Chapter Thirty-Five
For several seconds, Tessa forgot the deadline.
Frank Donnelly sat in the seat she had spent the entire year thinking of as his, one hand resting beside the leather notebook she recognized from photographs, old press-box videos and the few games she had watched him cover while still in university.
Gray had spread farther through his hair than she remembered.
His face looked slightly leaner, his skin carrying enough color to prove the photographs he and his wife occasionally sent from Europe had not been staged entirely inside museums.
He looked familiar.
He also looked like somebody who belonged to another part of her life.
“Hey,” Tessa said.
The word came out smaller than she intended.
Frank’s smile widened.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“You are sitting in my seat.”
He looked down.
“Your seat now?”
Tessa opened her mouth.
The question held too much history for the middle of a deadline.
Frank noticed the laptop beneath her arm, the recorder still in one hand and the phone vibrating against the notebook she carried.
His expression changed immediately.
“What happened?”
“Viktor. One more year.”
The answer produced a quiet laugh.
“Of course.”
“He announced it onstage with his kids.”
“And Elaine’s already chasing you.”
Tessa’s phone vibrated again.
Frank nodded toward it.
“Go.”
“I have several questions.”
“And they will all still exist after you file.”
Frank looked toward her. Then down at the seat. Something passed through his expression that Tessa could not identify.
He gestured toward the main work area behind the rows of assigned seats. Long counters ran beneath several television screens, most of them showing the rally still unfolding downstairs.
“Set up out there. More room. I’ll get coffee.”
“You just got here.”
“I’ve been here since before the speeches.”
“You watched all of it?”
“I couldn’t stay away.”
The simple admission softened her.
Frank seemed to recognize the questions returning to her face.
“Deadline,” he said.
Tessa’s phone vibrated again.
She exhaled.
“Coffee?”
“Yes.”
“How do you take it now?”
“The same way I took it when you were an intern.”
“I was never your intern.”
“You asked enough questions to qualify.”
“Black.”
“I remember.”
Frank started toward the corridor, then turned.
“And Tessa?”
“Yes?”
“Good lead.”
She stared.
“You haven’t read it.”
“I heard Viktor’s speech.”
Frank nodded toward the laptop.
“Now go prove me right.”
He disappeared into the corridor.
Tessa stood beside the empty chair for one second longer.
Then carried the laptop toward the main work area.
The story took twenty-seven minutes.
The lead had formed inside the elevator. The rest required organization rather than invention.
Tessa began with Viktor’s announcement, then moved backward through the parade and rally. His uncertainty in January. The setback that removed every timeline. The individual skates, noncontact practices and return against Boston. The overtime goal in Game 7. The Cup lifted above his head.
She used the full quote from the stage.
“I thought winning it might make the decision easier. I thought I would hold it, know I had done everything and be ready to walk away. I was wrong.”
Tessa included his daughter wearing the championship cap and his son holding the plastic Cup against Viktor’s shoulder when the captain told the city he would return.
The surrounding rally became context rather than competition.
Cole discussing the year beside Matvei.
Joona saying he had arrived alone and now was not.
McDonough attempting not to cry while thanking the city.
Matvei telling Halifax he knew he was home.
Tessa paused over that paragraph.
Only briefly.
Then continued.
Frank returned before she reached the ending. He placed a coffee beside her without speaking and walked past the work area toward the seats overlooking the ice.
Tessa glanced after him.
Most fans remained. Players had left the stage and begun moving along the boards, signing jerseys and taking photographs with children pressed near the glass. The Stanley Cup rested near one corner beneath the watch of its handlers.
Frank stood with both hands inside the pockets of his jacket.
He did not look toward Tessa again.
He had remembered the silence a reporter needed near deadline.
That, more than the old notebook or familiar seat, made his presence feel real.
Tessa returned to the story.
The ending came from the day itself.
The parade had been intended as Halifax’s final celebration of a championship season. Sundberg turned it into the beginning of another.
She checked the quotes against the recording, confirmed the spelling of every name and read the story from the beginning.
Elaine messaged before she finished.
Elaine: Status?
Tessa: Filing now.
Tessa pressed send.
The confirmation appeared.
Elaine called less than a minute later.
“Good lead.”
“Frank said the same thing before I wrote it.”
Silence followed.
“Frank?”
“He is here.”
“Frank Donnelly?”
“I only know one.”
“What is he doing there?”
“Sitting in my seat.”
Elaine laughed.
Tessa had almost forgotten what that sounded like.
