26. Briggs
brIGGS
We didn’t talk about it before Evie got on a plane back to Vegas. We didn’t have time to. I spent the rest of the night fielding calls from Ted and refreshing a story that had my brother’s name in the headline.
That’s what he had been chasing me for all weekend. A beat reporter had gotten it from somewhere, and Ted caught wind Friday that the story was coming. He’d been trying to warn me while I was showing Evie my city, pretending my life was an easy thing to slot her into.
I should’ve picked up the damn phone.
Evie took it like a champ, though. She booked herself a flight and left me to handle it alone, because that’s what I told her I needed. She stood in my kitchen with her bag already packed and asked if I wanted her to stay.
I said no. The word came out before I could weigh it, and I watched it land on her face and settle in there. Maybe I did want her to stay, after all. But it doesn’t matter now. It’s too much to put on someone I’ve only known for a handful of months.
I’ve read the piece four times by now. Most of it is recycled from Ziggy’s obituary and a Vegas gossip account nobody should be quoting. The two paragraphs that matter cite people close to the family, and nobody close to my family has ever spoken to a reporter.
That leaves the hallway. I stood outside the family room in Vegas and yelled at Ophelia’s face, loud enough to bounce off cinder block. A dozen people move through that corridor every minute. Equipment kids, a guy in a polo pushing a laundry cart.
Ophelia selling the story herself makes no sense. She has more to lose than I do, and she’s had two and a half years to do it.
The reporters and their reconstructed timeline are survivable. My father is the problem. All this time, he thought the rift between his sons was about money—some stubborn dispute I was too proud to let go.
He watched us stop speaking and decided I was the one holding the grudge. He never knew what Ziggy did because I never had the courage to tell him.
I need to talk to him. Need to tell him in my own words before he’s blindsided by it.
I dial my dad’s house at one in the morning, anticipating the exact ghost I’m about to encounter. It’s the recording my mother made back in 1998—a few syllables my father has never allowed anyone to erase.
Hearing her voice claim the Maxwell name at this hour takes a piece of me I wasn’t ready to lose. I try Danny’s cell twice after that, but it just goes straight to voicemail.
I spend the next few hours on the sofa, watching the clock. In Vegas, it’s well past midnight. Ever since the stroke, my dad’s been off to bed by nine. I shouldn’t have bothered trying to wake him.
Exhausted, I finally retreat to bed at three and manage a few stiff, broken stretches of sleep. My legs never quite unlock. By six, I’m up and dressed with absolutely nowhere to be. I sit by the window and watch Charlotte transition from black to a dull gray, waiting for the desert to wake up.
The return call from Danny finally arrives at eight o’clock, Vegas time.
“Murph isn’t happy,” he says. “Been up since six. Loretta across the street called him.”
A muscle in my jaw ticks. “Six in the morning.”
“She thought she was doing him a kindness.” A door shuts on his end. “He’s seen it. I came over. He had me pull it up and read him the whole thing twice.”
My chest folds down flat. “How is he?”
“He asked me to go sit in my truck.”
“Danny—”
“I’ll pass him the phone.” He blows out a breath. “Go easy on him. His pressure’s been high all week.”
The line changes hands. The recliner creaks, and I know exactly which chair he’s in and which window he’s looking out of.
“Dad.”
“Well over two years.” He skips every greeting we’ve ever used. “You want to explain to me how that works?”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?” The word comes out hard enough to crack. “Give me the date, Briggs. I’ll write it on the calendar.”
“Dad.”
“Last July, on Zig’s birthday, I asked you to call him.” His words drag at the edges. “You remember what you told me?”
“I remember.”
“You said you were busy. I told you life is short, and you let me say it.”
I press the heel of my hand against my eye. “I know.”
“I called you proud. I called you hardheaded to your face, and you just took it. Why would you let me do that?”
“Because the alternative was telling you what he did.”
“So you let me be wrong.” His voice climbs. “You let me be wrong out loud, for years, about my own damn children.”
