Maggie:Watching the game. You looked good out there. Call when you can.
I typed back:
Heath:Transfer sent. Check in the morning. How's Dad?
Maggie:Resting. Pre-op consult went well. Dr. Okafor says he's a good candidate. Surgery holds for the 19th.
Heath:Mom?
Maggie:Mom's Mom. She organized the entire recovery plan into a color-coded binder. She has tabs, Heath. Laminated tabs.
I smiled.
Heath:Love you.
Maggie:Love you too. Get some sleep.
I set the phone face down on the shelf.
Dad's surgery was happening. Not because of a contract someone else signed or cap math I'd never been shown. Because of thirty-seven games of net-front work and bruises I'd earned standing in spaces other players left.
Whatever Kieran had done with the extension—whatever he'd moved or protected or decided without asking—it didn't change the shifts I'd played or the reads I'd made or the fact that Markel had kept my name on that whiteboard.
I stayed. I earned it.
The locker room was nearly empty. Varga's voice faded down the hallway. Pratt's stall was dark. I sat in my base layer with tape residue still on my fingers and the bruise yellowing on my ribs. I pulled on a shirt. Packed my bag. Left through the tunnel, past the security desk where Davidson sat with his mystery novel and his coffee.
"Good game, Donnelly."
"Thanks."
"Playoffs, huh?"
"Yeah."
He smiled. "You earned it."
Two people had said that to me tonight. Neither of them was the person whose opinion used to matter most. Both of them were right.
The next morning was an off-day. Coach Markel had given us forty-eight hours before the schedule resumed, which in April meant forty-eight hours of pretending you could still walk down stairs without planning each step.
I walked. Not toward anything. Just motion.
My neighborhood was doing its Tuesday thing. A kid in a knockoff Ironhawks hoodie was trying to stick handle a crushed soda can along the sidewalk. He kept losing it to the cracks in the concrete and swore like he’d heard it in the lower bowl.
I called Thunder Bay.
Pickle answered on the second ring, which meant he'd been holding the phone. His standard was five to seven, because he was always in the middle of something that required both hands and at least one apology.
"Donnelly!" Loud. Something crashed in the background. "Hold on—HOG, I TOLD YOU THE CLAMP GOES ON THE OTHER—hold on."
A door slammed.
"Okay. I'm in the hallway. Hog's trying to fix the skate sharpener again. He found a YouTube tutorial. It's going badly."
"Hey."
A beat. I heard the shift—Pickle recalibrating, reading tone the way he read a loose puck.
