I was in it more than I have ever been in anything in my life and I do not know what to do with that and there is no folder for this. There is no read. There is no accounting.
There is just her on my chest.
Breathing.
Asleep.
I put my hand on the back of her head.
I look at the ceiling.
We have one chance to close this out, I have one job for the next four days and it is to hold the wall, and right now I am lying here with this woman on my chest and the wall is not the thing I am thinking about.
I’ll think about the wall tomorrow.
Should be thinking about it now.
That’s the job. Hold the wall first. Everything else after.
But tonight, I’m here.
She’s here.
And that should probably scare me more than it does.
Chapter twenty-five
Jax
ConferenceFinal,gamesthreethrough five.
The ghost is quiet.
Not gone — I know better than that. It lives in the right hand, in the blocker, in the half-inch that cost us Game 1. But it’s quiet now in a way it hasn’t been in two seasons. Someone named it for me in a tunnel and that — apparently — was what it took.
I’m playing the best hockey of my career.
I know this the way I know reads in the crease — not from the stats, not from the media, just from the inside of it. The way everything slows down and clarifies. The way I know where the puck is going before it gets there. The way thirty-one feels exactly right on my back and the crease feels exactly right under my skates and the wall holds.
Game 3 — shutout. Thirty saves. The ghost doesn’t show up once.
Game 4 — two goals against. Both flukes, both situations where I read it right and the puck found a way anyway. Neither the hand. I know the difference now. Nova named it for me and now I know the difference.
Game 5 — one goal against in overtime. Bad bounce. Wrong angle. We lose. I know the difference between the ghost and hockey being hockey. Series is 3-2.
Three games with the ghost quiet. Game 5 was just hockey.
I stop telling myself it won’t last and start letting it just be true.
I call the Enforcers back on the morning of Game 6. Short conversation. They ask if I’ve given it thought. I tell them yeah. They ask where I landed. I tell them I’m staying.
Pause on their end.
Then:Understood. Good luck tonight.
I hang up.
Look at thirty-one on my jersey hanging in my locker.
