He was retreating.
He came to my street and sat in his truck and couldn’t make himself come in. I was upstairs waiting for a knock that never came, and then I sent him three texts at two in the morning. I could feel something was wrong and didn’t know how to reach him through the glass he was putting back up.
I know this pattern. I built a whole curriculum around this pattern. I have it color-coded on a Post-it board.
The difference is that last time, I had the luxury of being the person on the outside with the tools. Now I’m the person who might have caused the damage, and that is a different thing entirely.
My next client isn’t for an hour.
I take off my apron. Pick up my keys.
I drive to the rink.
Virgil is in the equipment bay when I get there, tending to Sleetwood Mac’s undercarriage with a wrench and the focused attention of a man who is never surprised by visitors.
“He’s on the ice,” Virgil says, without looking up. “Has been since ten.”
“Practice doesn’t start until two.”
“No.” He adjusts a bolt. “It doesn’t.”
I stand there for a moment. “Did you know? About the inquiry?”
“Heard things.” He sets down the wrench. Picks up a different one. “Pru talks to me sometimes. When she thinks something needs doing and she’s not the one to do it.”
“She came to me this morning.”
“I know.” He glances at me then, just briefly, with the eyes that see everything from the cab of a Zamboni. “You going to stand here or you going to go in?”
I go in.
The rink is cold and quiet in the way it always is before a team arrives—the refrigeration humming, the overhead lights bright and indifferent, the ice so smooth it looks fake. Bennett is at the far end, running a drill I recognize because I’ve watched him run it a hundred times. Back and forth between the blue lines, full speed, the kind of skating that has no tactical purpose beyond punishing the body into submission.
He hasn’t seen me yet.
I watch him for a moment. The precision of his movement, the controlled aggression of it, the way he’s using the ice the same way he used to run practices—as a place to put things he doesn’t know what else to do with.
He sees me on his next pass.
He doesn’t stop immediately. Finishes the length of the ice, coasts to a halt near the boards, stands there with his stick across his knees and his breath coming in visible clouds.
I walk to the glass. We look at each other through it.
He doesn’t come off the ice.
I find the gate and open it myself and walk across the ice in my boots, which is not elegant, but I make it to where he’s standing without falling.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
He looks at me for a moment. Then, quietly: “Pru.”
“Pru.”
He nods. Not surprised. Not angry. Just—tired. The specific exhaustion of a man who has been holding something alone and knows he’s been caught holding it.
“I was going to tell you,” he says.
