Page 68 of Empty Net

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"Again."

"Caleb."

"See?" Dana says. Her voice is wet now too. "World didn't end."

No. It did not.

It changed shape, maybe. Shifted under my skates. But it did not end.

We talk for forty minutes.

I tell her about the film room. Not all of it. Enough. The hip. The trade. Isaac. The empty stands. The terrible turkey wrap. Caleb's mother, which I only know through him and still somehow know enough to fear. I tell her Caleb played D3 at Adrian and took a bad interference penalty in 2017 and I watched the clip twice because the call was weak.

Dana laughs so hard she has to cover the phone.

"You researched him," she says.

"No."

"You watched his college hockey film at midnight."

"That's not research. That's scouting."

"You're ridiculous."

"Probably."

"No, definitely. But this is good ridiculous."

I wipe my face with the heel of my hand. "Don't say proud."

She goes quiet.

I did not mean to say that.

"Okay," she says.

The relief of her not arguing almost breaks me again.

"I'm not there yet," I say.

"I know."

"I should be."

"Says who?"

Everyone. No one. The whole room I have built in my head where the people who love me sit in judgment and ask why it took so long. Why Atlanta was safe and I still stayed quiet. Why Cole could do it and Mik could do it and Jamie could do it and I turned my silence into a personality because it was easier than explaining that survival habits do not retire just because the danger changes.

"Me," I say.

"You've always been hard on people who take too long to do things."

"Have I?"

"Mostly yourself."

I breathe out. My face is wet. My throat hurts. The kitchen light hums.

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