Page 73 of Filthy Goalie
He said, “Okay.”
I said, “Okay.”
He said, “Do you want me to come home.”
I said, “Not yet. Not tonight. I’m not ready to look at you like you didn’t hurt me, and I’m not ready to pretend that two weeks of lying is something I can just forget. But I want you to come back. Slowly. Like we’re starting over. Like this is the second first date and you’re the man I’m trying to understand. Not the man I already love. The man I’m deciding whether to love again.”
He said, “How long will that take.”
I said, “I don’t know. A week. A month. The rest of the time it takes for me to believe that the man in the apartment is the manwho’s standing in front of me right now and not the man who let me cry alone for three days.”
He said, “I never let you cry alone. I stayed in the apartment.”
I said, “You stayedaway. That’s not the same thing.”
He was quiet.
I said, “I’m going home. You’re going to take another thirty minutes on the ice, and then you’re going to lock this place up, and you’re going to drive home exactly thirty seconds behind me. Not next to me. Not in front of me. Thirty seconds behind, like you’re learning how to follow instead of lead.”
I turned around.
I walked back toward the tunnel, my boots slipping on the ice, my hands reaching out to steady myself against the boards. I was very aware of the sound of my boots on the ice. I was very aware of the particular vulnerability of walking away when I was not sure that the person behind me would follow.
I did not look back.
I walked through the hallway and out to my truck and I got in and I started the engine and I drove out of the parking lot going exactly thirty-five miles per hour. I was shaking. My hands were on the steering wheel and they were shaking.
In my rearview mirror, I could see the rink doors.
Knox was not following yet.
He was still inside. He was still on the ice, still processing what had just happened, still understanding that the woman he loved had walked out onto the ice in her boots to tell him that she was not ready to forgive him but she was willing to try.
I drove to my house and I parked in the driveway and I sat in my truck and I counted to thirty, Mississippi-slow, the way Theo Jr.had taught me to count when we were playing hide-and-seek last spring.
One Mississippi.
Two Mississippi.
Three Mississippi.
The count felt like an eternity. Each second felt like a test—would he come? Would he follow? Would he understand that thirty seconds behind meant he was learning to trust the process, learning to follow her lead instead of trying to control the outcome?
At twenty-nine Mississippi, Knox’s truck pulled into the driveway.
He parked on the street, not in the driveway. Not close enough to claim possession. Close enough to be present, far enough away to understand that he was asking for permission.
I got out of my truck.
I did not say anything to him.
I walked into my house and I closed the door behind me and I heard him get back into his truck. I understood that we were starting over. I understood that this was not the reconciliation I had imagined. This was the work part. This was the part where two people who had broken something were trying to understand whether they could put it back together in a way that would hold.
I went to bed alone.
Knox was somewhere between my house and the apartment, thirty seconds behind, learning how to follow. Learning how to trust. Learning how to let someone else be in control.
I understood that this was forgiveness.