“I don’t know if you recall, but you had a stroke and needed time to recover. I didn’t think that—”
“Don’t.” The sound he makes is closer to a bark. “Don’t you dare hang this on my health. I have been sick; I have not been a child.”
“That’s not what I—”
“I apologized to him for you.” It lands and takes all the air out of the room along with it. “Over and over. I told him you’d come around, that you just needed time, and I said I was sorry it was taking you so long.”
The words go through me clean, front to back. “I get that.”
“That’s what I gave him.” His breathing has gone rough. “The last real conversation I had with my son, I spent defending you. I told him to be patient with you. Do you understand what you let me do?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what? From knowing him?” A long scrape of silence. “He’s dead, Briggs. I can’t ask him a single question. I can’t yell at him. I sat here as the sun came up this morning and got furious at a man who’s been in the ground since November, and there’s nowhere for it to go.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“I don’t want it.”
“Dad—”
“I don’t want it yet.” He coughs, and the recliner creaks again. “He stopped drinking. Did you know that? Right after you must’ve found out. He sat at my table that Fourth of July with a glass of Coke, and I gave him hell about it. He just laughed at me.”
I swallow heavily. “I don’t know what that’s got to do with it.”
“Neither do I because he never told me anything!” Murphy says. “So the pair of you kept me out of your lives. Congratulations to the both of you.”
“I didn’t know what it would do to you.”
“You decided. That’s your whole trouble.” His voice thins out. “You’d rather pretend a thing doesn’t exist than have to deal with it head-on.”
“Yeah, sometimes it’s easier that way.”
“Did he ever say it to you?” he asks. “Sorry. Did he ever get that far?”
“No.”
He doesn’t say anything for so long I check the screen to see if the call dropped. Then the fight goes out of him all at once. “Okay. I need a few days.”
“I’ve got New York Friday. Let me call you from the road.”
“Don’t bother. The conversation isn’t finished, but I—I can’t have your voice in my head for a while. I’d rather give it to you straight than leave you wondering why I’m not answering.”
The air in my lungs compresses. “Okay.”
“I hope you and Evie had a decent weekend. Before, well, before the noise started.”
I think about the bathroom mirror and the way she looked at me in the kitchen. “We did, actually.”
“Don’t do to her what you did to me, Briggs. If you listen to me about anything, let it be this. Don’t leave her in the dark. Let her know where your mind is.”
My throat tightens, the pressure behind my ribs returning. “I’ll try,” I manage, the words sounding hollow even to me.
“That’s a hell of a lack of commitment.”
“It’s all I’ve got right now, Dad.”
He exhales a long, heavy breath through the line. “Good luck on Friday. Play some good hockey.”
The connection cuts before I can say I love him, and the rest of the day unspools in a blurry rush of damage control.
Ted handles the formal script, and the organization issues a statement that leans heavily on the word private. By midafternoon, I’m cornered by a dozen reporters at the rink. I look them in the eyes and tell them my family life isn’t an asset for public consumption.
Back at the condo, the silence is a physical weight. I sit on the edge of the mattress as the city lights flicker, phone glowing in the dark. I text Evie.
Briggs
it’s a mess today. I’ll call you when the noise settles
The next morning, I spend three hours in a coffee shop downtown just staring at a wall, nursing a black coffee that goes cold before I’ve finished half of it. I considered catching a flight to Vegas just to face my father, but he asked for time, so that’s exactly what I’m going to give him.
Briggs
you still headed to the house? how is he?
Evie
yep, he’s fine
That’s the extent of our dialogue for the day. I have too many rotations to memorize and too much static to drown out. I even skip the session with Isabelle, telling myself I can’t spare the hour when, really, I just can’t spare the honesty.
On Wednesday afternoon, Evie sends me a photo. It’s my father in his recliner, the crossword folded over his knee and his cane hooked on the armrest, glaring at the lens like he knows exactly who’s on the other end of the line.
