I HAD GONE to Hunters Point for practice after Thomas and Cantor had left my office.
Cantor couldn’t have been in my office for more than a minute. But I’d gotten the same feeling I’d gotten before when he was in my presence—a certain attraction to the cool vibe he gave off, almost like he was playing a part. But I was wary of him at the same time. As if he had something on me. Or Thomas. Or all of us.
As if he was just waiting for one of us to make a mistake.
But once I was on the field with my high school players, I was back at my safe place, practicing them even harder than usual, almost as if I was more worried about losing my edge than I was about them losing theirs. And we could all see the work paying off, could see that they were playing better than they thought they would when they found out they were going to have a woman coaching them.
The best part of it was that the kids hadn’t lost a game yet.
No, I thought.
That isn’t quite right.
The very best part of it was that every afternoon of the school week, and then on Saturday afternoon, I got to remember what football was like without constant drama. It was what my whole life used to be like without constant drama.
When I left school after practice, I went straight home, thinking this would be another night when I ate dinner alone. Occasionally my neighbor and friend Rashida would invite me over. But most times I would cook for one or lean on Uber Eats and look at Ryan Morrissey’s game plan, the draft reports, or the grades the assistant coaches were giving the Wolves players week by week, sometimes even from practice to practice.
But on this night, on the spur of the moment, I decided to surprise my mother—maybe have an early dinner with her, act like a better daughter to her than the mother she’d been to me. I didn’t know whose side she was on right now, mine or Danny and Jack’s. Probably theirs. But I knew from experience that it was better to have her on mine, if I could somehow get her there.
Maybe I’d even splurge and take her to Venticello, on Taylor Street, my favorite Italian restaurant in the neighborhood.
It was six thirty by the time I made it across town to the big, complicated, unhappy home in which I had grown up. I had just pulled around the corner of Sacramento and Jones, hoping to find a parking space in front of the house, knowing that the garage would have my mother’s car in it as well as the housekeeper’s.
I was making my way slowly up Jones when I saw our front door open and John Gallo walk out.
And I slammed on the brakes, just far enough from the house to ensure that there was no way they could spot me as I pulled up next to a double-parked SUV.
I sat and watched then as John Gallo took my mother’s hand and kissed it. They stood there, just a few feet apart, until he turned around and headed down the walk. She watched him go, leaning against the door frame, as beautiful and imperious as ever. Even from this distance, I could see her smiling.
Smiling at John Gallo.
Elise Wolf stood there until Gallo’s driver got out and opened the back door to his Mercedes. I ducked down behind my steering wheel as the car went past me.
I’d gone there thinking I’d surprise her tonight. Only it had turned out to be the other way around.
And I had maybe found out whose side Elise Wolf was on after all.