He took a deep breath. I saw that he had no notes with him. But if this was nothing more than an act, if Jack were just playing the part of an older brother in mourning, he was doing a good job of it—at least so far—sounding human for once in his life.
“So Thomas and I fought,” he said. “Anyone who knows either one of us, or both of us, knows that’s hardly breaking news. But he was my kid brother, and nothing was ever going to change that. In my mind, he was still twelve years old.”
He seemed to be staring out to the back of the church, not at any of the faces in front of him.
“Oh, we kept fighting, all right.” Jack smiled. “I’m sure you’ve all been reading about that. But we’re Wolfs. It’s what you do in our family. Sometimes we’d go at each other as soon as one of our parents finished saying grace.”
Another deep breath.
“I went at him, and I went at our father even harder,” he said. “And what killsmeis that the last thing I remember when they were still here was fighting with both of them.”
He stopped then, for what felt like a long time. Then he shook his head and held up his hands as if surrendering to the moment and started to cry before he walked down from the podium, taking his seat and staring straight ahead.
If ithadbeen an act, I thought, it was some acting job, even for him.
My turn then.
I thought about starting with a joke as I made my way past Jack, saying that I wanted to apologize to Monsignor Galardi in advance, but that seeing my brother Jack cry had to mean that hell had likely just frozen over.
But then I read the room and stopped myself.
I took my own deep breath and looked out at the congregation, fixing my eyes on the place in the middle of the cathedral where the Hunters Point Bears all sat. For some reason I started to think of the trip to the cemetery the family would be making once the mass was over. Thomas would be buried next to our father.
It would be the closest the two of them had been in years.
I saw Cantor standing in the back of the church. When I caught his eye, he nodded at me. In front of him, in the last row, I saw John Gallo, that sonofabitch, sitting alone.
“My brother Thomas was the best of us,” I said. “He was the best of all of us, and the toughest person I’ve ever known.”
Don’t stop.
Just keep going.
“I loved his heart,” I continued. “I loved his sense of humor, and his charm, and all the fun he had in him.”
And don’tyoucry.
“And I loved his loyalty. Nobody knows better than I do that Thomas Wolf was foxhole loyal until the night he died.”
I stared down at my hands.
“But the best thing about Thomas, at least for me, was that he always told the truth—about himself and everybody else. So the only way I can properly honor him and his memory today is by telling the absolute God’s honest truth about him.”
I looked all the way down to Ben Cantor, who nodded at me again.
“My brother didn’t kill himself,” I said.
Fifty-Eight
I’D ALWAYS HEARD PEOPLEin sports saying that when their own lives seemed to have gone completely off the rails, it really was the games that kept them sane. I wasn’t so sure about the sane part right now, at least for me. But being back on the field with the kids, against a St. Francis team that was far and away the best these players had faced all season, made the world feel at least a little bit like the one I desperately wanted it to be.
The one that had Thomas still in it just a few days ago.
The game came down to the last minute, St. Francis ahead 13–12. But we had the ball and were driving down the field with enough time left to win.
Finally, it was fourth down at St. Francis’s twenty yard line. Thirty seconds left. Chris Tinelli, our quarterback, called our last time-out and came walking toward me.
I was deeply into the game by now, nearly lost in it, coaching as hard as I’d ever coached these kids. I wanted them to win so badly. But in this moment, I wantedmeto win just as much.