Page 53 of Filthy Goalie
Theo Jr.said, “Is that wrong?”
Knox said, “Depends on what you’re announcing.”
Theo Jr.considered this with the gravity of a five-year-old who understood that he had crossed into important territory. He said, “Am I wrong, Mr.Grumpus?”
Knox—and I will never forget this, never in my life will I forget this moment—Knox smiled. Not the careful smile he had given me in the parking lot after the game, not the controlled expression he wore at the diner. He actually smiled, the kind of smile that made him look thirteen years younger, the kind of smile that said that maybe there was a version of him that was not carrying his brother’s death and all the guilt that came with it, maybe there was a version of Knox that could still be the manwho smiled at a five-year-old who was just trying to help. It was like watching someone thaw. It was like watching winter give way to something warmer. His whole face changed. The lines around his eyes deepened. His eyes themselves got lighter, the blue becoming almost silver in the morning light.
He said, “No.You’re not wrong. Maple is in my apartment.”
Theo Jr.said, “I know.”
Knox said, “You’re very smart.”
Theo Jr.considered this. He said, “Do you love her?”
Heather made a noise like she was going to die of mortification. Her face was the color of ripe strawberries. She said, “Junior?—”
Knox did not hesitate. He did not look at me. He just looked at Theo Jr.and spoke the truth.
He said, “Yeah. I do.”
He said it like it was the simplest fact in the world. He said it like he had known this for longer than he had known anything else. He said it like he was not going to apologize for it or explain it or make it smaller because there was a five-year-old witnessing the moment. I was standing in his thermal shirt with a cup of black coffee in my hands and he had just declared his love for me to my neighbor’s child, and it felt like the most important thing anyone had ever said.
Theo Jr.nodded like Knox had just confirmed something he had already suspected. He said, “Okay. I’m going to go tell my mom that you love Maple.”
Heather actually groaned. She said, “We’re going. Now. I’m so sorry. Come on, Junior.” She took him back down the stairs, and you could hear her saying, “We do not announce people’s business into the neighborhood,” and Theo Jr.saying, “But he loves her,” and Heather saying, “That is not the point,” and Theo Jr.saying, “I think it is.”
Knox closed the door.
He turned around.
I was still standing in his thermal shirt with my coffee in my hands and I was staring at him.
I said, “You just told a five-year-old that you love me.”
He said, “I did.”
I said, “That’s not strategic. That’s not careful. That’s the opposite of careful.”
He said, “I know.”
He came back to the kitchen and he took my mug out of my hands and he set both our mugs on the counter and he put his hands on either side of my face like he was making sure I could see him, like he was making sure I understood that this was real and not something I was making up in my head because I wanted it to be true.
He said, “I didn’t laugh because I was happy. I laughed because I was happy with you. There’s a difference.”
I understood what he meant. I understood that he had not smiled in two years, not really, not the kind of smile that came from inside where all the pain lives, and that this week on the ice he had found a reason, and that reason was me, and that I was going to have to accept that he had chosen me and that some days that was going to be terrifying and some days it was going to be enough. Some days it was going to be more than enough.
I kissed him.
It tasted like coffee and like the smell of his apartment and like the impossible fact that a man who had carried his brother’s death for thirteen years had just laughed like the weight of it was finally getting smaller. We stood in his kitchen, and the snow fell outside, and I let myself believe—for the first time since he arrived in the diner at 4:58 a.m. on Day 1—that maybe this was going to work. Maybe the diner was going to survive. Maybe I was going to survive. Maybe we were both going to survive, and maybe that was enough. Maybe that was everything.
15
MAPLE
The certified letter came on Wednesday, and it came to the diner.
I was behind the counter at 10:30 a.m., refilling the coffee carafes and mentally calculating whether I had enough apple filling to make six more pies before closing time, when a man in a blue USPS jacket came in and handed me an envelope that required my signature. I signed it without reading the address properly—that was stupid, I know that was stupid—and then I opened it right there at the counter while a handful of regulars were eating their eggs and bacon, and I read the letterhead.