Evie
he’s letting me make him shepherd’s pie tonight
I stare at the screen for a long, quiet minute. She’s still showing up every day. She’s going into that house, and he’s letting her in, even while he can’t bring himself to hear the sound of my voice.
Briggs
thank you
I don’t sleep a wink on Thursday night. We’re already in New York for the game, and I lie in the hotel dark doing the morbid math on how many millions of people probably read that piece.
I give up at 4:00 a.m. and ride the stationary bike in the empty fitness center until my quads are screaming and my legs feel like lead—a spectacularly bad choice with puck drop twelve hours away.
By warm-ups, my body already feels like it’s failing me.
When the game starts, the Empire come out flying, and we come out like we’re skating through mud. Six minutes in, I’m caught puck-watching instead of moving my feet, and Hartwell has to scramble to cover a defensive rotation that was supposed to be mine.
Bellan doesn’t say a word when I skate to the bench. He just looks down the row at me for two agonizing seconds before turning his eyes back to the ice.
Second shift, I have a wide-open look and miss the net from eight feet out. Third shift, I put a simple breakout pass right into a defenseman’s skate.
Augie taps my shin with his stick. “Hey. Reset, Maxie.”
“I’m fine.”
He sees the lie, but he doesn’t push it.
The Empire go up by two before the first period ends. I spend the intermission staring at a scuff on the floor between my skates while Bellan draws on the whiteboard; I couldn’t repeat a single word that came out of his mouth.
Eight minutes into the second, their defenseman goes back for a puck in the corner with his numbers turned to me. He isn’t even a threat to the play. I have all the time in the world to angle off and just take the puck.
Instead, I put him through the boards.
He goes down awkwardly and stays there, unmoving. His back was to me, and he never saw it coming. There’s no version of that hit a single man in this building will defend.
The whistle comes late because the ref is as stunned by the violence as I am. Their bench pours over the boards. Two of them get hands on me and scream at me to drop the gloves, and a fight is the only clean way out of this.
I keep them on. Refusing is its own kind of cowardice, but I do it anyway.
Five and a game. I’m done for the night. The kid eventually gets up on his own and skates off slowly with a trainer’s hand on his back.
I head for the tunnel, and the walk from the penalty box feels miles longer than the one at home. I sit in the visitors’ dressing room while the game finishes without me. I hear it all through the cinder block—the crowd roaring twice more, then the final horn.
I have my elbows on my knees and my jersey half-peeled off, and I’m still sitting in that exact spot when the guys file in after a 5–1 loss.
Nobody says a word to me. Hartwell puts a heavy hand on my shoulder as he passes, but he doesn’t stop walking.
Bellan finds me at my stall after the last of the media have cleared out. “Talk.”
“Nothing to say.”
“Try,” he says, crouching until we’re eye to eye. “Because I just watched a twenty-two-year-old kid go into the wall from behind for no reason a single person in this building could name. Including you.”
I look at the floor.
“The Detroit game. A guy runs his mouth about your brother, you drop him, and I go to bat for you. I told the league you were provoked.” He lets the silence sit. “That man came to find you. He had his gloves off before you did.”
“I know.”
“You want to fight somebody, fight somebody. Find a man who’s looking at you.” He shakes his head once. “Who provoked you tonight, Briggs?”
“Nobody.”
“Nobody.” He nods slowly. “So this is you. You brought your mess in here, and it landed on a kid who’s played nine games.”
“I’ll take whatever discipline they give me.”
He stands. “My problem is I’ve got a room full of men who watched you do that, and every one of them answers for it the next time we see New York. Get your head fixed, or get comfortable sitting out. I can’t dress a hand grenade for the playoff push.”
I shower with the water scalding and have no memory of putting on the suit.
Back at the hotel, my phone is a graveyard of forty-one notifications. My name is in another headline, sandwiched between the words ejected and late brother, because those two things occupy the same space in my life now. They probably always will.
There’s one message from Evie.
Evie
I saw the hit. are you okay?
Briggs
I’m alright. long night. talk tomorrow
Tonight, I actually mean it.