He opens the door at 6:42 PM in work clothes, tie already off, glasses on. He takes one look at my face and steps back.
No questions at the door.
Good man.
I walk in. The apartment smells like rice and laundry detergent. There is a stack of folders on the table and a mug on the counter and two clementines in the bowl. Life. Evidence of life. A room with another person in it.
The diagnosis does not echo here the way it would in my apartment.
Caleb closes the door.
"Nolan," he says.
I stand in the middle of his living room and try to assemble a sentence.
The first one breaks.
The second one too.
Caleb waits.
"It's over," I say.
His face changes.
"The hip," I say. "The career. It's done."
There. Out loud. To another person. Not a fact filed and left unopened. Not a thought at two in the morning. Not a private translation of a medical image.
Said.
The saying is worse than the knowing.
Caleb crosses the room slowly enough that I could stop him. I do not. He stops in front of me.
"Can I touch you?" he asks.
My face twists. The question should be too careful. It is exactly careful enough.
"Yes."
He puts his arms around me.
I do not collapse. I do not sob. I stand there with my arms at my sides for one second, two, three, because my body is stupid and old training does not dissolve on command.
Then I hold him back.
The first sound that comes out of me is ugly.
Not loud at first. More like something tearing where nobody can see it. Caleb's arms tighten. Not to restrain. To hold the shape while I lose mine.
"It's done," I say into his shoulder.
"I know."
"No next season."
"I know."
