I never met Jamie's parents and never would, save for talking on the phone with his mom once a week, usually when I answered and handed the cordless receiver to him. There was also a month when I had the house to myself, when he planned to go home in the month before training camp began.

But where would he go in that month he was gone, between the middle of July and the final days of August?

“I hide,” he told me as we sat in a dimly lit restaurant over dinner one night, a week before he was to leave.

“Are you with another girl?”

“No. But I know you can’t rearrange your whole schedule to take a month off from your job or your life.”

I quickly rearranged the cutlery on the table in front of us. “Sometimes I wish I could...

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