Page 144 of The Grumpy Defenseman
Tommy looked offended by the conditional. “You are.”
Kathleen put one hand on my shoulder.
“You are,” she said.
Evan did not say anything.
He did not need to.
His hand around mine said enough.
Later that night, after the interviews, after the family, after Bella had sent me seven texts from the passenger seat of Sierra’s car analyzing the handshake-to-hand-holding transition as if it were Supreme Court precedent, Evan and I went back to his condo.
The city was quiet when we got there.
His place was not.
Not anymore.
There was a spare mug in the cabinet now. A second toothbrush in the bathroom. One of my sweaters folded over the back of his couch because I had left it there two weeks ago and he had not moved it.
On the counter, beside the photograph of his father and the boy with the hockey stick, sat the morning photograph.
Evan in his kitchen.
Coffee in his hand.
Hair a wreck.
Smile given before the shutter.
The first time I had seen it framed, I had cried so abruptly that Evan looked alarmed and offered me water, which was very sweet and entirely useless.
Tonight, I looked at it and smiled.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“That is never true when you say it.”
“Fine.” I set my camera bag down by the door. “I was thinking I used to believe the best photographs were the ones that proved I had been there.”
He loosened his tie and watched me from the kitchen.
“And now?”
Icrossed to him.
“Now I think the best ones are the ones that remind me I do not have to leave.”
His face shifted.
There he was.
The man in the kitchen.
The man on the ice.
