Chapter 14 — ZAY
Gary finds me charting Jensen’s range of motion. He leans in the doorframe with his coffee, which is where every conversation with Gary starts, and waits until I look up.
“Got a minute?”
“Always.”
He comes in and sits on the edge of the empty table, which means this is casual, not a meeting.
Hájek’s chart is still open on my desk from the morning rotation, his neck looser on the left, responding to the mobilization protocol I adjusted last week.
Mueller’s wrist is stabilizing. Jensen came in quiet and left quieter, which is standard for Jensen, and his range is where I want it.
“Coaching staff had questions about Marchetti’s full release timeline. I told them you’d put together a projection when you’re ready, but I wanted to give you a heads-up.”
“I can have something drafted by Friday. Everything is tracking ahead of schedule. I want two more weeks of loaded resistance before I commit to a timeline on paper.” I close Jensen’s chart and set it aside. “Between us, I still probably want him in here through the rest of the season.”
Gary nods. “That’s what I told them. ‘Brooks will give you a number when the number’s ready, not before.’” He takes a sip of his coffee. “I defer to you on this one. You’ve been hands-on with the case from day one. I trust your judgment.”
When the coaching staff pushed for a faster release last month, he backed my protocol without asking me to justify it.
My doctorate in physical therapy matters to him in a way that it doesn’t with everyone.
He treats it as what it is, which is the highest clinical credential in the room, and he defers accordingly.
“Thanks, Gary. I’ll have the projection solid by end of week.”
He pushes off the table. “Good.” He pauses at the door. “Oh, and the feedback from Coach Bodie’s staff has been positive. Your communication with the strength team is exactly what I wanted when I brought you on, Brooks.”
He leaves and I reset my station, wipe the table, pull Mueller’s follow-up chart for this afternoon.
Tyler comes in around ten thirty. He’s carrying two coffees and holds one out to me.
“Grabbed you one. They finally fixed the machine in the staff kitchen.”
“Thanks.” I take it. The coffee is mediocre but the gesture is genuine.
Tyler does this. Brings coffee, checks in, asks about my weekend with the same unhurried ease he brings to everything in this building.
He is between patients the same way I am during morning skate.
He leans against the counter while I prep tape for my next session, and the comfort of his posture is the comfort of a man who has never once had to calculate whether he belongs in the room he’s standing in.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” He takes a sip from his cup. “Why does Marchetti always book with you?”
The coffee in my hand stays level. My face stays level. Everything stays level because the alternative to level is a reaction I cannot afford to have in this room.
“I was assigned his case in September. Continuity of care.”
“Right, yeah, totally. That makes sense.” Tyler nods.
He’s not pressing. He’s not suspicious. He’s a colleague making conversation on a Tuesday morning.
“It’s just funny, you know? Most of the guys rotate between us depending on the schedule.
Marchetti’s the only one who specifically books with you every time.
You’ve got a good thing going with that case. ”
“The protocol benefits from consistency. Especially with a long-term rehab.”
“For sure. I get that.” He straightens up, tosses his empty cup in the trash.
“Anyway. Let me know if you need anything for the Jensen wrist. I’ve got some notes from yesterday.
” He stops at the doorframe. Not turning back.
Just a half-second pause, his hand resting on the frame, the way a person pauses when a thought hasn’t fully finished forming.
“That shoulder really is a good case, though. Gary was right about that.”
Then he’s gone. His footsteps move down the hall toward his station, easy and unhurried, and the room is quiet and the coffee he brought me is sitting on my desk getting cold.
I pour it out in the sink and rinse the cup.
I close Hájek’s chart, file Mueller’s, and pull Marchetti’s from the stack.
The notes from last session are in my handwriting.
The clinical data is clean and the clinical data is the only thing on this chart that should exist, and it does, and I read every line of it twice.
Marchetti’s session is at two. He walks in the way he walks into every room, which is fully, the air rearranging around him to make space for whatever he is about to say or sing or argue about.
Today he is arguing with someone in the hallway about whether penne is a legitimate pasta shape, and the argument follows him through my door like a weather system that has not finished with the region.
“Kowalski says rigatoni is a vehicle, not a pasta. A vehicle, Brooks. For sauce. Like it doesn’t have its own identity.” He gestures with both hands, which is how I know the argument is still live and he is not done with it. “I told him rigatoni is a lifestyle.”
“On the table.”
He stops. Looks at me. The grin is there, loaded and ready, waiting for the opening I would have given him last week. The dry comment about Kowalski’s pasta opinions. The sarcasm that would have slipped out before I could catch it.
“On the table, Marchetti. Shirt off.”
He pulls his shirt over his head. I note the scapular positioning.
Less anterior tilt than last month. The compensatory pattern through the left side is resolving.
I warm gel between my palms and begin palpation at the posterior deltoid, pressing into the tissue with clinical intention.
His breathing is steady. His posture on the table is looser than it was in September, the guardedness around the joint gone.
The body trusts me even when the session is cold.
“How has the shoulder been responding to the increased resistance?”
“Good. Feels stronger. I was shooting around yesterday and it felt more natural than it has all season.”
“I’ll note that in the chart. Let me check your external rotation.”
I guide his arm through the arc. Steady hands.
Correct positioning. The tissue under my fingers is responsive and warm and it is tissue.
I am assessing range of motion because that is what this room is for.
I check the end-range mobility, noting the improved glide.
Better than last week. Better than last month.
Every measurement confirms the protocol.
“External rotation is improved,” I tell him. “I want to see how the loaded resistance holds through the next two weeks before I draft the return-to-play projection.”
“Sounds good.” He is watching me. Not the way a patient watches a provider run through a protocol. The way he watches me when he is trying to read whether I am being Brooks-at-work or Brooks-outside-of-work. “You okay?”
“I am assessing your shoulder improvement.”
“That’s not what I asked.” He says this lower, only for my ears.
“That is what is happening in this room, Marchetti.”
He can ask. He can push with the grin and the warmth and the voice that makes the professional language feel like a costume, and if someone walks past, the story is a player checking on his PT.
The story is never the other direction. It is never the trainer who let a look linger on a player with his shirt off and his shoulder under hands that stopped being purely clinical weeks ago.
The silence that follows is not Marchetti silence, because Marchetti silence does not exist under normal conditions. Last week he would have pushed. He would have found the crack, the joke, the thing that got under my professional demeanor. And I would have let him, probably.
I complete the rotator cuff assessment. Internal rotation, external rotation, abduction against resistance. I document each measurement. My handwriting is small and neat and every letter is where it belongs.
“I am going to increase the eccentric loading next session. You will feel more fatigue through the posterior chain. That is expected. Ice for fifteen minutes after practice on the days between sessions.”
“Got it.”
I hand him his shirt. He pulls it on. Stands. Rolls the shoulder once, the way he does, testing it, and the motion is smooth and strong and the case is progressing exactly the way a well-managed rehabilitation case should progress.
“Thanks, Brooks.”
I hear it the way I heard it in October. In December. In every session before Charlotte, when the professional distance was the whole truth. Marchetti says thanks the way every player says thanks and it is nothing more than that.
I sit down with the chart. The numbers are clean. The protocol is sound. The case is the best work I have done since Gary brought me on, and the best work is also the most visible work, and I cannot have one without the other.