Page 70 of Home Ice

I woke at six with Niko’s arm across my chest. I listened to him breathe. His forearm had sawdust in the hair on it, fine as flour. For a few minutes, I thought about nothing. I hadn’t done that for nearly a week.

Then I remembered there was a world out there, and I got up.

Yesterday was one of the worst days of my life, but the night nearly made up for it. Niko and I locked the rest of the world out of his bedroom, and it was just the two of us.

We’d laughed. I didn’t expect that.

The phone buzzed once again. At the light on Chicago Avenue, I looked.

Niko: You left a sock.

I had my thumbs on the screen before the light changed.

Rafe: there’s another one. couldn’t find them

Niko: You left without wearing socks?

Rafe: wearing yours.

The light turned green. I set the phone down and drove.

The practice facility came up on my right, the river behind it low and gray between crusts of ice. There were two extra vans in the media lot. A man stood by the players’ entrance with a camera bag on his shoulder. When I turned, he straightened up.

I pulled down the ramp into the garage, picked up my phone, and left the truck.

Practice ran clean. Coach Markel had the cones out for the fake bump before half the guys had their helmets buckled. We went to work. My first rush, a defenseman jumped the lane the same way St. Louis had taught the whole league to jump it. I kept the puck and went through the door behind him. Pratt barely got a pad on it.

On the second rush the lane stayed closed, so I bumped it to Heath and we cycled.

“Good,” Coach Markel said.

When I turned the corner, I wished I hadn’t. The scrum was usually a dozen. It was thirty-some now. There were faces in the crowd I’d only ever seen on television.

Varga was already wading in. “Okay,” he said. “Big crowd today. Wonderful. I have thoughts on our playoff chances—“

They let him talk.

Since October, Varga’s voice had been like a snowplow I walked behind. He’d take the first questions and answer them. The media would laugh and forget at least half of what they wanted to ask me. Sometimes I made it through with just a nod.

Today was different. When Varga paused for breath, every lens in the hallway swung around to point at me.

“Rafe.” Deckert had the first one for me. He was near the front, wearing the same gray parka he’d worn since November. “The pass in the St. Louis game. The hat trick you gave away. Was that part of it? Was the nice-guy stuff part of the arrangement?”

“Varga was open,” I said.

It was the whole truth. I’d said it from the beginning. This time when it landed, they heard something else.

“Follow-up,” Deckert said. “The dinners, the gala, all of it staged and paid for. What do you say to fans who feel like the farm-kid thing was—“ he chose the next word carefully ”—produced?”

“Nobody produced Saskatchewan,” I said. “It’s just there.”

“Last one,” Deckert said. “You could have ended this any day you wanted to, but you didn’t. Walk me through a morning where you decided to keep it going.”

I didn’t have an answer because I hadn’t had any mornings like that. I tried to deflect. “The team put out a statement—“

“Not the team. You.”

“Okay—enough.” Varga arrived, starting up the plow again. “He has video at eleven. I also have video at eleven. We’re done here.”