I consider this. The word is too soft for my father. My father believed in silence, work, and letting consequences arrive with enough room to teach you. Trust, maybe. Or a man tired at four in the morning with a kid who was going to skate anyway.
"He knew I'd fall," I say.
"And?"
"I fell."
"Often?"
"Constantly."
Caleb smiles fully this time. No blueprints. Building complete. "I'm trying to imagine you as a child."
"Don't."
"Were you this cheerful then?"
"Worse."
"Worse than this?"
"I talked less."
The laugh gets out of him before he can dress it up. It comes sharp and bright in the empty section, and for one second the arena sounds occupied. Not by a crowd. By a person.
I have made Caleb laugh before. In the film room. At coffee. But this laugh is different. This one is not surprise at a line. It is recognition. He is learning that I am funny. Not often. Not generously. But in the places where the timing works.
I should not care that he is learning this.
I care.
He shakes his head, still smiling. "That's the most words you've said to me at once."
I take another bite of the wrap. It has not improved.
"Don't get used to it."
"Too late."
The two words land harder than they should. Too late. As if the getting used to has already happened. As if my presence in the film room and the chair beside his and the coffee and the open door and the terrible vending-machine dinner have become facts in his life the way they have become facts in mine.
I look down at my hands. Swollen knuckles. Turkey wrap. A life I recognize less every week.
"He still drive?" Caleb asks.
"No. Knees. He retired five years ago."
"Was that hard for him?"
The question is gentle. Too gentle. It knows where it is going and gives me time to get there.
"Yes."
"Did he talk about it?"
"No."
Caleb nods. He does not ask the next question. He leaves the space where it would go. My father retiring from the Zamboni. My hip. My last season. The line between them drawn and not named.
