This was the hypocrisy in Adam’s cynicism about the overly intense sports world: Despite everything, when Thomas scored that final goal, Adam leapt in the air, pumped his fist, and shouted, “Yes!” Like it or not, he felt a rush of pure, undiluted joy. His better angels would say that it had nothing to do with Adam himself, that the joy emanated from the knowledge that his son was feeling even greater joy, and that it was natural and healthy for a parent to feel that way for his own child. Adam reminded himself that he was not one of those parents who lived through his kids or looked at lacrosse as a ticket to a better college. He enjoyed the sport for one simple reason: His sons loved playing.