"Mmm." She didn't say anything else. Didn't need to. The silence said enough: Thirteen years of hitting and being hit. How much longer can you keep that up?
I knit faster—knit two, purl two. Don't think about it. Don't think about how my knee clicks when I skate backward or how my shoulder pops whenever I raise my arm above my head.
When I was fourteen and convinced I'd play in the NHL, Gram asked me once what I'd do if my body gave out.
You need something that's yours, Connor. Something nobody can take away.
The hour wound down. The knitting circle members put their projects away, zipped up their bags, and rinsed their tea cups in Margaret's tiny sink. Edith hugged me goodbye—carefully. Linda patted my cheek. The younger woman waved.
"Good class tonight, Connor," Sarah-or-Sandra said. "Same time next week?"
"Yeah. I'll be here."
They filed out into the snow, voices fading into Thunder Bay's nighttime quiet. Margaret tidied the back room, stacking chairs and emptying the communal yarn basket.
Instead, I sat with the hat half-finished in my lap, staring at the empty chair by the window where Gram used to sit.
"Alright." Margaret pulled a chair over and sat across from me. "What's going on?"
"Nothing. A little tired is all."
"Connor, I've known you for three years. I know when you're tired and when you're spinning." She leaned forward. "Talk."
The words stuck in my throat. I picked at the bandage on my knuckles instead—dirty, blood-spotted.
"Your hand okay?" she asked.
"Fine."
"You're lying."
"It's not broken."
"That's not the same as fine. You dropped four stitches tonight. You never drop stitches. You checked your phone a dozen times. And you've been pressing your ribs like you're trying to hold something together."
Fuck. She was worse than Coach.
"I'm—" I stopped. Started again. "Yesterday I went to Rhett's workshop. Watched him work. Talked about his dad's business and how he's making it his own. Building something that'll last."
"And?"
"And I'm sitting here making hats for kids and wondering what the hell I'm building. Other than bruises."
Margaret was quiet for a moment. Outside, someone's car wouldn't start—engine grinding, dying, and grinding again.
"Your grandmother asked me something," Margaret said finally. "A few weeks before she died."
My head snapped up. "What?"
"She made me promise to look after you. Not financially—she knew you'd be fine. But to make sure you didn't lose this." Margaret gestured at the shop around us. "This place. This community. The part of you she'd taught."
The shop suddenly smelled overwhelming—wool and lanolin, the faint must of old wood, and Margaret's peppermint tea gone cold in her mug. Every scent was sharp and too present, like my body was trying to anchor itself while my brain refused to process her words.
"Your grandmother worried you'd return to St. Louis one year and never look back. She wanted to ensure you always had a reason to come home."
The ambient noise of the shop—the hum of the refrigerator in the back, radiator hissing, and distant traffic on the street faded to a dull ringing in my ears. My vision tunneled until all I could see was Margaret's face, wrinkled with age and wisdom.
"She what?"
