Clare and I couldn’t leave after we’d dropped him off so we drove around campus and parked in a lot, hiked a small trail overlooking the practice fields. We pushed through trees, looking out for poison oak, often sliding backwards one step for every two we took up the leaf-strewn hill in our flip-flops, so that we could peek over a fence during his first day with the other boys. I told her we couldn’t stay too long, that we couldn’t let anyone see us, that the other players would tease him. I made her leave before she was ready. She made me drive through a parking lot so that we could look at the field, so that we could try to see him out there with the team before we started on our way back.