Chapter 33 Wes
Icarry my coffee to the balcony and the morning is warm, overcast, the sky pressing flat against the surface. I have stood here a thousand times across eight years and the view has never changed, but I have. I have changed underneath it so slowly that I did not notice.
I called Luca last night. Short call. He sounded tired and steady and he told me about practice and the wild-card math and a chicken recipe he tried that came out better than expected.
His voice had weight in it. Not heaviness.
Substance. I have been listening to his voice across a phone for seven months and four nights ago, after his session, the voice changed.
Not dramatically. The way a room changes when someone opens a window you didn't know was closed.
He is getting better. That is the sentence I have been carrying since the night he called after the session, his eyes still red, his voice rough, telling me things he is working through. I didn’t fix it. I couldn’t fix it because that was never mine to do.
So what is mine?
I go inside. I set the cup on the counter. I pick up the phone and call Kevin.
He answers on the second ring. He always answers on the second ring because the first ring is for clients and the second ring is for people he actually wants to talk to.
"Hey."
"Hey. You busy?"
"Depositions at one. I've got an hour. What's going on?"
"Nothing. Just wanted to talk."
"Wes Mercer called me at seven-thirty in the morning because nothing is going on and he just wanted to talk."
"Yeah."
"That has literally never happened."
"It's happening now."
A pause. I can hear him shifting, the creak of his patio chair. He is outside. He is always outside in the mornings, the coffee on the arm of the chair, the phone between his shoulder and his ear.
"Okay," he says. "Talk."
"Luca's doing better."
"Yeah? That's good."
"He sounds different."
"Different good?"
"Different like he's there. When I talk to him. He's actually in the conversation."
"Good." Kevin lets the word sit for a beat. "And how are you?"
"I'm fine."
"I didn't ask if you were fine. I asked how you are."
I lean against the railing. The ocean is flat. A boat is moving across the middle distance, too far to identify, a shape cutting a line through the gray.
"I've been thinking," I say.
"About?"
"The season. What happens after it."
Kevin doesn't say anything for a few seconds. I can hear the bird that lives in his yard, the low call that has been there every morning for the three years he has owned the house.
"Wes. You've been thinking about what happens after the season, or you've been thinking about retiring?"
"How did you know that was the word?"
"Because the last time you sat at my table you talked about Luca for forty-five minutes and the team for three. Because the night you told told me you were walking off a road trip, I knew you something had changed."
"I didn't know that."
"I know you didn't. I'm telling you I did."
"You didn't say anything."
"It wasn't mine to say. You had to get there."
The boat is past the middle distance now. Heading south. The wake is a line on the surface that will flatten and disappear.
"I've been calling it a sacrifice," I say. "In my head. I have been framing it as the thing I would be giving up. The career, the ice, fifteen years. Like retirement would be something I'm doing for him, and if it's for him, then it costs me."
"And?"
"And that's not what it is."
"What is it?"
"It's a want. It has been a want since Aruba. Maybe before.”
The sentence stops. The next one is in my chest and it has been in my chest for thirty-six years and I have never said it out loud to another human being.
"I have been wanting this," I say. "The retirement. Him. A life that isn't split down the middle. I just hadn't said it yet."
"I have been waiting for you to land here," Kevin says.
"How long?"
"Since the first dinner. Since the night he rated Austin's boat and you were smiling and I thought: this man is going to follow that kid wherever he goes. It's just a matter of when he lets himself know it."
"That was two years ago."
"You're slow, Wes. It's one of your best qualities."
I almost laugh. The sound catches in my chest and comes out as a breath.
"So what does this look like?" he says.
"I don't know yet. The contract runs through next year but the buyout clause is clean."
"Have you told Luca?"
"No, I needed to say it to myself first. I needed to hear it as mine."
"That is the clearest thing you have ever said about your own life."
"Thanks, Kev."
"I mean it. Seven years of two-word answers and you just gave me almost a paragraph. I'm writing it down."
"Don't write it down."
"I'm absolutely writing it down. This is historic. Wesley Mercer articulated a feeling. I'm framing it."
"You're not framing it."
"I'm framing it and putting it on my desk."
The laugh comes this time. Small, rough, real. Kevin hears it because Kevin hears everything.
"I'm proud of you." He says it plain. The way he says things when the thing is true and the truth doesn't need a story. "And I'm glad you called me."
"I don't call enough."
"You don't. But you called today."
"Yeah."
"Call me after you tell him."
"I will."
"I'm holding you to that. If I find out from Austin, I will be professionally offended."
"You'll hear it from me."
"Bye, Wes."
"Bye"
I stand on the balcony with the phone in my hand and the screen goes dark and his feet are on the sand.
The wallpaper. The photograph I took on our first trip to Aruba, the toes at the waterline, the sand smooth and dark.
I have been looking at this photograph every day since he left.
