17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ROWAN
By the time I get back to Hawthorne, Stanley is standing in the kitchen eating cold pasta straight out of the container. He looks at me when I come through the door, glances at the clock on the wall, and then looks at me again.
“You were gone a while.”
“I went to the rink.”
“We all go to the rink.”
I take my shoes off.
Stanley watches me. “The children?”
I can’t believe he remembered G’s event. I nod. “Yeah.”
He nods slowly. “For the children.”
I look at him.
He smiles around the fork.
I don’t bother talking. Stanley knows enough to be annoying and not enough to actually do anything useful with the information, which appears to be exactly where he likes to live.
“How was it?” he asks.
“Good.”
“Reeve do okay?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Just okay?”
I walk toward the kitchen.
Stanley follows.
“She did really good.”
That gets a different look out of him. Not mocking. Just interested.
“She was freaking out all week.”
“I know.”
He sets the container down. “You like her.”
I open the refrigerator. “Yeah.”
Stanley doesn’t say anything. I look over. He is staring at me with the expression of someone who expected a fight and got handed the answer instead.
He picks the pasta back up. “I’m enjoying how easy that was.”
I take a bottle of water and drink.
Benson comes downstairs while I’m standing there and heads straight for the cabinet. “How’d it go?”
“Good.”
He looks at me. “G okay?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“She panic?”
“Before.”
Benson smiles like that makes complete sense. “She always does that. Anything happen?”
I lean back against the counter. “Nothing major. A couple kids had the wrong skates. One volunteer was late. Jerseys were too big.”
Benson stops. “Jerseys?”
“Apparently, she ordered all one size.”
He closes his eyes. “Jesus.”
“She made the kids tuck it in.”
He laughs. “Of course.” There is pride in his voice that he does not try to hide.
“She was good,” I tell him.
Benson looks at me. Then nods. “Yeah.” He opens the cabinet and pulls down a glass. “Mom called me twice about it already.” He fills the glass with water. “Thanks for going.”
I look at him. He doesn’t make anything of it.
“Yeah.”
Then he heads back upstairs.
I stand there for a second with the water bottle in my hand.
Stanley has been pretending not to listen. He fails, taking another bite of pasta. “He doesn’t know.”
“Be quiet, Stan.”
He grins.
I go upstairs.
The game is not for another five hours. That sounds like a long time until I get into my room and realize how tired I am. I set my alarm for ninety minutes, lie down on top of the blanket, and wake up sixty-eight minutes later before the alarm goes off.
My phone is on the mattress beside me. There’s a message from Gianna.
A picture. The group photo from the clinic.
Forty-eight kids in jerseys, volunteers behind them, sponsor banner along the boards.
The rows are uneven. One kid is looking sideways.
Somebody in the front is holding a stick upside down.
It looks real. That’s what stands out. Not like a class project. Not like something a sophomore did because a professor told her to. Real.
I zoom in and find Gianna near the side. She’s smiling. She looks happy.
I text her.
Me: Good picture.
Her answer comes immediately.
Gianna: BEST PICTURE EVER TAKEN!
Me: One kid isn’t looking
Gianna: I blame his mother.
I laugh.
Gianna: Nap?
Me: Just woke up.
Me: You?
Gianna: Showering then heading back.
Me: You’re going early?
Gianna: I work here, babe.
I stare at the last word. Not because it is some giant thing. Because she has not called me that before.
I read it again.
Me: Right.
Three dots appear.
Gianna: Wow.
Gianna: Did you forget?
I smile.
Me: No.
Gianna: I’m never calling you babe again btw.
I grin.
Me: Okay, babe.
There is a longer pause.
Gianna: Frick it.
I put the phone down, smiling.
By the time I get to the rink for team meal, the clinic is completely gone. The registration tables are gone. No sponsor banner. No children dragging bags down the hallway. The building is back to game day. Camden signs. Staff moving equipment. Music somewhere deeper inside the rink.
The whole thing reset in a few hours.
I pass the secondary entrance and think about Gianna standing there this morning with a clipboard, giving three people directions at once. Then I keep walking.
There is hockey to play. Friday’s loss is still sitting in the room. Nobody says much about it. Ohio State beat us two-one. Percy made thirty-five saves. Benson scored our only goal. That is enough information.
We are 17-12-2.
Numbers get less interesting the deeper into February we go. Every game matters. That’s the part that matters.
Coach goes through the same clips we have already seen. Their forecheck. Their weak-side winger. The way they collapse low when we get possession behind the net.
He pauses a sequence from last night and points at the center of the screen.
“Look at the middle.”
Nobody says anything. He rolls the clip. We retrieve. Their first man comes hard. Second man drops. Our winger is open high. We rim it anyway. Turnover.
