It does not arrive.
His mother has already put a plate in my hands twice without asking. Etienne has already cornered me with a question about our breakout that he'd clearly written down beforehand.
There's a chair. There has been a chair for a while. I just had to stop standing long enough to notice somebody had pulled one out.
And there's Matty. The other brother, the one who ran my crease in Montreal and got jumped for it. He apologized weeks ago, but he's standing a little apart with a beer, watching Mäkinen the way you watch a dog you haven't decided about yet.
Mäkinen is watching him back.
"So you're the one who jumped me," Matty says.
"You ran my goalie," Mäkinen says. "Somebody had to."
"I was defending my brother."
"Lundy's my goalie."
Neither of them moves off. Soucy comes to stand beside me, follows my eyes to the two of them.
His jaw does a thing. "I don't like the way those two are looking at each other. Do we need to be prepared for another fight here?"
"Maybe." I've seen that exact look. Usually on ice. They are circling each other, seeing who blinks first. Eventually, Matty walks away and I watch Makinen’s shoulders drop an inch.
Later, when the light goes long and half of them have drifted to the couch and the cat has claimed the Cup for good, Soucy slides a folded paper across the counter to me.
"Seven across."
"We're having a party, Soucy."
"There's a paper on the counter and it's a Saturday and Saturdays are themeless. Seven across."
“Homecoming.”
"You didn't even look."
"I don't have to look anymore. I know what you're going to need before you need it."
He goes still, the pen between two fingers. "That used to be the problem."
He looks at me for a beat longer than the question needs. Running something behind his eyes that I've learned not to finish for him. Then he nods, once. The way he does when a number lands where it should.
"It's not the problem now."
"No," he says, and writes HOMECOMING in the grid. Every letter pressed firm enough that I can hear the pen on the newsprint. The full weight of a man who's choosing this. "It's not."
I have been on my feet for eight hours on a leg that is six weeks out from coming apart. I am rinsing a pan I do not need to rinse. Protecting a routine that no longer protects anything. Doing the thing I have done my whole life to make sure a room could not afford to lose me. This room could not lose me if it tried. It has told me so in every way a room can. I keep rinsing the pan anyway because it turns out I just like a clean pan.
Soucy takes it out of my hands.
"Sit down," he says.
"I'm fine. I've got the brisket."
"The brisket's done. Everybody's fed. You've been on that leg eight hours. Avi says sit down, I'll bring you a plate."
"You don't have to do that."
"I know I don't have to. That's the whole point." He steers me by the shoulder to the good chair. The one I always give away. Heputs the cat in my lap on his way past. The cat, who does not like anyone, stays. "Sit down, Soren. Let me."
