Eight or nine boys were kicking a ball through the square. They were excellent players, even the littlest ones. Danny didn’t think much about his own soccer days anymore, but once in a while he’d remember something from that time: the smell of crushed-up grass or how the sky looked when he would walk home after practice, a strip of rust above the houses, then neon blue edging into black. Coming home in the almost dark made him feel grown up—a taste of grown-up life. Looking back, that seemed like one of the best parts of being a kid.