Fuller pauses again. “Look at the middle.”
His eyes go around the room.
“If they give it to you, use it.”
I look at the screen. Something about that lands harder than it should. Maybe because Aspen has been saying the same thing to me in twenty different ways since January. Second look. Don’t decide the play before the puck gets there. Stop defaulting to safe. Use the middle. I understand all of it.
Warmups are sharp. Blue is loud, Stanley looks wired, Benson is Benson, and Percy barely speaks.
I skate my normal laps and keep my breathing even.
When I glance into the stands, I find Gianna before I find anybody else. Lucy is beside her. Mara on the other side.
Gianna sees me looking. She lifts both hands and points at me. Then she mouths something I cannot hear.
I shake my head.
She exaggerates it.
SCORE. A. GOAL.
I laugh.
Mackey skates past. He follows my line of sight, sees Gianna, then looks at me.
I skate away before he can say anything.
First period is ugly. Everything gets interrupted. Sticks in lanes. Bodies in corners. Dump-outs. I get hit behind our net twice in the first six minutes and hit somebody else hard enough that he looks at me after the whistle.
Blue gets into something near their bench. Benson grabs the back of his jersey and pulls him away before he can turn it into a penalty. Stanley takes a hit behind the net that spins his helmet sideways. He spends his next shift looking for the guy who did it. Percy stops nine.
We score none.
They score none.
0-0.
In the room, Coach Fuller draws one thing on the board. Their weak-side winger is collapsing too low on our retrieval. He circles the space above the dots.
“Somebody use this.”
I stare at it. Middle. Of course.
Second period starts faster. Ohio State gets the first one four minutes in. Nothing dramatic. Shot from the wall. Rebound goes somewhere Percy doesn’t want it. They get there first.
1-0.
The building tightens.
Benson gets us even eight minutes later on the power play. Stanley shoots from the top. Traffic. Rebound. Benson finds it.
1-1.
The noise changes immediately. Momentum is mostly a word people use after something happens, but there are nights when you can feel a building decide the next ten minutes belong to the home team.
This feels like that.
Our next two shifts are good. Blue finishes a hit. Mackey holds the line. Stanley gets a shot through. Their goalie kicks it out. Then the puck gets rimmed behind our net.
I go back for it.
First look before I get there.
Their winger is high.
Second look.
He changes direction.
I don’t.
That part is automatic now. The part that used to take all of my attention. I pull the puck off the wall. Their first forechecker expects D-to-D. I see it in the way he turns his hips.
There is space in front of me. Not a lot. I step out from behind the net. One stride. Then another. Their winger adjusts late. The middle opens.
I hear the bench shouting. I have no idea what they’re saying. Probably all of it. Move it. Go. Shoot. Wall. Something.
For half a second, every version of this play I have made for four years tells me the same thing.
Move the puck. Make the safe play. Get it up the wall. Do your job.
Then I think about the clinic. Not intentionally. It just flashes through. Gianna standing at the gate with forty-eight kids on the ice behind her. Nobody in that building knowing how many things went wrong before it started. Her fixing them anyway. Just making the next decision.
I have a lane, so I take it. I carry above the circle. Their winger is still trying to catch up. Defenseman backs off. Goalie squares. I shoot. Low blocker. I don’t actually see the puck cross the line.
I hear the sound first.
Crowd.
Bench.
Then the red light.
For one stupid second, I stand there like I need confirmation. Then Blue hits me from the side so hard I nearly go down. Stanley gets there next. Benson grabs the back of my helmet. Somebody hits my shoulder. Everybody is yelling.
I look at the net. Puck inside.
2-1.
Mine.
First of the season.
I laugh. I can’t stop it.
Stanley gets both hands on my helmet.
“YOU USED THE FUCKING MIDDLE.”
I shove him.
He is laughing too.
Blue smacks the top of my head. “Finally.”
“Fuck off.”
Benson gets an arm around my shoulders. “Good shot.”
“Thanks.”
Then I look toward the stands. I know exactly where she is. Gianna has both arms over her head. She is screaming so hard her face is red. Lucy has one hand over her mouth. Mara is jumping. Gianna sees me looking. Points at herself. Then at me. Then mouths something.
I can’t make it out. Probably I told you. That would be her.
I smile. Then the guys pull me toward the bench.
Coach taps the top of my helmet when I go by. “About time.”
“Yeah.”
I sit down. My chest is pounding harder than it should be after one rush.
Stanley leans over the boards. “Elite offensive defenseman.”
“Shut up.”
“One goal.”
“I know.”
“In February. Historic.”
I shove his shoulder.
Benson sits beside me. “Enjoy it for thirty seconds.”