On planes and in hotel rooms and in locker rooms and on this balcony.
I pick up the camera bag from the counter.
Unzip it. The camera is where I left it.
I take it to the balcony and the light is wrong, still flat, still overcast, and I press the shutter anyway.
The image on the screen is gray water and gray sky and the railing in the foreground and this time there is something in the frame. I cannot see it yet. But it is there.
I put the camera away and call Kyle.
"Hey, Kyle."
"Morning. You're up early."
"I'm always up early."
"You're up early and calling me, which is different." I can hear his office chair, the creak of the leather. "What's going on?"
"I need to talk to you about my contract."
"What about it?"
"The buyout clause. Walk me through it again."
"I walked you through it when we signed it."
"Again, Kyle."
"All right." A keyboard on his end. He goes through the high-level notes about sixty days’ written notice, forfeit of future earnings.
"How clean is it?"
"Clean. I wrote it that way for a reason."
"You planned for this."
"I planned for you to have the option. What you do with it is yours." A pause. "Are we having the conversation I think we're having?"
"Yeah, I think we are."
"Good." He says it plain. "When did you want to start the process with the team?"
"Atlanta's here Wednesday. I need to tell Luca first, and I want to do it in person."
"Okay" His voice shifts. "Here's what I need. After you talk to him, call me. Friday at the latest. I'll set a meeting with the front office for early next week."
"What if I'm not ready by Friday?"
"You'll be ready by Friday."
"Kyle."
"You'll be ready. Call me Friday." A beat. "And Wes. You're having the best season of your career. You could play two more years and nobody would question it. The fact that you're choosing to leave when the ice is still yours is the part that's going to matter."
"Thanks, Kyle."
"I want to hear from you by Friday."
The line goes quiet. I rinse the cup and set it in the rack next to the space where his cup would go.
Practice is at ten. The ice is good, fresh cut, the edges biting right. I take my shifts in the drill and Paulson is on my wing and the puck moves the way the puck moves when the legs are working and the hands are working and everything above the neck is somewhere else entirely.
After practice Paulson asks if I want to grab lunch. He talks about his daughter's soccer league, a tournament in Boca next month. He is describing the bracket system with the intensity of a man who believes his seven-year-old is being strategically underseeded.
"She's better than her ranking," he says.
"She's seven."
"She's seven and she's better than her ranking. The coach has her at outside mid when she should be playing striker. She scored four goals in the last tournament and they've still got her on the wing."
"Maybe the coach sees something on the wing."
"The coach sees a kid who's easy to coach. That's different from seeing a kid who's playing to her potential."
"Have you told the coach?"
"Laura told me not to tell the coach."
"Laura's right."
"Laura's always right. That's the problem." He pushes his plate back. "You good?"
"I'm good."
"You seem quiet."
"I'm always quiet."
"You're quiet-quiet." He picks up his beer. "I'm not pushing. Just saying."
"I appreciate it."
"If you ever want to talk about whatever you don't talk about, I'm around."
The sentence lands and my hands go still on the table. Whatever you don't talk about. The phrase could mean anything. It could mean nothing. Paulson is looking at his beer and not at me and I cannot tell if the sentence is general or specific.
"I know," I say.
"Good."
"I'll get the check."
"You always get it."
"You always let me."
"That's because you make more money and I've got a kid who needs shoes every six weeks. The kid goes through shoes like they're disposable."
"She's growing."
"She's growing at an unreasonable rate. I'm going to start buying them in bulk."
I look at the calendar on the fridge when I get home. It has Thursday circled. Atlanta at Miami. Seven o'clock. three days. He will be here and after the game he will come to this apartment, bag on his shoulder, key in his pocket. He will walk through the door and I will tell him.
I stand in the bedroom doorway and look at the bed.
The pillow on the other side is flat the way I make it flat every morning.
I go to the linen closet and pull out the gray sheets, the ones that are softer than the ones I use alone.
I learned in the first month that he sleeps better on the soft sheets. I strip the bed and make it fresh.
***
Thursday morning the apartment is clean and the sheets are gray and the balcony door is open and the ocean air comes through the way it has for eight years, salt and warmth and the low hum of the building.
Pregame skate at eleven. The building is ours for a few more hours and then both teams will be on this ice and one of the players on the other bench will be the man I am going to talk to tonight.
I come home and shower. I stand in the kitchen with a glass of water and the late afternoon pressing against the windows.
He is in this city right now. At a hotel with his teammates.
Stretching, taping, headphones on. The pregame he has done a thousand times that I have watched him do, the eyes closed, the body settling into the thing the body knows.
My phone buzzes.
leaving the hotel in 20. see you after.
key works. door's open.
you're leaving your door unlocked in miami?
the door is locked. the key works. use the key.
old man.
use the key, luca.
I set the phone down. After the game he will come through the door. The apartment will hold both of us.
?