Page 84 of What We Burn

“I can’t fault you there,” she says. “But that was just a practice ball. The ditch needed humbling.”

“The ditch is a state of mind,” I say.

“That’s what I’m telling myself.”

She’s about to try another practice throw when six women in matching shirts step onto the rink and start going through a stretching routine with some serious focus. One’s rolling her shoulders. One’s taping a wrist. One is in a downward dog on the clubhouse lawn.

Their shirts are hot pink. Across the back, in white:

THE PERIMENO-BOWLS

Hot flushes. Cold kills.

“Kitten.” I grab her arm. “Look.”

She reads the shirts and dissolves. “Oh my God. I love them.”

I do not. I know a superior species when I see one.

The tallest peels off from the group—silver ponytail, swimmer’s shoulders, the dead-eyed calm of a woman who has buried husbands and won finals and would not lose sleep over either. She walks over and sizes up Knox.

“You the Balls of Fury?”

“We are,” I say, drawing myself up and getting in between them. “You must be the competition.”

“Nancy. Captain.” She nods down the line. “Lori, Pat, Maeve, Connie. The one upside down is Beverley.”

Connie—short brown bob, radiating energy of a woman who has packed a thousand lunchboxes—bustles over and seizes Sage’s hand. “Aren’t you just the loveliest thing. Are these your boys?”

“Most days,” Sage says.

“Bev!” Connie hollers over her shoulder. “Bev, come look at the big one!”

Beverley unfolds from her downward dog, slides her reading glasses up onto her head, and takes one long look at Knox.

“Good Lord. What do they feed you?”

Knox shrugs.

“Strong and silent. My favorite kind.” She turns to Sage. “Does he lift you, love? Physically pick you up?”

Sage goes pink. “Sometimes.”

“Sometimes. Nancy, I have to sit down.”

Nancy ignores her. “I’ll be straight with you,” she says to me. “I checked the standings. You’re dead last. You’ve forfeited six weeks running.”

“We’ve had scheduling conflicts.”

“You’ve had a losing streak with a costume change.” She grins, and there’s a shark somewhere in her ancestry. “Tell you what. You actually showed up today. That counts. We’ll do a friendly match. Losers buy the drinks.”

I look at my team. Knox, expressionless. Holden, already running the odds behind his eyes. Sage, holding her pink bowl to her chest. Eli, a half-step back, hands in his pockets, present but unsure he’s allowed to be. Micah, easy and warm, nods.

“No,” I say. “Winner takes all.”

Nancy blinks. “Takes what, exactly?”

I spread my arms to indicate the sacred grounds, the weathered clubhouse, the green, the sky, the fate of nations.