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do.”
    “Thanks, Hank, I’m okay on that score. And I appreciate what you said.”
    “It’s all true. Not that it did any good. But what do you expect from a guy who went to college on a debating scholarship? And one other thing…my friends call me Stump.”

16
    BEYOND THE UNFAMILIAR WINDSHIELD is an empty parking lot illuminated by the last few minutes of daylight. On the passenger seat are a half-eaten turkey sandwich and an empty can of iced tea, and I have no memory of either. The insignia on the steering wheel indicates the car is a Chrysler, and a glance over my shoulder reveals the interior of a minivan. The odometer shows 169 miles, so that explains the new-car smell, but not much else, and the clock, when I finally find it, reads 6:09. It’s not until I open the glove compartment and unfold the rental agreement from the Jacksonville Airport Alamo that I remember where I am and why, and realize I’ve been sitting like this in the deepening dusk for nearly an hour.
    For the second time in little more than a year, I’ve lost my job, but this one I loved and was actually quite good at. Against lotto-like odds, I achieved a lifelong quest to play competitive golf for a living, and in forty-five videotaped seconds screwed it up. A spot on the Senior Tour is fleeting to begin with. Under the best circumstances, three or four years is a pretty good run, so losing six months of my middle-aged prime is a pretty stiff price to pay for a relatively harmless fight.
    Yet as stunned as I am by Finchem’s harsh penalty, I’m more undone by Peters’s generosity. How could I have been so wrong about the guy? I spent thirty years hating a person who didn’t exist. Pressed to come up with an explanation for my dislike, I would have cited his good ol’ boy routine and his redneck shtick, but I can see that was nothing but a smokeless smoke screen.
    The reason I didn’t like Hank Peters is because he is a better golfer than I am. And he knows it. That’s not the abridged edition. It’s the entire volume. You want to earn my lifelong enmity, just be better than me at something I care about, exude a little more self-confidence, and beat me in a college match in which I have you down two with three to play.
    Do that, and I’ll hate you for life. I promise. And how does Peters respond to all my petty bile and cranky bullshit? How does he repay me for three decades of tight-lipped, phony smiles and bad-vibing? By treating me like a friend.
    According to the dashboard clock, another twenty minutes have gone missing as mysteriously as that half a sandwich. If I’m going to make my flight, I need to hustle. I find the keys, start the car, and turn on the lights, and as I reach back for the seat belt, I catch a glimpse of the one person I least want to see.

17
    MY RECEPTION IN WINNETKA is more in keeping with the return of a conquering hero than a disgraced asshole. As I step through the front door, all three remaining full-time residents of the McKinley household—woman, child, and dog—hurl themselves at me with delight. Sarah plants a fat, juicy kiss on my mouth, Louie paws my legs and crows like a rooster, and in between, Noah wraps his arms around me and says, “Dad, that fight was awesome.”
    “A brawl?…In a dive bar?…With a guy named Stump?” whispers Sarah breathily in my ear. “I had no idea you were such a badass.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah, really.”
    Although it’s almost midnight, I’m hustled from the foyer into the kitchen and seated at the head of the table. Noah hands me a glass of the best red on the premises, and Sarah takes a warm plate from the oven. Artfully arranged on top of it are the best parts of a roasted chicken, surrounded by potatoes simmered in its juices, and ringed by blackened Brussels sprouts.
    “I made you your death row meal,” says Sarah, and I try not to wince at the unintended irony.
    “Everything is absurdly delicious. I only wish I deserved it.”
    “We think you