Chapter 4 Four #3
At home, I toss the keys on the counter and go straight to the bathroom. I strip off my jacket, stare at my reflection in the mirror.
There’s a streak of wax on my sleeve, orange and oily. My eyes are red, but not from crying. The skin under them looks bruised.
I wash my hands, scrubbing until the marker ink and the phantom smell of candles is gone.
I dry them off, flex my fingers, and wonder if anyone will remember this part of the story, the long stretch of nothing after the headlines.
Probably not.
I go to bed and lie on my back, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
The sound in my ears is the silence after the gunshots, thick and final.
Tomorrow, there will be another ritual.
Another piece of the puzzle.
Another day of getting up, and pretending it matters.
———
Funerals are just games where no one knows the score.
The church is overfilled, every pew jammed with bodies, the air saturated with sweat and aftershave and grief so thick you could use it to resurface the ice.
I’ve never been in a place this crowded and felt less like I belonged.
There are four caskets at the front, polished wood gleaming under the sanctuary lights.
Cap’s is draped with the team flag, a gesture that probably made some PR director’s week, but looks cheap and desperate in real life.
The other three are smaller, flanked by tired bouquets, surrounded by photos of guys I’d spent the last six months sweating and bleeding alongside.
We’re seated together, team row, dressed in rental suits that itch and pull in all the wrong places.
O’Doul’s pants are two inches too short; Raz’s tie is so tight I wonder if he’s losing circulation.
I’m no better, my collar is strangling me, the starched cuffs cutting into my wrists. If there’s a hell, this is the uniform.
Coach Vasquez sits at the end, hands folded, face a mask of pure steel. She hasn’t said a word since we walked in.
The rest of us alternate between not making eye contact and staring so hard at the altar we might burn a hole through it.
The service starts with a hymn, which no one sings.
The pastor keeps his message mercifully short, “God’s plan,” “gone too soon,” all the greatest hits. He doesn’t know any of us, and it shows.
Coach is next. She walks up, heels echoing off the marble, and stands behind the lectern like she’s calling lines for a playoff game.
There’s a visible tremor in her hands, but when she speaks her voice is surgical, every word cut and measured.
“They were not saints,” she says, and I hear a wet chuckle from somewhere behind me. “But they were ours. They gave everything to this team, to each other, to the game they loved.
And they did it knowing that the world does not reward sacrifice with fairness. There are no guarantees, not in hockey, not in life. There is only the next shift. The next chance to do right by your brothers.”
She names each of them, and each time the crowd mutters the name back, an echo that’s more instinct than respect.
“And to those still with us,” she says, and for a split second her eyes sweep the pew where we sit, “the best way to honor what we lost is to get back up. Every day, every game, every time.”
There’s a silence after that, dense and complicated.
The ceremony ends. The pallbearers, Steelhawks, old and current—rise as one and move to the front. I see the muscles in O’Doul’s jaw flex, like he’s chewing through concrete.
I watch Cap’s casket hoisted up, remember the weight of him on the ice, the way he could body-check a man twice his size and smile while he did it.
As they process down the aisle, all of us rise in sync, a muscle memory we never needed to practice.
Outside, the day is cold and bright.
The press is waiting, but they’re kept at a safe distance by a cordon of volunteers in orange vests.
The team drifts into loose clusters, guys I’ve fought with, sweated with, never really talked to outside the rink.
I want to leave. Instead I stand with hands clasped behind my back, watching my breath ghost in the air.
I see him then, alone at the edge of the sidewalk, Cap’s little brother, Caleb.
He's twenty-two but looks younger, smaller than Ryan but with the same impossible hair, the same restless hands. He wears his grief like a badly-fitted jacket, shoulders hunched, eyes ringed with red.
He looks up, sees me, and for a second I think he’ll turn away. Instead, he walks over, every step heavier than the last.
“Darius,” he says. His voice is so quiet it’s almost a secret.
“Hey, man,” I say, because I don’t know what else to offer.
He stares at the ground, scuffs his shoe in the salt and gravel. “Ryan talked about you guys all the time. He said you were the only one who never let him coast.”
Four. That's the number now. Four teammates, four caskets, four empty stalls in the locker room that nobody will touch.
Four guys who were alive three days ago, running the same drills, bitching about the same coach, breathing the same recycled arena air. Four is a small number until it's subtracted from your life.
Caleb looks up, meets my eyes. “Thank you,” he says, and before I can react he wraps his arms around me, a hug so sudden and desperate it nearly knocks the wind out of my lungs.
For the first time in a week, I feel something break open.
My lip trembles. I clamp down, hard, swallow it whole.
When he lets go, I nod, once, sharp. “We’ll take care of the rest of the season for him.”
He gives a shaky smile and steps back, hands shoved in his pockets.
I watch him walk away, every step a fight against gravity.
———
The rest is logistics, who’s riding with who to the cemetery, where the reception is, what time we need to be at Cap’s house for the wake.
The team moves in a herd, but nobody really talks. It’s like we’re afraid of using up the last of our voices.
I check my phone. Two missed calls from my mother, one from Nia. I don’t call back. Not yet.
Instead, I find a spot at the edge of the parking lot and wait for the next shift.
