Chapter 33
Nathan had resigned two weeks after we got back from vacation.
Not at the end of the three months. Not after the committee finished its reassessment.
Weeks after the review committee had confirmed the conditions and Nathan had confirmed his consulting position and Nathan had apparently decided that waiting out the paid leave was not something he was going to do.
He told me on a Tuesday. We were both sitting on my couch, and I was trying to beat some stupid game on my phone, and Nathan was reading, and he mentioned it the way he mentioned things he'd already decided—neutral, precise, no particular weight on it. I submitted my resignation this morning.
I had put my phone down.
This morning, I thought. Nathan Cross had resigned from a job he'd held for two years, a job that had been his entire professional identity in Boston, and had mentioned it with the same tone he used to report weather conditions.
"Nathan," I said.
"Mm."
"You resigned."
"Yes."
"This morning."
"Yes."
"And you're telling me now?"
"I'm telling you now," he said. "I told you when I had something to tell."
I looked at him.
He was still reading.
"How do you feel?" I said.
A pause. Nathan putting the book down. Nathan actually putting the book down, which meant this was a question he was going to take seriously.
"Ready," he said. After a moment. "I think I feel ready."
I nodded.
That was enough.
That was, actually, exactly enough.
Nathan's first day in the new role was a Thursday.
I was at practice when my phone buzzed in my bag. I checked it between drills, which Knox immediately had opinions about and I immediately ignored.
Nathan: First day.
Me: how is it?????
Nathan: Different.
Me: Good different or bad different
Nathan: Yes.
I laughed. Right there on the ice, at nine thirty a.m., loud enough that Jenkins looked over and then looked away again when he saw I was just looking at my phone.
Me: Come over tonight. My place this time!
Nathan: I will have notes to finish.
Me: Please??
Nathan: We can order food.
And he did. He came over at seven with his fountain pen and the notebook he'd been keeping since the new role started, and he sat at my kitchen table and finished his notes while I watched film on the couch, which was the most domestic thing that had ever happened in this apartment.
My apartment, for context, still contained: two phone chargers on the couch, one of them plugged into nothing, a single skate near the door whose partner I had located yesterday and reunited it with, and a stack of takeout containers near the sink.
They’d been organized into a neat pile at some point tonight, which I had not done, which Nathan had apparently done when he came in without mentioning it.
I watched him write in the notebook with the fountain pen and thought: this is just what it looks like now.
He looked up.
"What," he said.
"Nothing," I said.
He went back to his notes.
I went back to the film.
We stayed like that for a while. The apartment doing its thing around us. The city outside doing its thing. Nathan's fountain pen and my game film and the takeout containers organized into a neat stack near the sink.
Later, when the notes were done and the film was done and Nathan was making tea in my kitchen with the kettle he had brought over last week because he had opinions about my kettle which he had expressed once and would apparently not be expressing again because he'd just solved the problem, I said:
"How is it actually?"
Nathan looked up from the kettle.
"The new role," I said. "How is it actually?"
He thought about it for a moment. Nathan thinking about something looked like stillness: not the managed professional stillness but the real kind, the kind that meant something was being genuinely considered rather than filtered.
"Different," he said.
"You said that."
"I know." He poured the water. "It's a different kind of work. Less immediate. More—" He paused. "More removed from the outcome."
"Is that good or bad?"
"I don't know yet," he said. "Ask me in six months."
He brought the tea to the couch and sat at his end of it. Leo arranged himself between us. The apartment did its thing.
I watched him for a minute. Nathan with the tea and the notebook closed now and the fountain pen capped and his hands around the mug—Nathan without anywhere to be, which was new, which Nathan was still figuring out what to do with.
"You can come to the game Friday," I said.
He looked at me.
"Not—not on the bench," I said. "Not as staff. Just—you could come. As a person. In the stands."
Nathan was quiet for a moment.
"I hadn't thought about that," he said.
"It's allowed," I said. "You're allowed to just—watch. Without the tablet. Without the assessment."
"I know," he said.
"Do you?"
He looked at his tea. Then out the window. Then back at his tea.
"It would be strange," he said.
"Probably," I said. "But you could do it anyway."
He didn't say anything.
"Section 112 is my family's section," I said. "But there's—there's adjacent seats. Good sightlines." I moved my hand. "You'd be able to see the whole ice."
Nathan was quiet for a long moment.
"I'll think about it," he said.
Which was Nathan for yes.
"Nathan," I said.
"Yes."
"Are you okay?"
He looked at me. Nathan Cross being asked directly if he was okay still had a quality of slight recalibration to it, like the question arrived in a language he was still learning to receive.
"Yes," he said. Then, after a pause: "I think so."
"That's allowed," I said. "Not being sure yet."
"I know," he said.
He drank his tea.
I watched the game.
Leo purred between us.
Three days later I was in the facility when Knox found me in the corridor.
Knox finding you in a corridor was its own category of thing. Knox did not make small talk. Knox did not appear somewhere without a reason. Knox appearing in a corridor at eleven a.m. with a particular expression meant he had something to say and had decided to say it now.
"Doc's coming to the game," Knox said.
I looked at him. "What?"
"Friday. He bought a ticket." Knox looked at me with the expression of a man delivering information he finds significant. "Near Section 112. Already checked the sightlines from there. Which—" He stopped.
"Which what?"
"Which I only know," Knox said, "because Matthew tracks this kind of thing. Because Matthew—" He stopped again. "The point is the ticket's been purchased. Thought you should know."
He walked away.
I stood in the corridor.
Section 112 adjacent.
Nathan Cross, who had reported himself, who had restructured his career, who had packed compression cubes and found my hand on the armrest and said obviously on a beach in a hat—Nathan Cross had bought a ticket.
Not a team credential. Not a staff pass. A ticket.
His own seat. His own row. His own choice to be there, visible, in section 112 adjacent where he'd be able to see the ice and I would be able to see him and the Morr Roar would come down from section 214 and Nathan would be in the stands for it, not at the bench, not with the team, just there.
Because he wanted to be.
I took out my phone.
Me: knox told me about the ticket
A pause.
Nathan: Matthew must have told him
Me: yep
I looked at the phone for a moment.
Me: Section 112 adjacent
Nathan: The sightlines are good. I checked.
Me: I'm going to look for u before the puck drops. i'm going to look for u in the stands
A pause. Longer than the others.
Nathan: I hope so.
Me: k
Nathan: Okay.
I put my phone in my pocket and went back to practice.
Friday was two days away.
Nathan had already figured out where he was going to be.