He looked at me.
"Not—not on the bench," I said. "Not as staff. Just—you could come. As a person. In the stands."
Nathan was quiet for a moment.
"I hadn't thought about that," he said.
"It's allowed," I said. "You're allowed to just—watch. Without the tablet. Without the assessment."
"I know," he said.
"Do you?"
He looked at his tea. Then out the window. Then back at his tea.
"It would be strange," he said.
"Probably," I said. "But you could do it anyway."
He didn't say anything.
"Section 112 is my family's section," I said. "But there's—there's adjacent seats. Good sightlines." I moved my hand. "You'd be able to see the whole ice."
Nathan was quiet for a long moment.
"I'll think about it," he said.
Which was Nathan for yes.
"Nathan," I said.
"Yes."
"Are you okay?"
He looked at me. Nathan Cross being asked directly if he was okay still had a quality of slight recalibration to it, like the question arrived in a language he was still learning to receive.
"Yes," he said. Then, after a pause: "I think so."
"That's allowed," I said. "Not being sure yet."
"I know," he said.
He drank his tea.
I watched the game.
Leo purred between us.
Three days later I was in the facility when Knox found me in the corridor.
Knox finding you in a corridor was its own category of thing. Knox did not make small talk. Knox did not appear somewhere without a reason. Knox appearing in a corridor at eleven a.m. with a particular expression meant he had something to say and had decided to say it now.
"Doc's coming to the game," Knox said.
I looked at him. "What?"
"Friday. He bought a ticket." Knox looked at me with the expression of a man delivering information he finds significant. "Near Section 112. Already checked the sightlines from there. Which—" He stopped.
