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you,” I said. “Our last song is special to me because it was written by my father. I hope you’ll like what we’ve done with it.”
    Dad’s version has a full orchestra—more than full, it’s got about a million strings—and a bunch of dramatic high notes. We started it a little more up-tempo, but we let the wistful melody do its thing. What I’d added was a short guitar solo after “I know one thing will haunt me”: a few bars based on a Venezuelan folk song Dad used to sing to us when we were little. It slows things down, and there really is something haunting about it, before I speak the last line without any accompaniment: “The dream I left behind.”
    It worked. There was a second of silence before the applause started, and we were saying our final thank-you when I noticed one of the guests who wasn’t applauding, just looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read: my dad.

CHAPTER 11
    T he party, I’m told, went a lot later than a sixteen-year-old usually gets to stay up. We didn’t stay long, though. After we played I couldn’t find Dad, but Zoey came up with Lisa.
    â€œThank you,” she said to all of us. “That last song,” she touched my shoulder lightly, “it made me cry. In a good way.”
    On the way home, my head was spinning. Zoey, Dad, and the deadline Coach said he’d set for the weekend: play Trip or fire the coach or I’ll throw the team into money trouble. When I got to our house there was still no sign of Dad. So I went to my room and wrote him a letter. I put it on the desk in his office; that was always the first place he went in the morning.
    Â 
    Dad,
    First, I’m sorry about what I said when we had our fight by the pool. I wish you could hear how I feel about baseball right now without taking it personally. Right now I’m making mistakes on the field because I’m bored, burned out. My mind wanders away from the game.
    A lot of times it wanders to music. I saw you at the party last night, and I wonder what you thought of the band. I wonder what you thought about our cover of your song.
    Please talk with me about all this. Don’t hurt Coach or the team because you’re mad at me.
    Trip
    Â 
    . . .
    When I got up the next morning, my head was still buzzing. We had a practice scheduled. There was a local game on Sunday, and then next week the Runners were flying to the Beach Blowout, a big tournament in San Diego. I went to the breakfast room, but Dad wasn’t there. I made some toast in the kitchen and was going to get milk when I saw an envelope with my name on it taped to the refrigerator door.
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    Trip,
    I’m sorry too about our fight. We both have Latin tempers.
    I don’t want to hurt Coach Harris or the team. But I have a son with special gifts, and if I let him waste those gifts I am failing as a father. The best thing for you right now is to play through your difficulties. That’s best for your team as well. Taking your skills away from them because you are “bored” is self-centered.
    You seem to think I am using my money as some kind of unfair power. In fact all the power is yours. All you have to do is play baseball the way you always have, and all the problems you are worried about will go away.
    I’ll be at practice today. I have a surprise for you.
    Dad
    P.S. I was touched that your band played my song. Thank you.
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    I was really confused. I loved my dad and my team. But I was sure that the despair I was feeling about baseball was more than just selfishness. Was Dad saying, “Just go through the motions, even though you want to be a hundred miles away?” That wasn’t like him. We had more in common than our tempers: we were both perfectionists. And playing without caring was a kind of betrayal—of my team, of my coach, and of myself. I was glad Dad and I were communicating, even if it was by letter. But his note