Chapter 19 - Mason
Mason
The call came just after eight. I was in the kitchen pouring cereal straight into my mouth from the box, still half in last night’s game and sore in all the usual places.
My phone buzzed on the counter, and when I saw Dad across the screen, I swallowed the dry mouthful and answered without thinking.
“Hey, Dad. What’s up?”
His voice was steady, but drawn. “Coach Landry passed this morning, son. I’m sorry.”
I blinked, certain I didn’t hear him right. “What?”
“Heart attack, they’re saying. Found him in the barn. Must’ve been in the middle of a feed, looks like.”
The cereal box sagged in my hand.
Coach Landry. The man who taught me to tape a stick and take a hit. To lace my skates tight enough to stay upright, but not so tight I’d lose feeling in my toes. My high school coach, and the first one who told me I had what it took to go pro someday.
Gone.
“Damn.” I leaned on the counter, suddenly cold all over. “He was… He wasn’t old. Sixty, right?”
“Sixty-two,” Dad said. “Funeral’s next Saturday at the Lutheran church. It’d be good of you to come. You were always his favorite.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. My throat felt like it had closed up. He didn’t push, either. That was my dad’s way. Deliver the news and let you carry the rest however you could.
After we hung up, I stood there a long time. Funny thing about grief—it didn’t knock first. It just walked in, dragging its bags across the floor of your life, and you were supposed to keep moving like nothing had changed.
Hunter shuffled out of his room a few minutes later, yawning and shirtless. He took one look at me and said, “You okay, man?”
“Nope.”
“It’ll pass.” He clapped me on the shoulder as he came by, rifling through the cupboards for his ingredients. “I’ll whip you up a little something special in today’s power shake, what do you say? Have you bouncing off the boards in no time.”
We hit the rink by nine-thirty. Tight drills, heavier than usual conditioning, and Coach riding our asses about transitions until we were ready to puke.
“The time for messing around is over, boys,” he yelled from the side. “You want to welcome Stanley home or not?”
I tried to push through it, tried to bury the ache in muscle memory and sweat. But my timing was off. My legs didn’t have the juice. My brain was somewhere in an empty barn in my hometown, where a man who’d shaped my whole damn childhood had taken his least breath.
“Keep that stick down, Calder!” Coach barked from center ice as I fumbled yet another pass.
I gave a nod and got back in line, jaw clenched. I wasn’t angry at him. I was angry at myself for not being able to turn my brain off. Angry that my body had shown up but the rest of me had missed the bus.
After drills, he pulled me aside.
“I keep telling you boys, practice is as good as a game,” he said. “If your head’s not in it, I won’t know the real thing won’t be any different. Hear me? This is how you book your one-way ticket to the bench.”
“Sorry, Coach. Rough morning, that’s all. I’ll pick it up.”
He eyed me like he saw right through the bullshit. Which, all things considered, he probably did. “You’re not a rookie anymore. You want to stay on my top line, you’ve got to lead like you mean it.”
“I know." I dropped my head, feeling like a kid getting shit on by his perpetually disappointed dad.
“If you know, then act like it.” He slapped my helmet as a final punctuation to his pep talk before sending me on my way.
Always direct, no fluff. He wasn’t wrong, but I felt like I was balancing on a frozen lake that was starting to crack. One wrong move and I’d go under.
“And Calder—” I turned back around. “I heard about Coach Landry. Tough draw. He was a good man, and an even better example to those coming up after him. Provided his fair share of NHL giants in his time. You’re on your way to being one of them.”
Shit. I wasn’t expecting that from him. And that made the squeeze in my chest even tighter.
“Thank you, Coach.”
Hunter came up beside me as we lined up for the last set of drills. “Landry was your coach. Sorry man.”
“We all go some time.” The flippant way I put it was the only way I knew how to make it not that big of a deal. Still smarting from Coach’s words, I wasn’t ready to go deep with any of the guys.
Thankfully, he was the type who didn’t like going there much either.
