Four. That's the number now. Four teammates, four caskets, four empty stalls in the locker room that nobody will touch.
Four guys who were alive three days ago, running the same drills, bitching about the same coach, breathing the same recycled arena air. Four is a small number until it's subtracted from your life.
Caleb looks up, meets my eyes. “Thank you,” he says, and before I can react he wraps his arms around me, a hug so sudden and desperate it nearly knocks the wind out of my lungs.
For the first time in a week, I feel something break open.
My lip trembles. I clamp down, hard, swallow it whole.
When he lets go, I nod, once, sharp. “We’ll take care of the rest of the season for him.”
He gives a shaky smile and steps back, hands shoved in his pockets.
I watch him walk away, every step a fight against gravity.
———
The rest is logistics, who’s riding with who to the cemetery, where the reception is, what time we need to be at Cap’s house for the wake.
The team moves in a herd, but nobody really talks. It’s like we’re afraid of using up the last of our voices.
I check my phone. Two missed calls from my mother, one from Nia. I don’t call back. Not yet.
Instead, I find a spot at the edge of the parking lot and wait for the next shift.
It’s what I know how to do.
———
Cap’s house is a time capsule of minor-league hockey achievement and blue-collar pride, walls plastered with team photos, dented trophies, and posters of goalies who peaked before I was born.
The living room’s been stripped for extra chairs, every seat taken by someone in a suit or a hoodie, everyone clutching a paper plate or a Solo cup, all the lines between “starter” and “bench” and “fan” erased by shared catastrophe.
The food is classic American mourning, meatballs in grape jelly, trays of cold cuts, two entire Costco cakes with “We Love You #4” piped in blue frosting.
Every horizontal surface holds a bottle, beer, cheap whiskey, a single bottle of champagne no one is brave enough to open.
The team clusters in a corner, a weird tangle of knees and elbows and stories.
O’Doul is three drinks deep and holding court, telling and retelling the story of Cap’s pre-game ritual—how he’d cue up country music, full volume, and belt “Wagon Wheel” until even the other team started singing along.
“Guy couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket,” Raz says, and everyone laughs because it’s true.
Someone else adds, “Remember the time he shaved his head for a bet and then wore a goddamn cowboy hat for two months straight?”
Another laugh, not as loud, but genuine. I nod along, offer a few lines when expected, but mostly let the wave of memory and myth roll over me.
Coach Vasquez sits with Cap’s mother, quietly handling the logistics of grief, who needs a ride home, which charity gets thememorial funds, what time we need to clear out for the family to sleep.
She’s all business, but her eyes keep drifting to the photo of Cap on the mantle, and every time they do, she blinks hard.
I finish my third beer and realize I haven’t said a word in over twenty minutes.
Nobody calls me on it. The rules are different here.
Across the room, at the far end of the kitchen table, I spot Rosen.
He’s alone, perched on the edge of a folding chair, hands laced tight in front of him, staring at the napkin dispenser like it contains the secrets of the universe.
