Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Heath
My skates were too sharp.
Danny had cut them the same way he always did: same hollow, same finish. Fourteen minutes on the wheel as usual. I'd watched him do it.
I checked the edges twice after. They were perfect, which was the problem. Perfect edges on fast ice meant every stride bit deeper than I expected and every stop sprayed harder. At every turn, the skates threatened to overcorrect.
I was the first one in. Equipment room lights still cycling on with the hum of compressors filling the hallway. The air had that distinctive concrete and rubber matting pre-dawn rink smell.
I dressed without thinking. Socks, shin guards, and pants. The order hadn't changed since juniors.
Tape. Stick. Blade check. Blade check again.
Varga showed up mid-sentence.
"—Tribune's running a thing. Feature-length. You and Mathers. They're calling it a revelation, which is a word I've only seen used about religious experiences, so congratulations on your canonization—"
"It's a line pairing."
"It's a cultural moment, Donnelly." Varga dropped into his stall and began unlacing his shoes. "Quote: 'The Mathers-Donnelly partnership has quietly become the most productive wing combination in the Central Division.' That's not me. That's Miles Rowan. Pulitzer-adjacent."
"Rowan doesn't have a Pulitzer."
"Pulitzer-adjacent. I said what I said." He kicked one shoe off, and it hit the wall behind him.
The other shoe followed an identical trajectory.
Practiced chaos. "Also, your little interview clip is still trending.
Which for Chicago means four million people watched you say Kieran's name like it was a sacrament you were trying to pronounce casually. "
I pulled my laces tight. "I said his name normally."
"You paused. You smiled. The internet has opinions." He paused in his undressing to hold up his phone, scrolling with his thumb. "One account made a GIF of just the smile. Fourteen seconds. It's got a fan edit with the Titanic music. Tasteful stuff."
"Delete that from your phone."
"I didn't save it. I bookmarked it. There's a difference."
Rook's voice cut through from two stalls over, flat and final. "Varga, let the man tie his skates."
Varga pointed at Rook without looking up. "You're in the GIF thread too. Someone screenshotted you nodding at Heath after the assist Tuesday and captioned it dad approves. You've gone viral in the father-figure demographic."
Rook said nothing.
On the ice, Markel's whiteboard still held the same names in the same positions, the ink fading at the edges but never erased. It was permanent.
First drill. Three-on-three, controlled breakout. I cycled low behind the net and came up the wall. Kieran was already moving, not toward me, but toward where I'd be in two seconds. His pass arrived on my tape before I'd finished planting myself.
Third rep. Fourth. Fifth. Each one cleaner than the last. Each one requiring less thought.
On the eighth, I anticipated Kieran's carry and cheated toward the net a half-second early. The pass still connected.
Coach Markel's whistle. One short blast.
He skated to the boards.
His voice was calm as he uttered words I'd heard before. "Stay where your skates are."
It was the instruction he'd given me on opening night, when my brain had been three plays ahead of my feet.
"The reads are there. Don't chase them."
I stood at the boards and watched the drill cycle.
Across the ice, Kieran ran the next rep with Varga filling my slot.
Clean execution. No adjustments required.
The system worked regardless of who occupied the position, and that was proof that the system was good or proof that I wasn't irreplaceable.
Game day arrived the way it always did, through the body first.
I woke with my jaw clenched so tight my molars ached. Shower. Coffee. Oatmeal with peanut butter, banana sliced thin. The banana was overripe, soft enough that the slices lost their shape against the spoon. I ate it anyway. Thirty-seven cents wasn't a banana. It was a banana I'd already paid for.
I checked my skates. Twice. I was reaching for the third check when my phone buzzed.
Maggie: Dr. Okafor's office called. They want to schedule within six weeks. Window's narrowing—if we miss this round, next availability is late spring, and the imaging suggests waiting adds risk.
Insurance appeal is still processing. Coordinator said don't hold your breath.
I talked to Mom. She's ready to move forward regardless. That means out of pocket up front. You said you could cover it. I need to know if that's still true so I can confirm with the surgical coordinator by Friday.
I opened my phone's budgeting app.
Remaining paychecks through the end of the season. Subtract rent. Insurance. Groceries. Monthly transfer home. Subtract what I'd already set aside since Maggie's first call.
The gap was twenty-six thousand dollars.