“Story is clean. We’re moving it.”
“Do you need anything else?”
“Notebook tonight. Not now.”
The words felt like a gift.
Elaine ended the call.
Tessa closed the laptop and looked toward the seats.
Frank had returned to the chair.
Her chair.
His chair.
The distinction felt less sharp from a distance.
She picked up the coffee and walked toward him.
The lower bowl had begun emptying.
Fans moved slowly toward the exits, reluctant to leave the building after a day spent following the Cup through the city. Arena employees collected signs and folded sections of the temporary stage. The large screens continued showing parade highlights without sound.
Frank sat facing the ice.
Tessa lowered herself into the seat beside him.
He looked toward her coffee.
“Still warm?”
“Enough.”
“Story done?”
“Filed.”
“Any calls from Elaine?”
“Only one.”
“She’s getting soft.”
“She would be thrilled to hear that.”
“I’m not telling her.”
Tessa placed the coffee near the edge of the desk.
For a few seconds, neither spoke.
The silence was not uncomfortable.
Frank had trained himself over decades to sit beside people without filling every opening. Tessa remembered that from their occasional conversations before she took the beat. He asked questions slowly and let answers finish, a trait she had once assumed came naturally.
She now understood it as work.
Frank looked toward the stage.
“Hell of a speech.”
“Viktor?”
“All of them.”
Tessa smiled, then took a drink of coffee.
“You really came back for the parade?”
Frank glanced toward her.
“You think I came for the coffee?”
“I think you have been sending photographs from Italy, France and places where every building is older than Halifax.”
“Most buildings are older than Halifax.”
“You were retired.”
“Still am.”
“You traveled halfway around the world to sit in the press box.”
“My wife said if I spent the next ten years telling strangers I should have been at the parade, she was leaving me in Lisbon.”
“You watched Game 7 in Lisbon?”
“At two in the morning.”
“Did you wake the hotel?”
“Probably.”
Tessa pictured Frank inside an unfamiliar room, watching the team he had covered for nearly four decades while the next reporter wrote the story from his seat.
“Did you know you were coming back then?”
“No.”
He looked down at the ice.
“I thought I could watch it on television. I thought that was the healthy retired-person decision.”
“And?”
“The horn went, the city lost its mind and I started looking at flights.”
“Your wife agreed?”
“She had the tab open first.”
Tessa smiled.
“She came too?”
“She’s with friends downtown. She said the press box portion of the day sounded like punishment.”
“She is right.”
“Usually.”
Frank picked up his notebook but did not open it.
“I didn’t want to interfere.”
Tessa understood.
“How long are you staying?”
“A week. Maybe two. We still have plans later this summer.”
“More Europe?”
“My wife has a list.”
“Do you know where?”
“Some of it.”
“That sounds safe.”
“I spent thirty-nine years following schedules other people made. I’m trying something different.”
Tessa looked toward him.
He seemed relaxed in a way she had never seen while he covered the team. The same awareness remained. Frank noticed workers removing the stage, watched the Cup handlers and occasionally glanced toward the corridor whenever footsteps approached.
But nothing demanded he act on what he saw.
He did not need to find the quote, identify the story or send anything to an editor.
The freedom looked good on him.
“You look happy,” Tessa said.
“I am.”
“You miss it.”
Frank looked around the press box.
“Parts. Mostly I miss knowing what happens next.”
“You can read the paper.”
“It’s not the same.”
“No.”
He looked toward her.
“You know that now.”
Tessa rested both forearms against the desk.
The sentence changed the conversation.
This was the first time they had sat together since she took his position.
They had spoken by phone before the season and exchanged occasional messages.
Frank had congratulated her after large stories, corrected one historical detail in October and sent an email after Game 7 containing only three words.
You got it.
At the time, Tessa assumed he meant the story.
Now she wondered whether he meant something larger.
“How was the year?” Frank asked.
The question appeared too broad to answer.
“You read me.”
“I read the paper.”
“That was the year.”
“No.”
Frank turned slightly in the seat.
“I read what you published. I’m asking what it was like.”
Tessa looked down at the ice.
Where could she begin without reaching Matvei?
Training camp. The hostile first interview. The technical question that changed the way he saw her. Helsinki. The first kiss. The relationship constructed inside homes while the beat continued beyond their doors.
She could not tell Frank that version.
Not yet.
Perhaps never.
“There was a lot I did not know,” she said.
“That is generally the first year.”
“I thought I knew the job.”
“You did.”