William took a break from studying at lunchtime and walked to the athletic building. He sat in the bleacher seats, with the basketball court before him, and ate his packed lunch. Sometimes there was a gym class going on, with an array of students of all shapes and fitness levels being coaxed through calisthenics by a teacher. Sometimes a few of the team’s shooters were there for extra practice. William knew all the players except the freshmen, and once or twice after finishing his sandwich he let the guys convince him to take a few shots from the corner. He knew his knee couldn’t take pivoting or even jogging from one spot to the other, so he stood still and drilled one long shot after another while his former teammates hooted with pleasure. When the ball swished through the net, William’s breathing slowed to normal, and he could pretend that he still inhabited a recognizable life.
With the basketball in his hands, he could forget that his father-in-law had dropped dead, his sister-in-law slept on his couch, and every time he saw his wife he was startled. Julia wasn’t obviously pregnant, but she no longer looked like the woman he’d married. Her hips flared dramatically, and her cheeks were often flushed. She was beautiful, gorgeous, heaving with life, but on a fixed journey from conception to birth that William found hard to locate on any map. Where are you? he wanted to ask her. Do you know where you’re going? Are you sure it’s the right way?
He was embarrassed to admit the truth even to himself, that he’d never given thought to having a child. William had fallen in love with Julia — he still swam in an ocean of gratitude that he went to sleep beside her every night and woke up with her every morning — so marriage had made perfect sense. But creating a new person, and raising him or her, was an entirely different proposition. He’d told Julia that he was happy and excited about her pregnancy, because he knew that was what he was supposed to feel, but William was unable to imagine himself as a father. When he tried to picture himself with a baby, the image was blurred. Perhaps he should have voiced some hesitation over Julia’s plan, but his wife had suggested they get pregnant, and for the next month, every time he walked into the apartment she seemed to be waiting for him, naked. William was unable, and unwilling, to talk through the pros and cons of parenthood when Julia wasn’t wearing clothes.
Now he lived with a pregnant wife and a sister-in-law who swept guiltily in and out of the apartment. He no longer sat on the couch, because it was Sylvie’s bed. He read textbooks over his meals and reviewed his notes, trying to memorize all the moving parts of a particular year in American history. When William woke up in the middle of the night, Julia’s side of their bed would be empty, and he’d find her asleep in her sister’s arms. Watching them, William felt a strange loneliness. They looked like they belonged together, and when he walked back into his bedroom, he had the thought that perhaps it was he, and not Sylvie, who was the intruder.
After lunch at the gym, William returned to the library to read about the Panic of 1893. William’s graduate adviser was a bright-eyed professor who always wore a bow tie and had a hard time sitting still, presumably because everything excited him so much. During their initial meeting, in the first month of the program, the professor had asked William what he really, really loved about the period of American history he’d chosen as his focus. With this question, William had felt everything at motion inside him — his blood, his lungs, his heart — slow almost to a stop. He was mortified; it had never occurred to him that he was supposed to bring love to this endeavor. Finally, he managed to say something about the great changes the country had gone through between 1890 and 1969—the Gilded Age, two world wars, the civil-rights movement — but it was too late. There was confusion in the professor’s eyes, and he seemed to be thinking: How strange, I don’t feel any historical passion coming from this young man at all.
Most days, William stayed at the gym later than he intended to after finishing his lunch. He needed to review chapters for his evening classes, but he delayed returning to the library. It was on one of those afternoons that Arash saw him while crossing the court and came to sit beside him.
“How’s the knee?” he asked.
“Fine.” This was William’s standard response when asked about his knee. He thought it was the correct answer, since the knee functioned and allowed him to walk from place to place. It always ached — the pain was worst at night — but it seemed unmanly to admit that. And who cared? He no longer needed a pain-free knee. Professors could sit, after all. His body was now more or less irrelevant.
Arash studied him. “I heard you’re in grad school here. Congratulations.”
William was surprised. “How did you hear that?”
Arash smiled. “We track you boys. I track my injuries, so you’re on my list. But we like to keep tabs on all our players. We’re not heartless, you know. We can’t send a nice note in celebration of some achievement if we’re not keeping tabs.”
William considered this. He hadn’t been prepared for kindness, and it made him think of Charlie. His father-in-law’s funeral was the first William had ever attended. He’d listened at the wake to the stories of how generous Charlie had been to people in Pilsen and at work. After a trio of drunk men tried to explain how Charlie had helped them appease an angry landlord, William had the urge to stand up and tell the room that his father-in-law had been an excellent driver and that he had hidden his competence, or perhaps it had been ignored by Rose and their daughters. How much else did Charlie feel like he had to hide from us? he wanted to ask. Instead, he watched Rose harden, hour by hour, and watched panic and grief etch his wife’s beautiful face.
After the casket was lowered into the ground, Julia had brought William to visit Cecelia and her baby girl. The infant was placed in William’s arms with no warning. He’d never held a baby before, but his wife and Izzy’s mother turned away from William casually, as if they trusted him to somehow know what to do. The baby stared up at him and her face quivered; she was considering tears. She was unbelievably tiny and wrapped up in blankets so he couldn’t see her limbs. She seemed very warm. Did she have a fever? Were the blankets necessary? William sat down in a chair, so that the baby would have less far to fall if he dropped her, and then slid down to sit on the floor. Julia and Cecelia laughed at him, but with affection in their eyes, and then the two women sat on the floor with him, as if to say that what he’d done was perfectly fine.
“Nice finish!” Arash said, his eyes on the court. “That freshman there, the power forward? He’s been an excellent replacement for Kent. Good first step.”
“Who’s replaced me?”
Arash scanned the floor. “There’s a new guy who rebounds well. He’s all elbows, though; he’s not an IQ guy like you.” Arash nodded, as if agreeing with his own assessment. “Have you read The Breaks of the Game?”
“The what?”
“It’s a book about smart players like you, how they play and think the game. Run through film in their mind, understand how to use space. The greats are always playing chess out there. You should read it.”
William tried to absorb Arash’s words; he knew immediately that he would replay this conversation later, when he was alone. These felt like the words, and sentences, he had been waiting for. William committed what felt like tiny failures and disappointments during every hour of his current life; he wished that he was still a basketball player with positional intelligence, who was part of a team. A memory flashed into his mind: He was standing on the park court as a ten-year-old, watching the boys who had just welcomed him into their game run away to get home in time for dinner. Come back, the young William thought.