He barked a laugh that had no humor in it. “I know him better than you do.”
“You know the captain.” I pause. “You know how he moves on the ice and in the locker room. You know the part of him that belongs to the team. You don’t—”You don’t know how he says my name like he’s taking care of itfelt like I was putting my throat in a saw, so I didn’t say that. “You don’t know all of him.”
“And you do.” He spits, not a question.
“I’m learning.” I said, and hated that my voice shook. It sounded like an apology when I meant declaration.
He closes his eyes again, and I watch him do the thing he does with rage and fear.
When he looks at me, grief has edged his anger into something quieter, and it crushes me worse.
“After your brother.” He said, and the room bent around the name even though he didn’t say it. “After last Halloween, I promised myself there wouldn’t be another thing I wish I’d stopped. I can’t lose you to something I can see coming.”
You can’t keep me either, I didn’t say. Both things were true and neither belonged in this kitchen without a fight.
“I’m not asking you to stop being my father.” I said instead. “I’m asking you not to make me disappear to fit inside your fear.”
He flinched. Just a tiny jerk in the muscle above his eye. “So it’s serious.”
“I don’t have a word for it yet.” My honesty surprises us both.
His gaze slides to the window and back, like he needed the black square to steady his eyes. “If you keep… seeing him.” He said, measuring each word. “It can’t be in my house. It cannot be in the rink. I won’t have you hurt and then have to put a whistle to my mouth and pretend I didn’t help build the field you got hurt on.”
“Hurt.” I echoed. “What if I’m not?”
He gave me a look that was both tender and brutal. “Then you won’t mind making it a little harder for him.”
I stared. “You want me to…?”
“I want you to choose daylight. If you’re going to do this, don’t do shadows under my roof. Don’t make me complicit in the sneaking. Don’t make me lie to myself about what I’ve seen.”
I thought of the shed like a confession booth. I thought of the porch where the dark folded around us like a co-signer. Theworddaylightfelt rude and right, like cold water. It made the ache in me clearer. It made it less magic and more fact.
“I can’t promise to stop.” I said, and the tremor leaving my voice felt like a piece of ice breaking off a river. “I can promise not to hide inhere.”
His relief was small and real. “That’s a start.”
Silence stretched between us, not empty, not full. I picked at a place on the counter where a tiny chip in the varnish caught my nail. He drummed his fingers once, stopped himself, and folded his hands instead.
“He’s going to push.” Dad said finally. “That’s who he is. The ice made him that way and life did the rest. You think you know where your lines are until someone like that tests every inch of the fence. What are you going to do when he puts weight on the posts?”
I thought of last night’s restraint. I thought of the waydon’t stop,left my mouth like a key and unlocked a door I’d stood outside for months. My cheeks go hot, my pulse thuds in my throat, but underneath the rush was a strange calm. I had an answer now that I wouldn't have had yesterday.
“Say what I want out loud.” I said. “Not after. During.”
He blinks at that. Surprise, then something like respect, crosses his face before it is gone. “Good.” He said, voice a notch lower. “Then you say it to me too.” He pointed gently at the floor between us. “If this gets too big, if it hurts, if it turns you into someone you don’t like, comehereand say it. Don’t disappear into somebody else’s world.”
Emotion smacks me without warning. “Okay.” I said around it.
He comes around the island then, slow, as if approaching a wild animal that might bolt. He puts his hands on my shoulders the way you place them on a child who is sick, firm and steady and full of all the helplessness men like him hate. He kisses my hair.
“I love you.” He said into the crown of my head, and there were a year’s worth of apologies buried in it neither of us had language for. He let go before I could lean too hard.
“Go up.” He said, gentler. “Please.”
I nodded and my body obeyed because, for all my noise, I am still made of this house. On the stairs I pause and turn. He was where I left him, looking older and more himself than he had all night. He caught my eye and nodded once, a coach’s signal to a player before she took the ice.
At the landing my phone buzzed.
