Shaken by the loss of her mother and brother—and still sifting through the rubble of a childhood marred by a tyrannical stepmother— Teresa Strasser seeks refuge in her son's little league games. Throughout the season, she finds a surprising ally in her father, a curmudgeonly retiree with grease-stained hands and a fondness for Leonard Cohen. The games they attend together become a window into the mind of a writer grappling with the biggest possible questions—faith, fraught family relationships, the yearning to live our lives over, and the mystery of what follows death. By turns sobering and funny, searing and warm-hearted, Strasser's memoir wrings fodder for contemplation from an unlikely premise.