Page 6 of The Callahan Effect

"He's lying. We both were."

We talked for another ten minutes. Mom wanted details of the flight and the campus, while Dad was more interested in tomorrow's retreat and whether I was looking forward to meeting my new teammates. Before hanging up, Mom reminded me that home was only a phone call away, and Dad told me to enjoy every minute of the opportunity I'd worked so hard to earn.

Ending the call proved harder than making it, but hearing their voices eased something inside me. They'd always been my biggest supporters, and despite the three thousand miles now separating us, that hadn't changed.

I unpacked methodically, a habit inherited from my father. Clothes disappeared into drawers, textbooks filled the shelves according to subject rather than size, and my laptop found its place on the desk beside a framed photograph of Mom, Dad and I had taken after my final high school championship and another with Emma at the same time. Corey occupied the next frame, the two of us grinning beneath sweat-soaked hair while holding a state trophy we'd spent years chasing.

Looking at the photograph stirred an unexpected mixture of gratitude and melancholy. Friendships like ours didn't come along often.

People occasionally assumed we were inseparable because we spent so much time together, yet the opposite had always been true. Corey could spend hours explaining engineering concepts that left me completely lost, while I'd happily lose an afternoon reading about biomechanics or rehabilitation techniques. We challenged one another because we approached life differently, and perhaps that explained why the friendship had survived adolescence without the usual dramas.

I hoped university would introduce me to people capable of becoming equally important.

The thought surprised me.

I'd never consciously admitted how much I wanted that.

Once I'd unpacked, I changed into shorts and a university polo before deciding to explore the campus. Remaining inside my room wouldn't make tomorrow arrive any later, and I'd always found unfamiliar places easier to understand after walking through them. The map remained folded in my pocket, although I referred to it only occasionally. There was something satisfying about discovering a campus through observation rather than colored lines and numbered buildings.

The academic precinct impressed me. Students lounged beneath enormous trees discussing assignments, while others hurried between lectures balancing coffee cups and open notebooks. Conversation lingered around me without demanding participation. Nobody gave me more than a passing glance, and I found the anonymity unexpectedly liberating.

Back home, people usually recognized me from hockey. Here I was, another student finding his bearings.

I found myself drifting back toward the Red Cedars arena before dinner. I'd already seen it from the outside, but standing beneath its soaring glass entrance, I understood why photographs had never done it justice. The closer I looked, the more details emerged. Banners filled the space beyond the glass, each one marking another chapter in Evergreen's history.

Inside, the familiar scent of sharpened skate blades, fresh ice and rubber mats wrapped around me like an old friend. The rinks in North America I'd been to possessed their own personality, yet they all shared that unmistakable atmosphere which slowed my heartbeat. It had always been that way. As a child I'd felt calmer as soon as I entered an arena, and even years later very little had changed.

The main rink lay empty of players, the sheet of ice gleaming beneath bright overhead lights. I wandered toward the glass, resting my forearms against the railing as I scanned the surface. Movement at the far end of the rink caught my attention.

A Zamboni with the name CALLAHAN painted in bold black letters across the front glided across the ice with remarkable precision, laying down an immaculate trail behind it. I'd watched countless resurfacing machines during my life, but something about this operator drew my eye. Every turn appeared perfectly judged, every overlap identical, the machine moving with an effortless confidence that suggested years of experience rather than routine employment.

The driver slowed near the players' bench before executing a smooth turn so neat it looked choreographed. Whoever sat behind the wheel clearly took pride in doing the job properly.

As the machine approached the exit gate, the driver brought it to a steady halt and climbed down. As he disappeared through the doorway, I found my gaze lingering a fraction longer than it probably should have. The broad shoulders, narrow waist and easy athletic grace should have been unremarkable in a hockey arena, yet something about him held my attention. I told myself it was curiosity. My body, however, seemed to have reached a different conclusion.

Chapter Two

JACK

Medical school had already resumed, so my days belonged to lectures, clinical placements, and study long before most of the university returned for the fall semester. Dad and the team would leave tomorrow morning for their annual preseason retreat, but my schedule wouldn't allow me to go with them even if I'd wanted to. While they spent five days in the mountains laying the foundations for another season, I'd keep the arena running, maintaining the ice exactly the way Dad expected until they returned.

The arena had become more than the place where I worked. It had become the place where I thought most clearly. Every corridor carried memories, the dressing room held echoes of championship celebrations and heartbreaking defeats, and each section of seating reminded me how much Dad had invested in the game. Hockey had slipped away from me as something I could play competitively, but it had never stopped being part of who I was. Long before I accepted responsibility for preparing the ice, I'd discovered that no matter how difficult life became, stepping onto an empty rink had a way of settling the noise in my head. The world outside might demand impossible decisions, endless study, and responsibilities I sometimes wondered whether I was ready to shoulder, but none of that seemed quite so overwhelming once my skates touched the ice.

It had become a ritual over the years. Once the last player disappeared into the locker room and the arena settled into the comforting silence that only arrived after everyone else had gone home, I allowed myself twenty uninterrupted minutes before climbing onto the Zamboni. Dad knew about those solitary sessions. He pretended not to notice, provided I resurfaced the rink afterward and left the ice exactly the way the following day's practice deserved.

That was our unspoken agreement, one we'd never discussed because neither of us needed to. He understood what those minutes meant to me, and I appreciated that he never questioned them.

Dad always joked that I spent more time skating after hours than the players did during practice, and he wasn't entirely wrong. I loved the silence within the building once the lights dimmed and conversations faded into memory. There were no whistles, no coaches barking instructions, no teammates calling for passes or warning each other about an incoming check. The rink belonged to me alone. It never expected explanations. It never asked me to become someone I wasn't.

Out there, surrounded by nothing but empty seats and the faint hum of the refrigeration system beneath the ice, my silence wasn't something that needed apologizing for. It simply existed, accepted without question.

I pushed away from the boards, gathering speed effortlessly before leaning into the first corner. My edges bit cleanly into the ice as I traced the familiar routes of old practice drills, instinctively changing direction at the places where defenders would once have challenged me.

My body remembered each movement without conscious thought. Years might have passed since I'd last worn a competitive jersey, but muscle memory had refused to surrender. There were times like this when I could almost convince myself nothing had changed, that if I skated hard enough and long enough I'd hear Dad's whistle echo through the arena before calling me back for another drill.

Life didn't work that way.

There had been a time when everyone assumed I'd join Dad onto the ice as one of his players. As soon as I was old enough to stand upright, a pair of skates had rarely been far from my feet. Dad claimed I'd inherited his balance before I'd inherited common sense, and judging by the number of bruises I'd accumulated throwing myself fearlessly into every new challenge, he was probably right. Skating had always felt as natural as breathing. Reading the play came just as instinctively. Dad used to laugh that I saw passing lanes before anyone else realized they existed, and even as a little kid I knew where my teammates needed me to be several seconds before they arrived.