Manageable. If every paycheck arrived. If the roster held and no one decided that the experiment had run its course and they could replace Heathcliff Donnelly's production with a cheaper body on a two-way deal.
Heath: Still true. Tell her to schedule it.
By 2:00 PM I was at the arena, and I had a reply.
Maggie: Confirmed. February 19th. Dr. Okafor's office will send paperwork. Love you.
Twenty-three days. Fourteen games. Fourteen chances to stay exactly where I was, producing what the stat sheet said I was producing, being worth what my contract said I cost.
The first shift was fine. Not excellent. Fine was where rot started, a hairline fracture.
I won a board battle. Chipped the puck to Kieran. He carried through neutral, and I drove the net, planting in traffic the strategy Markel had drilled into me since October. No goal, but no mistakes either. Forty-three seconds of professional hockey executed without incident.
Second shift. Cross won the draw back to the point. Rook wound up. I was supposed to be at the net front, blade flat, screening the goalie.
I was there. My body was there.
My head was twenty-three days from now, standing in a hospital waiting room in Madison, doing math on my phone while my father was under anesthesia and my mother sat in a plastic chair pretending to read a magazine she'd already read twice.
The shot came from the point. I didn't get my stick down in time.
The puck sailed wide anyway. On the replay, nobody would see anything wrong. The margins were so small that only two people in the building would have noticed.
Markel was one. I felt his eyes on the back of my neck when I came off the ice. He said nothing. He didn't have to.
Kieran was the other.
Third shift. I collected a pass from Cross at the half-wall. Two options. Kieran cut through the high slot, already a stride ahead of his check. Rook pinching from the point, lane open.
Kieran was the play. I knew it. My hands knew it.
I held the puck a half-beat too long.
Their forward closed the gap. I forced the pass anyway. It hit their defenseman's shin pad and caromed into neutral ice. Two strides later, they had a two-on-one going the other way. Pratt made the save, but I owned the turnover.
Fourth shift. I had a shooting lane. Tight angle, heavy traffic.
I passed. Back to the point. Safe. Responsible. The shot missed the net entirely, and the whistle blew for an icing that shouldn't have existed if I'd done my job eight seconds earlier.
Two turnovers. Zero shots.
The stat sheet wouldn't say I'd been bad. It would say I'd been invisible.
The third period opened with our line on the bench. Markel sent the second unit out first. Standard rotation. Nothing dramatic.
Our shifts came later and shorter.
The last minutes ticked down. The game remained tied. Markel ran the last ninety seconds with Cross, Kieran, and Varga. My line. My spot. Varga in it.
Overtime lasted two minutes and twenty-two seconds. Their top center beat Pratt with a wrister from the circle.
We lost 2-1. I sat on the bench after the horn and stared at the ice. The surface was chewed to hell; sixty-five minutes of blades had stripped it down to fog and ruts.
The locker room emptied the way it always did after losses. Faster than after wins.
I sat at my stall in my base layer and one skate.
The other was on the floor between my feet, unlaced but still upright, leaning against my shin. I'd taken it off six minutes ago. The second one hadn't followed because somewhere between unlacing the left and reaching for the right, I'd stopped moving.
My phone sat on the shelf above my helmet. I didn't reach for it. Reaching for the phone meant looking at the calculator and acknowledging that tonight I hadn't been worth what I cost.
Every team carried players who could do what I did. Net-front bodies. Traffic absorbers. I was better at it than most, but better meant more expensive to lose, not impossible to replace.
The nameplate above me read DONNELLY in white letters on black. Permanent until it wasn't. I'd seen the equipment manager swap nameplates between periods. Two screws and a Phillips head.
The door opened.
Kieran crossed the locker room. He'd showered and changed. Dark jeans, henley, jacket in hand. He moved past my stall without slowing, heading toward his own at the far end. I heard him open his locker. Retrieve something. Close it.
Then his footsteps came back.
Something landed in my lap.
It was a folded piece of paper, torn from a coaching clipboard notebook.
I looked up. He was already walking away. He didn't turn his head.
I unfolded the note and read his handwriting.
My place. 10pm.
I refolded it. Stuck it in my jacket pocket. Unlaced the second skate.
At his condo, Kieran opened the door in sweatpants and a faded t-shirt I recognized as mine. It was a soft gray one with the Rhinelander Hockey logo peeling off at the shoulder.
The fabric sat differently on his frame, pulling across the chest where it hung loose on me.