“Or out with someone from the neighborhood,” I said. I regretted the words as soon as they hopped out, and even apologized, but it wasn’t too surprising that she wouldn’t let me talk to April.

“Any idea when she can come back to school?” I persisted. “The girls will want to know.”

“Then their mothers can call me and ask.”

“Even if I did bear a grudge after all these years, I wouldn’t take it out on your kid, Sandra,” I yelled, but she slammed the phone in my ear.

Oh, to hell with her. I put the car into gear, thinking that jealousy of Marcena could have brought Sandra and me together. The image made me snicker inadvertently, and sent me farther south in a better humor.

I was early enough for practice to stop in the principal’s office to talk to Natalie Gault. When I asked her what kind of physicals the girls were given before signing up for basketball, she rolled her eyes as if I were some sort of idiot.

“We don’t do health screening here. They have to bring in a parent’s signed permission slip. That says the parent knows there are risks in the sport and that their child is healthy enough to play. We do it for basketball, football, baseball, all our sports. That document says the school is not liable for any illness or injury the child contracts from playing.”

“Sandra Czernin is angry and scared. She needs a hundred thousand dollars to pay for April’s health care, for starters, anyway. If it occurs to her to sue the school, it won’t be hard for her to find a lawyer to take you to court-a permission slip like that isn’t going to stand up in front of a jury. Why not do EKGs on the rest of the squad, cheer everybody up, act like you’re paying attention?”

I didn’t mention Lotty’s offer to do the EKGs-let the school sweat a little. Besides, I couldn’t quite get my mind around the logistics of ferrying fifteen teenagers to the clinic. Gault said she would discuss it with the principal and get back to me.

I went on down to the gym, where I found a skeleton squad. Josie Dorrado was missing, as was Sancia, my center. Celine Jackman, my young gangbanger, was there with her two sidekicks, but even she seemed subdued.

I told the nine who had shown up what I knew about April. “The hospital sent her home today. She can’t play basketball again-there’s something wrong with her heart, and the kind of workouts you have to do for team sports are too strenuous for her. But she’ll be able to return to school, and you won’t know by looking at her that there’s anything wrong with her. Where are Josie and Sancia?”

“Josie, she cut school today,” Laetisha volunteered. “We thought, maybe she caught whatever April got, on account of them two is always together.”

“You can’t catch what April has: it’s a condition, you’re born with it.” I got out my coach’s erasable board and tried to draw a diagram for them, how you “catch” a disease caused by a virus, like chicken pox or AIDS, versus how you can be born with a condition.

“So one of us could have the same thing and not know it.” This was Delia, one of the quieter girls, who never put much effort into the game.

“You wouldn’t,” Celine said. “You so slow, people think you don’t got a working heart anyway.”

I let the insult go unchecked-I wanted them to feel that life was returning to normal, even if normal included getting slammed. I set them on a short course of stretches, and let them go directly to scrimmage, five on four, with all the weakest players on the smaller squad. I joined the weaker girls at point guard, calling my team up, directing traffic, giving a few tips to the opposition, but putting my all into going one-on-one with Celine. After a short time, everyone, even Delia, forgot that their hearts might give out and started playing. I was hotdogging, bouncing the ball between my legs to someone in the corner, jumping up to block shots, sticking to Celine like her underwear, and the girls were laughing and cheering, and running harder than I’d ever seen them go. Celine took her play up a level and began feinting and nailing her shots as if she were Tamika Williams.

When I called a halt at four, three of the girls begged to stay to work on their free throws. I told them I could let them have ten minutes, when one of the girls screamed, “Ooh, Coach, your back. Celine, what you do to Coach?”

I put a hand behind me and realized I was wet with something warmer than sweat: my wound had come open. “I’m fine,” I said. “This is just an injury I got over at the factory, you know, Fly the Flag, when it blew up last week. You guys were great tonight. I have to go to the doctor and get this stitched back together now, but Thursday everyone who played today goes out for pizza with me after practice.”

When they’d showered and I got the gym locked, I drove up to Lotty’s clinic, feeling a happy glow from the workout-the first time I’d left the high school feeling good since-maybe since ever. Since my team won the state championship all those years ago, although even then-my mother had been dying. I had gotten drunk with Sylvia and the rest of them so I didn’t have to think of Gabriella in her hospital bed, draped with tubes and monitors as if she were a mummified fly in the middle of a spiderweb.

The memory damped down my good mood. When I got to the clinic, I checked in soberly with Mrs. Coltrain, Lotty’s receptionist. A dozen or so people were in the waiting room; it’d be at least an hour. After I turned around and Mrs. Coltrain saw the blood running down my back, she sent me in ahead of the queue. Lotty was at the hospital, but her assistant, Lucy, who’s an advanced-practice nurse, stitched me up.

“You shouldn’t be jumping with these stitches, V. I.,” she said, as severely as Lotty would have done. “The wound has to have time to heal. You stink of sweat, but you cannot get this wound wet again under the shower. A sponge bath. Wash your hair in the kitchen sink. Do you understand?”

“Yes’m,” I said meekly.

Back at home, I gave the dogs a sketchy walk, and followed Lucy’s orders on how to bathe. This meant doing the dishes first, since they’d been building up again. I hadn’t even washed my mother’s Venetian wineglasses, which I’d brought out for Morrell last week. I was dismayed by my carelessness: my mother had brought them from Italy with her, her only memento of the home she’d had to flee. I’d broken two several years ago; I couldn’t bear it if I lost any more.

I carefully rinsed and dried them, but I kept one out for a glass of Torgiano. Usually, I use something replaceable for day-to-day drinking, but my earlier memory was haunting me, making me need to feel close to Gabriella again.

I called Morrell and explained that I was too tired to make it up to Evanston tonight. “Marcena can entertain you with her elegant banter.”

“She could if she was here, darling, but she’s vanished again. Someone called her this afternoon with the promise of more adventures on the South Side and she took off again.”

I remembered Sandra’s bitter remark about Bron going off with the British whore. “Romeo Czernin.”

“Could be. I wasn’t paying special attention. When will I see you again? Could I take you out to dinner tomorrow? Fill you with organic produce and dazzle you with my own elegant banter? I know you’re annoyed that I went home yesterday.”

I laughed reluctantly. “Oh, yes, I remember: subtlety isn’t my strong suit. Dinner would be great, but only with banter.”

We settled on a time, and I went into the kitchen to deal with tonight’s meal. I’d finally made it to the grocery to do my own shopping on my way back from Lotty’s clinic, stocking up on everything from yogurt to soap, as well as fresh fish and vegetables.

I broiled tuna steaks with garlic and olives for Mr. Contreras and myself. We curled up companionably in the living room to eat and watch Monday Night Football together, New England against the Chiefs, me with my wine, my neighbor with a Bud. Mr. Contreras, who bets the games, tried to persuade me to put my money where my mouth is.