Page 82 of Empty Net
He looks up. There is something in his face I have seen in pieces but not like this. Fear, yes. Pain. But also relief beginning to distrust itself less.
"I might be bad at it," he says.
"Retirement?"
"Everything after."
"You will be."
He stares at me.
"At first," I add.
"Comforting."
"Honest."
"Rude."
"Also honest."
His mouth does the thing. Not quite a smile, but the infrastructure is familiar now.
He leans back against the couch. Our hands stay together. The TV comes back from commercial. The game continues without needing us to understand our lives first.
For once, I do not try to resolve the open question.
I sit in it with him.
The sitting is clumsy and imprecise and terrifying.
It feels like participating.
NOLAN
By late March, Isaac Hale's hesitation has gotten shorter.
This is not the same as gone. Gone would be unrealistic and, frankly, suspicious. Rookies who stop hesitating entirely are usually about to do something expensive. Isaac still pauses at the blue line sometimes. Still thinks too loud. Still occasionally looks like a man trying to solve a chess problem while being chased by wolves.
But the pause is shorter.
That matters.
Against Carolina, he holds the line twice in the second period. First time, too early. The puck hits shin pads and kicks into the neutral zone. Better wrong. Second time, clean. He pinches before their winger can settle the puck, nudges it down the wall, and we get forty-one more seconds of offensive-zone time out of it. The crowd does not know why it matters. The bench does.
Sticks tap the boards.
Isaac comes off flushed, breathing hard, eyes bright with the terrible pleasure of having done something before he was certain it would work.
"Good," I say.
He sits down like the word has weight.
"That's it?" he asks.
"You want a parade?"
"No."
