It started with hockey. It always started with hockey.
"What do you want the next five years to look like?" I asked. I was eating eggs, and the question felt safe. Careers and contracts and planning were things that two professionals in a volatile industry could discuss without it meaning much.
Abbott held his coffee cup with both hands. The diner mug was white and institutional, nothing like the blue one on my shelf. He looked out the window at the unfamiliar street. I watchedhis profile and waited. Abbott's silences were never empty. They were loading sequences. The words were coming; he was just choosing them carefully.
"I want to start," he said. "I want to be the guy—not the backup. Not the contingency plan. I want to play sixty games and know that the net is mine and that every game matters because I'm the one standing in it."
"You should have that."
"I know."
"You deserve that."
He looked at me. The morning light from the diner window caught his eyes. "What do you want the next five years to look like?"
I cut into my eggs. "I want to be on the first line permanently. I want a contract that reflects what I produce. I want another Cup run."
"And?"
"And what?"
"You started with team things." He took a sip of his coffee. He brought directness to a conversation that mattered. "Ice time. Contract. Team success. Nothing about the rest of your life."
My eggs were getting cold. I ate them, though, because having something to do with my hands was useful when Abbott was looking at me like that, so focused and intent. He'd decided to stop letting me deflect
"The rest of my life is good," I said.
"I didn't say it wasn't."
"Then what are you asking?"
He set his mug down. "I'm asking whether you've ever thought about what you want, that isn't about taking care of a team."
The diner was quiet enough that I could hear the coffee machine burbling. A bell chimed as someone came through thedoor. These were normal morning sounds. Nothing about this should have felt like the floor shifting under me.
"I like taking care of the team," I said.
"I know you do. You're the best at it of anyone I've ever met." He said this without emphasis, the way he stated things that were simply true. "But I'm asking about the rest."
"What rest?"
"Hayes." He set his mug down. "You organized rookie night. You run the barbecue dinners. You coordinate the charity events. The birthdays. You're the reason Mikkola isn't eating lunch alone. You're the reason Morrison still has people willing to sit with him." He listed these not as accusations but as evidence. "You take care of everyone. You're exceptional at it. I'm just asking who takes care of you?"
I opened my mouth to sayI don't need taking care ofbut the words dissolved before they reached my tongue, because Abbott had asked the question in a way that made my standard deflection impossible. Not,Do you have people who care about you?I did, obviously—abundantly—but,Who takes care of you?
It was a fundamental distinction.
"The team takes care of me," I said.
"The team loves you. That's different."
It was different. He was right. Being loved by a team was real and sustaining, but it was spread across two dozen people. Being taken care of was something else.
Abbott looked at me for a long moment. "The part where someone takes care of you," he asked quietly.
The bell chimed again. The cook called an order. I sat in a vinyl booth in a diner in a city where nobody knew my name and felt something crack—a fine fracture line in a surface that had been bearing weight for a long time.
I didn't answer.
