Lucas’s mom tried to call Gramps when Lucas told her what had happened at the gym. Gramps didn’t answer his phone. That wasn’t unusual. Gramps had finally given in and purchased a cell phone, but he preferred talking on the landline at his apartment.
She was sent to voice mail on his cell. She got the answering machine at his apartment.
“He really didn’t talk all the way home?” Lucas’s mom said.
Lucas shook his head.
“He said they called him Joe?”
“Yes.”
“But didn’t explain why?”
“No.”
They were in his mom’s room. She was up there reading when Gramps dropped off Lucas. Now he was sitting on the end of his mom’s bed. He still had the picture of Joe and Tommy in his hand.
“Gramps was Joe,” he said. “Now he’s Sam.” He groaned. “I really do wish I’d never started asking questions in the first place.”
“Now the genie is out of the bottle,” she said. “And I’m not exactly sure how we get it back inside.”
“If I had dropped this when Gramps asked me to,” Lucas said, “none of this would have happened.”
“Sometimes not giving up has consequences,” his mom said.
“I know,” Lucas said. It came out of him like a groan. “I feel like going to my room and doing a deep dive under the covers and just wait for this to be over.”
She patted the space next to her on the bed. Lucas went and sat there. She put her arm around him. “It doesn’t seem like it right now,” she said. “But this will all work itself out.”
“I feel like I’m about to mess up our whole season,” he said.
“You know that’s not going to happen,” she said. “Basketball is too important to both of you. Let’s just give him some room to breathe. When’s your next practice?”
“Thursday,” he said. “And you wait and see. I won’t see Gramps until then. I’ll bet you anything he doesn’t come to dinner tomorrow night, either.”
“You give yourself some room to breathe, too,” she said. “Go watch a game. Read a book. Do some writing. Let’s see what happens at practice. Maybe I’ll go with you if you’re worried about things being too awkward. We’ll all get through this together.”
Gramps wasn’t at practice Thursday night. Mrs. Moretti, who’d been away doing some alumni work for the UConn women’s basketball program, told Lucas and his teammates that Gramps had called her that afternoon and asked if she’d mind taking over for him.
Ryan poked Lucas and whispered, “Did you know this was going to happen?”
“Nope.” Lucas turned to Ryan’s mom and said, “Did Gramps say anything about not feeling well? He never misses a practice.”
“He didn’t,” Jen Moretti said. “Just said he had some personal business to take care of.”
“Did he say what kind?” Lucas said.
“I actually thought you might know,” she said, grinning, “since neither one of you seems to make a move without the other one knowing.”
“No idea,” Lucas said. “He didn’t mention anything to my mom or to me.”
Gramps hadn’t said anything to either one of them, because he hadn’t returned any calls since Tuesday night.
When Mrs. Moretti dropped him off after practice, Lucas told his mom about Gramps not being at practice.
She immediately pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and tried to call Gramps again.
“Voice mail.”
Then she hit a few more keys on her phone and shook her head and said, “Answering machine.”
“We should drive over there and make sure he’s okay,” Lucas said.
Julia motioned for Lucas to pump the brakes.
“He was fine when he called Jen,” she said. “Maybe he just wants some of that space we talked about. And let’s be honest, if he wanted to talk to us right now he’d be talking to us, because there’s nothing stopping him.”
“Except being stubborn,” Lucas said, then added, “Stubborn as me.”
“We don’t know the whole story,” she said.
“And don’t know if Dad knew.”
“Your dad and I never kept many secrets from each other,” she said. “So if he was keeping one about Gramps, he must have had his reasons.”
“You think Gramps will ever tell us the whole story?” Lucas said.
“I know you don’t want to hear this,” she said. “But he might not.”
“And you know what?” Lucas said. “I’d be okay with that, no lie.”
“All you did was ask a question,” his mom said. “I hardly think that question is going to ruin your whole season, especially not with the kind of team you guys have.”
“I just want things to be the way they were,” Lucas said.
“We all want that sometimes,” she said.
He went upstairs to write. Not what he didn’t know about Gramps, but what he did about Mr. Collins. He didn’t think he’d be able to focus on his writing. But he was. For a little while, he did what Gramps was always telling him to do:
Eliminate the noise.
Lucas had spent some time with Mr. Collins the day before, asking him questions about his past, about how he came to love reading and writing, what made him want to be a teacher, why teaching English had become his passion.
It was almost bedtime when Lucas closed his laptop. Thought he might leave some time to work on his basketball journal, but he’d do that tomorrow. Maybe he’d have a better idea what to put in there when he knew more about what was going on with Coach Gramps.
But what was going on?
Lucas felt as if the more he knew the less he knew.
What he did know was this:
There was a lot going on in his life.
An awful lot.