Own Goal

The conference party. Diane Holloway has spent the whole season building toward this moment and trying not to admit it. Paula Wentworth is across the ballroom — forty yards and ten years between them — and for the first time all fall there is no scouting report to hide behind and no formation to adjust. 

When Diane finally crosses the room, the evening becomes a dinner, the dinner becomes a second, the second becomes a third at Diane's own kitchen table. Tess and Brianna offer their own quiet forgiveness. Her assistant coach nods at the right moment. Her sister was right about the managing. 

And somewhere between a legal pad with four lines on it and a phone call that runs long into the night, Diane Holloway stops organizing her life around what she can control and starts making room for the things worth having. Own Goal is the story of a woman who finally stops playing defense in the rest of her life.