Page 155 of Full Contact

We were tied with Dallas, two games apiece, in the second round. Game Five was Thursday night at home, then Game Six in Dallas on Saturday, and a seventh back in Chicago on Monday if we needed it. We’d lost Game Four in overtime the night before last. Their center had tipped a point shot past Pratt while I was tied up with his winger at the side of the net. I’d watched the clip three times at that morning’s video session, looking for the half-second where I could have stopped it.

We’d decided to talk Wednesday night. Markel had given us the afternoon off once the video session ended. I finished treatment at three with camphor rub still soaking into my hip.

Mark was free. He’d turned the evening responsibilities over to Leah.

I had the windows open in the condo. Spring had arrived, and somebody downstairs was watering the courtyard planters. Peaches moved to the window bed the minute I raised the sash. She sat with her nose almost touching the screen, tracking the hose from planter to planter.

Mark let himself in at seven. He didn’t kiss me hello. He’d come straight from the office, his sleeves rolled to the elbow and the end of his tie trailing from his coat pocket.

He took the lamp end of the couch. I lowered myself into the middle, and a sharp hip pain made me wince on the way down.

“I want to finish what we started after the cookout,” Mark said.

“Okay.”

“Is Thursday what we’re doing until the playoffs are over? Or is it what you want us to keep doing?”

I wanted to tell him it was for the playoffs. It would sound reasonable and that would put an end date on it. He’d be relieved, and so would I.

But the trouble didn’t start with the playoffs. It started in February, with nearly two months of regular season still ahead of us.

“Thursdays have been good,” I said.

“They have. We’re both sleeping.” He leaned forward with his forearms on his knees. “But I don’t want us to stay this small. What would have to give?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know whether putting the evenings back gets us anything except February again.”

I stood to get coffee. I’d made a pot that was still warm.

“You wanted your Tuesdays back,” I said from the kitchen. “I said yes, and I spent the next Tuesday sulking on the couch with a heating pad. I checked where you were every time I left a room at Russ’s.”

He turned his wrist over and looked at his watch without reading it. “I spent most of that first climbing night on the bench watching you instead of climbing.”

I handed Mark a mug and sat on the couch again.

“I treated every free night like it was one I owed you,” he said. “Then I’d get to the evening and discover I wanted it for myself. I resented not knowing that ahead. I didn’t resent you, but you got an unfair version of me.” He put the mug down. “So here’s what I came to ask. You’re tired. I’m tired. We both have good reasons. Something has to give, and so far we’ve been taking turns being polite about it.”

I looked down the hallway before I answered. The bedroom door stood open at the end. Mark followed my glance.

“Andrew lived here,” I said. “The last year. I told you that.”

“You did.”

“He waited for road trips to end. Then for the season to end. Then the season ended and I wanted to train, or rest, or go see Russ, and he waited through that too. I told you about the lake.”

“The house he wanted to rent.”

“I told you I wished I’d gone. I do, but I stopped the story there because I thought that’s what made sense.”

Mark didn’t say anything. He’d tucked one foot under the opposite knee.

“I thought staying home those two weeks was reasonable,” I said. “I could have explained every day of it. I had the strength coach booked and a list of what went wrong in the spring.”

“There wasn’t an injury,” Mark said.

“No.” I turned back to him. “I wanted to finish the next season better than I’d finished the last one. He wanted two weeks with me at a lake. I treated my needs like they came with supporting documents. His didn’t.”

I’d been carrying the next question since the cookout, when Mark said he wanted more of an ordinary life with me. I hadn’t found a way to ask it that didn’t sound like I’d already decided on the answer.