16. Chapter 17
Mara
All weekend I ponder how this whole thing got to be such a mess. I want to keep my career, my reputation and Dane.
I wake up Monday morning and I'm done.
Not with Dane. Not with the rink. Done with the version of myself that keeps shrinking to fit the box other people try and put me in.
I lie in bed for exactly four minutes. Then I get up, make coffee, and call Bowman's assistant before he gets in.
I ask for a meeting.
Today.
His office is on the second floor of the arena. Corner office, glass wall overlooking the ice. He's always positioned to watch everything.
He gestures to the chair across from his desk when I walk in. I don't take it.
"This won't take long." I say.
Bowman leans back. His smile doesn't shift. "Mara. I'm glad you reached out. I've been thinking about your situation."
"So have I."
He pauses. Just barely.
"I'm not here to negotiate my way back onto the team as a favor," I tell him. "I'm here to give you terms for a contract. I’ve defined roles, scope of services, schedule, and a clear conduct policy that applies to every person I train."
He tilts his head. "That's a significant ask."
"It's a standard professional arrangement. The kind you'd offer any contractor you actually valued."
The smile holds. His eyes don't. "You've been talking to someone."
"No, I've been thinking."
I set a single sheet of paper on his desk. I drafted it last night at my kitchen table, cross-referencing the league's contractor guidelines. Two hours of work. way overdue.
"Look it over," I say. "I'll need an answer by Wednesday."
Bowman picks up the paper. He reads it slowly. I watch his face the whole time.
"You'd continue to the conditioning program under these terms?"
"Yes."
"And if I say no?"
"Then I finish out my private skating contracts and you find someone else. But you won't find someone better, and you know it."
He sets the paper down. Studies me like he's recalculating something.
"Wednesday," he says finally.
"Wednesday."
I walk out before he can say anything else.
My hands are shaking in the elevator. Not because I'm scared. Because I've been holding that in for too long.
I stop on the main level near the vending machines for thirty seconds. Just breathe. Just let my hands settle.
Then I text a reminder to Tessa: Ice time at three thirty after school out. Let's run the full program.
She arrives early with a smile on her face, which tells me everything.
Tessa skates better when she's not being watched by her mother. Her jumps are cleaner. Her transitions flow. She stops second-guessing herself between elements and just lets her body do what it already knows.
Today she's that version of herself from the very first step.
I stand at the boards and I barely touch my notes. She doesn't need corrections. She needs an audience that isn't counting her mistakes.
I give her that.
She runs the program once and lands every jump. Clean entries, clean exits, footwork that actually breathes.
She stops in the center and looks at me.
"How was that?"
"You know how it was."
She tries not to smile. She smiles anyway.
"Again?" I ask.
"Yeah." She shakes out her shoulders. "Yeah, let's go again."
I watch her push off into her opening position, and I think about what she just showed me. She skated clean. No one loading conditions on every stride. Talking about extra practices. It's just pressure.
And I realize: that's the whole story. Stability isn't obedience. It's trust.
Dane finds me by the conditioning room after Tessa's session. The team had the day off but he came in any way to look at film.
Since n ones around ho comes over, leans against the wall, hands in his pockets.
"I heard you went to Bowman," he says.
"This morning."
"Good." A pause. "How'd it go?"
"He has until Wednesday." I study his face. "I meant what I said to you that night. My dad can never know. That's still where I am."
His jaw sets. He looks at the wall, then back at me. When he speaks, his voice is even but certain.
"I can't live in the dark forever," he says.
I look at him.
"I know," I say. "Just a little longer while I work this out."
He holds my gaze for a long moment. Something settles in his expression. Not relief. More like: all right. Then we're working toward something.
"Wednesday," I say.
"I'll be here."
My dad calls at five.
I almost let it go to voicemail. Then I answer.
"Hey, Dad."
"Mara." A pause. He does that when he's choosing words. "I heard you met with Bowman this morning."
"I did."
"He called me."
Of course he did. "What did he say?"
"That you came in with a contract draft." Another pause. "He sounded like he respected it."
I don't say anything.
"I want to talk," my dad says. "Not over the phone."
"Okay."
"Your mother's recipe for that pasta carbonara is still in the cupboard above the stove, if you want to come for dinner. I can have it ready by six thirty." Mom passed away 3 years ago after a 4 year battle with cancer. Dad still struggles with losing her.
That's as close as my father gets to waving
a white flag.
"I'll be there."
His kitchen is the same as it's always been. Same counters, same battered pot on the back burner, same framed photo of mom and I at the old rink when I was nine. Helmet too big for my head, gap-toothed smile, skates that didn't fit yet.
I loved that rink.
We eat dinner and don't say much. He asks about Tessa. I tell him about her session today, how clean it was, how different she skates when the pressure lifts.
He nods. He understands that. He's coached enough hockey players to recognize what burnout looks like before it fully arrives.
Then the plates are cleared and we're sitting across from each other with coffee that's getting cold.
"I owe you honesty," I say.
He wraps his hands around his mug. "All right."
"I love you. I have never once questioned whether you love me back. But I've spent years at that rink making myself smaller than I am so that nobody could use me as leverage against you. And it didn't work. They used me anyway. Maybe I should’ve work somewhere else."
He's quiet.
"What Bowman was going to do wasn't fair. You know it wasn't fair."
"Mara."
"Let me finish." My voice stays level. "I'm not asking you to be okay with everything. I'm not asking you to pretend Dane isn't your player or that it isn't complicated. I'm asking you to stop making me choose between having a life and having a father."
He looks down at the table.
"You didn't teach me to shrink," I say. "When I was figure staking you told me to skate hard, stand up straight and never compromise. So that's what I'm doing."
The kitchen is quiet for a long moment.
When he looks up, his face is doing something I don't see often. Just a man who is tired and a little afraid and trying to figure out what shape love is supposed to take when the person you're protecting doesn't need the same protection anymore.
He puts down his coffee cup. Both hands flat on the table.
"I don't know how to coach him and be your father at the same time," he says. "If you're choosing Dane."54
Not an accusation. Just the truth.
"Maybe," he says slowly, "I need to figure that out."
It's not a yes. It's not a blessing.
I reach across the table and squeeze his hand once.
He doesn't pull away.
I drive home with the windows down. The air is cold, sharp in a way that clears everything out.
Bowman has until Wednesday.
My dad is not the man who needs protecting anymore. Neither am I.
And Dane said he wouldn't chase me. Deep down I know I want him to regardless what I said.
My phone buzzes before I pull into my parking spot.
It’s dad's number.
I answer.
"I'm not saying it'll be easy," he says. His voice is rough. Careful. "But if you're choosing him." He stops. Starts again. "I mean, I think I can stay your father and his coach at the same time."
The words sit in the air between us.
"You can, I love you" I say quietly.
I sit in my car for a long time.
And I realize he didn't say he'd choose.
Finally, we have that in common.