Chapter Five
MARA
My sister believes every problem can be divided into three categories: fix it, leave it, or feed it pasta.
On Tuesday evening, I sit at her kitchen table with the station’s conflict plan in one hand and a fork in the other.
Sophie Bell studies me across two bowls of baked ziti. At thirty, she has the same copper hair I do, cut at her chin instead of falling halfway down her back, and the kind of face strangers trust with directions, secrets, and unattended children.
Her six-year-old daughter, Lucy, is beneath the table explaining multiplication to a stuffed penguin.
“So,” Sophie says. “A hockey player secretly saved your radio show.”
“The station. Not my show.”
“He specifically protected the evening blocks.”
“Sports and arts.”
“Your two blocks.”
“Several people work on them.”
“Does he secretly save their jobs too?”
I take a bite of pasta to avoid answering.
Sophie points her fork at me. “You like him.”
“I find him compelling in the way people find locked doors compelling.”
“You bought a goalie lesson from him.”
“For charity.”
“You wore the silver boots to his record game.”
“They are lucky.”
“You do not believe in luck.”
“I believe in excellent footwear.”
Lucy emerges with the penguin. “Is this the giant sad hockey man?”
I choke.
Sophie presses her lips together.
“Who told you that?” I ask.
“You did,” Lucy says.
“I absolutely did not.”
“You said he is giant and sad and needs to learn feelings.”
“That sentence has been removed from the record.”
Lucy sets the penguin beside my bowl. “Mr. Waddles says feelings are hard.”
“Mr. Waddles is wise.”
“He is divorced.”
I look at Sophie.
She lifts one shoulder. “The stuffed bear kept the house.”
After Lucy goes to bed, Sophie makes tea and sits beside me.
The teasing leaves her face.
“What happened on the ice?” she asks.
I told her only that Finn had another panic attack. She knows about North Ridge because I called her afterward, shaken by the familiarity of it.
“He heard a loud metal crash. He froze. Then his breathing changed.”
“Did he know where he was?”
“Yes.”
“Chest pain?”
“He did not say.”
“Did he recover?”
“Eventually.”
Sophie wraps both hands around her mug. “And you?”
“I am not the one having panic attacks.”
“That was not my question.”
People call me sunshine because I fill silence. I learned early that a room becomes safer when someone names what is happening, offers a joke, locates the exits, reminds everyone that the next minute exists.
Sophie’s first panic attack happened when I was fifteen and she was twenty-one. We were in a supermarket. She dropped a jar of tomato sauce and then could not breathe because the breaking glass sounded like a car accident she had witnessed months before.
I did not understand. I thought she was dying.
For years afterward, I became excellent at understanding before anyone had to ask.
“I was scared,” I admit.
Sophie nods.
“And angry.”
“At him?”
“At the fact that he had done it alone before.”
“That is not yours to be angry about.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I look at the steam rising from my tea.
Sophie touches my wrist. “You can care about someone without becoming responsible for every breath they take.”
“I am not trying to save him.”
“You are very convincing when you lie to yourself.”
I pull my hand away.
She does not take offense.
“Finn is getting professional help,” I say.
“Good.”
“He told me.”
“That means he trusts you.”
The words warm me in a place they should not.
Sophie sees it.
“Be careful,” she says.
“With him?”
“With the part of you that mistakes being needed for being loved.”
The sentence lands too close to bone.
I gather the papers. “This was supposed to be pasta, not emotional violence.”
“Fix it, leave it, or feed it.”
“Which is this?”
“Feeding. You are welcome.”
At the station the next morning, Helen approves the conflict plan with two changes. Tessa will conduct any formal interviews with Finn, and I will not participate in decisions involving the donation.
“Does that mean I cannot interview him at all?” I ask.
“It means you cannot pretend the connection does not exist.”
“There is no connection.”
Helen gives me the look of a woman who spent twenty years interviewing politicians.
“Professional connection,” I amend.
“Of course.”
Tessa spins in her chair. “Can I ask him why he looks at you like a trapped wolf?”
“No.”
“Can I ask whether goalies choose the position because they enjoy being hit?”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask if he has ever kissed someone while wearing the mask?”
“No.”
Helen says, “Absolutely not.”
Tessa writes it down anyway.
That afternoon, an envelope appears beneath the booth door.
Inside is a typed document.
GOALIE LESSON: SESSION TWO
1. Proper stance
2. Tracking
3. Controlled movement
4. No glitter
5. No live broadcasting
At the bottom, Finn has written by hand:
Saturday, 6:00 a.m. Confirm.
I take a pink pen.
Beside number four, I write Define glitter.
Beside number five, I write Coward.
Then I text him.
ME: Confirmed. I am bringing coffee.
FINN: No drinks on ice.
ME: For after.
FINN: Black.
ME: I know.
Three dots appear.
Disappear.
Return.
FINN: How?
I smile at the screen.
ME: I notice things. Try not to panic.
He does not answer for six minutes.
Then:
FINN: That joke was objectively bad.
It is the closest he has come to flirting.
I save the message.