Page 124 of Empty Net
"No."
"Better answer."
She gives me the injection anyway.
The surgeon's voice has taken up space in my head by then. You can manage through the rest of this season. This is the rest. The last of the rest. Every skate has that knowledge under it.Every turn. Every stop. Every time the right hip catches and I adjust before anyone sees.
Except people see now.
Callahan sees. Katie sees. Cole sees. Caleb sees from the hallway outside the locker room because he does not watch from behind glass anymore when he can avoid it. Not in a way that violates process. Not in a way that puts him where he does not belong. He just stands where a person can stand and waits where a person can wait.
Game 5 is tied 2-2 in the third.
The building is loud enough to become weather. Playoff crowds do not forgive. They bargain. They beg. They boo icing calls made correctly because correctness is less important than need. Atlanta has learned hockey fast and badly and with its whole chest, which is the only acceptable way to learn it.
I play my minutes.
My minutes are good.
Not young. Not easy. Good. The brain compensates for the body. The body complains. The brain files the complaint and makes the first pass anyway. Fourteen seasons of pattern recognition, ten thousand small reads, every lost stride repaid in positioning and spite.
With four minutes left, Carolina scores.
3-2.
The bench goes quiet in the way benches go quiet before deciding whether to become desperate or useful.
Callahan looks down the line.
At me.
The look lasts one second.
Can you?
Yes.
This may not be true.
I go anyway.
At two minutes, Callahan pulls the goalie.
Empty net.
Six attackers.
No protection behind us. No margin. No one standing in the crease to save us if the puck goes the wrong direction. The net is empty, and the whole building understands the shape of the risk at the same time.
I have spent fourteen seasons protecting the middle of the ice and the middle of myself.
Now there is nothing behind me.
Good.
The puck cycles low to high. Cole at the half wall, Jonah below the goal line, Mik in the bumper, Isaac at the opposite point because Callahan has lost his mind or found it. I am at the left point with the blue line under my skates and the hip screaming in a language that no longer requires translation.
The puck comes to me.