It’s what I know how to do.
———
Cap’s house is a time capsule of minor-league hockey achievement and blue-collar pride, walls plastered with team photos, dented trophies, and posters of goalies who peaked before I was born.
The living room’s been stripped for extra chairs, every seat taken by someone in a suit or a hoodie, everyone clutching a paper plate or a Solo cup, all the lines between “starter” and “bench” and “fan” erased by shared catastrophe.
The food is classic American mourning, meatballs in grape jelly, trays of cold cuts, two entire Costco cakes with “We Love You #4” piped in blue frosting.
Every horizontal surface holds a bottle, beer, cheap whiskey, a single bottle of champagne no one is brave enough to open.
The team clusters in a corner, a weird tangle of knees and elbows and stories.
O’Doul is three drinks deep and holding court, telling and retelling the story of Cap’s pre-game ritual—how he’d cue up country music, full volume, and belt “Wagon Wheel” until even the other team started singing along.
“Guy couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket,” Raz says, and everyone laughs because it’s true.
Someone else adds, “Remember the time he shaved his head for a bet and then wore a goddamn cowboy hat for two months straight?”
Another laugh, not as loud, but genuine. I nod along, offer a few lines when expected, but mostly let the wave of memory and myth roll over me.
Coach Vasquez sits with Cap’s mother, quietly handling the logistics of grief, who needs a ride home, which charity gets the memorial funds, what time we need to clear out for the family to sleep.
She’s all business, but her eyes keep drifting to the photo of Cap on the mantle, and every time they do, she blinks hard.
I finish my third beer and realize I haven’t said a word in over twenty minutes.
Nobody calls me on it. The rules are different here.
Across the room, at the far end of the kitchen table, I spot Rosen.
He’s alone, perched on the edge of a folding chair, hands laced tight in front of him, staring at the napkin dispenser like it contains the secrets of the universe.
He hasn’t touched the food. He hasn’t moved except to pour a steady trickle of bourbon from the bottle into the same cup, over and over.
He looks wrecked, worse than at the vigil or the funeral. His left eye is swollen, a raw purple fade up his cheekbone.
The cut above his eyebrow is still fresh. Nobody talks to him. Nobody even stands close, like he’s radioactive.
I feel a compulsion to cross the room, say something, do something.
My body leans forward, ready to rise, but I catch myself and settle back in the seat.
I watch the way he holds his drink, two hands, as if letting go would break him in half.
O’Doul notices where I’m looking and mutters, “Never seen a guy take a hit like that and keep playing.”
I grunt, “He’s got a hard head.”
But it’s not the injury that’s got him, anyone can see that. It’s the look in his eyes, the mile-long stare of someone whose brain is still trying to process the last week as anything but a nightmare.
I remember what Dr. Sharma said, about compartmentalizing. About cracks in the seal.
I wonder if Rosen is waiting for someone to say it’s okay to be fucked up. I wonder if he’d even hear it if I did.
I stay put, because that’s what I’m supposed to do. Because I don’t know how to help anyone, not even myself.
The night drags on, the stories get quieter, the crowd thins. Eventually, Coach stands and says, “He’d want us to get some rest,” and the team rises as one, automatic.
I make my way to the door, trading handshakes and back pats, hollow congratulations for surviving what nobody should have had to.
On my way out, I pass Rosen. He doesn’t look up, just swirls the dregs of his cup and keeps his gaze on the table.
I want to say something, but I don’t.
Instead, I walk out into the cold, wondering how many more shifts we’ve got before we finally break.
———
The apartment is so quiet when I get back I half-expect to find the power cut.
The hum of the fridge, the whisper of air through the vent, background noise, but now it’s the only soundtrack.
After two days of people everywhere, the emptiness presses in on me, dense as a body check.
I close the door soft, shed my shoes at the mat, and head straight for the bedroom.
The suit comes off in increments, tie first, then jacket, then the shirt with its starchy cuffs. I hang everything up, even the pants, not because I care but because leaving them on the floor would feel like surrender.
In the bathroom, I turn on the light and squint against the assault of fluorescence.
I grip the edge of the sink and study my reflection, bloodshot eyes, jawline sharp from two days of not eating, a ghost of stubble at the corners.
There’s a patch on my neck where the collar chafed the skin raw.
I try to hold my own gaze, but the face looking back at me is someone I don’t recognize. Someone cracked open, seams showing.
For just a second, everything buckles. My face crumples, eyes wet. I feel the beginning of a sob crawl up the back of my throat.
A single tear slides down my cheek.
I watch it go, a bright line, and then I wipe it away with the heel of my hand, hard enough to leave a mark. I shake out my arms, roll my shoulders, reassemble the armor.
I kill the light and go to bed, lie down on top of the covers in my t-shirt and dress pants, staring at the ceiling like it’s about to blink first.
I wait for sleep. It doesn’t come.
I listen to the silence, and wonder if tomorrow I’ll be able to make it through the whole day without remembering the sound of gunshots, or the way Cap’s little brother hugged me like I was the last thing tethering him to the world.
I wonder if any of us will.
Eventually, the window goes from black to blue, and I know it’s time to get up again.
It’s always time to get up.