After Ellie leaves, Michael is sure that everything will go wrong: “No baseball […] no Ellie” (132) and no family, once Uncle Timo’s acting fails. This means that Michael would have future. He “[doesn’t] feel like practicing today,” or like “doing anything” (132), when he realizes that everything in his life threatens to disappear.

When he gets home, Michael knocks on Mrs. Cora’s door, and she welcomes him into her apartment. As Mrs. C refers to him and Carlos as “her boys,” Michael worries for her declining health. He worries “that Mrs. C would be the next person he loved to leave him” (133).

He helps himself to a cup of iced tea and two of Mrs. Cora’s cookies, as she explains that she will make him dinner. She is sure that “there’s always something on [his] mind when [he comes]” to her apartment” (134). Michael tells her about Ellie.

Michael is “trying to figure out what [he] did that was so wrong,” but to Mrs. Cora, it is clear: he “called her a liar” (135). She defends Ellie, explaining to him that, as “the daughter of the great baseball pitcher” (135), there is only one way people can see her.