“Sucks that you have to miss the funeral.”
We were mid-transition, and I came to an abrupt stop. “What do you mean?”
“It’s next week,” he said. “We’re in New York, playing the Rangers.”
Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse.
After the skate, I hit the showers and changed fast. My gear smelled like melted rubber and sweat, and everything under my skin felt like it might tear.
I needed air. Or maybe just a break from pretending I wasn’t unraveling.
Cass was still on the ice when I stepped back into the rink. She was up on the Zamboni, earbuds in, loose bun bobbing as she did her rounds. No one else in sight. Perfect timing.
Not perfect footing, though.
My sneakers slipped once, and I caught myself, arms flailing like a baby deer. Swore under my breath. Cass didn’t notice. She was too locked into her music. Probably some indie folk thing she’d never admit to liking.
I tried waving. Nothing.
So I kept going, arms wide for balance, sliding like a damn idiot until I reached her lane. She still didn’t look down.
“Cass! Hey!”
No response.
I jogged, well, slipped and slid into her path and waved both my arms. That got her attention.
She braked too hard, the Zamboni lurching a little, then pulled out an earbud. “Jesus, Mason. You trying to get flattened?”
“Wasn’t the plan,” I said, panting. “I knew you wouldn’t run me over.”
“You know nothing, Calder.” But I caught the faintest smile pulling at her lips. “You good?”
I nodded, then winced. “Got time to talk?”
She climbed down and dusted her hands on her pants. “Sure. Unless it’s about what happened up on that mezzanine, because—”
“It’s not.”
We stood there, awkwardly for a second. The kind of awkward that comes from shared secrets and recent history that involves body heat and very little clothing.
Cass tilted her head. “So? What’s up?”
“You probably heard Coach Landry—my high school hockey coach— he, uh…”
“I heard.” Her eyes softened along with her tone, tender. She reached out and squeezed my arm. “Sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
She waited, all the sass drained out.
I watched my breath puff in the cold air. “I don’t know. I just keep thinking about those after-school practices. Playing until the sun went down. Frozen lakes and busted up sticks and just… God, just loving the game.”
She leaned against the Zamboni, gaze fixed on my face as I worked through what I wanted to say without having any idea what I wanted to say in the first place. She didn’t interrupt.
“It was easy, you know?” I said. She nodded, even though she couldn’t really know but I appreciated that she was with me in it. “You showed up, worked hard, went home. No press. No expectations. No games clashing with funerals.”
Her brow furrowed. “Wait— you mean New York?”
“Next Saturday. We’re away.”
“Mason…” She let out a slow breath.
“Coach wants me as key finisher in power plays,” I said, unable to look at her. “Not like I can miss it when we’re doing this well, and this close to playoffs.”
“You sound like my dad, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.” Her lips pulled in a tight line. “There’s more to life than hockey. Who says you can’t miss one game?”
“My contract,” I replied simply. “My spot on the top line. Coach already called me out for slacking.”
She stepped closer, voice gentler now. “You know what happens after the game next week?” I shook my head, and she went on.
“There’ll be another one. And another, and another, and after that?
More games. Your high school coach gets buried once.
That’s it. He seems like he was like family to you, right?
Well, family matters more than ice. You won’t regret missing one game, but you’ll never forgive yourself for missing out on paying your last respects. ”
The ice creaked in the distance as the Zamboni cooled. I think I’d been waiting for someone to say those exact words to me. To tell me there was nothing wrong with the way I was feeling. Something in my chest eased.
“Will you come with me?”
Her eyebrows shot up. “To the funeral?”
I sensed her defenses go up, and didn’t blame her. I didn’t even know I wanted her there until I asked the question. But it made total sense.
“Platonically, of course,” I added. “For real.”
Her lips twitched. “Right. Totally platonic.”
“So?” I asked. “You in? It would mean a lot to me to have someone there for support. Which isn’t easy for me to admit.”
She sighed, making me sweat it out a little longer, then said, “Yeah. I’m in.”