“Knee good?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then.”
He moved on, but then Taft appeared before I got to my feet.
He stopped just inside the doorway and looked at Sable, who was lying on the mat by my stall. He didn’t say anything, justcrossed the room and sat down on the floor next to her, back against the wall, knees pulled up. Quiet.
Sable pressed herself against his side and stayed.
Taft put a hand on her back and didn’t move.
I finished my grip on the lace and didn’t ask him anything. I’d learned that when Taft sat down on the floor without explaining it, he usually wasn’t ready for questions.
Cap came in with his clipboard and stopped when he saw Taft on the floor. He set it down on the nearest surface and went to a crouch in front of him, elbows on his knees.
“You okay?” Cap said. “You need the morning?”
Taft looked up at him. “No. Just… my brother called… ” He pressed a hand to his face. “It’s hard.”
“It’s all good if you need a break.”
“Just a minute,” Taft said. He leaned back into Sable. Her tail moved once. “I’ll be fine.”
Cap held his look for a moment. Then he nodded, one quiet nod, didn’t push, and then he left.
Taft sat there for a little while longer. I wondered if he was going to cry and wasn’t sure what to say. Sable held still against him the whole time. After a while, he got up, smoothed his practice jersey, and said nothing at all, which I understood completely.
“Thank you,” he said and left after Cap.
“Any time,” I offered, and he threw me a shaky smile.
Practice was ladder skates, edge work, a passing sequence on the breakout, three-on-twos through the neutral zone, and a fifteen-minute stretch on the cycle in the offensive zone, which I was good at and glad to do because being good at things was self-soothing. Hockey, specifically, rewarded the way my brain worked rather than asking it to work differently. I saw patterns before they formed. I tracked multiple moving variables without effort. I remembered every sequence a defenseman had run inthe last four games. None of that was a choice—it was just what my brain did. Cap and I ran the cycle drill against Bob and Owens, and at the end of practice, I was halfway out of my pads in the corner of the bench by my stall when my phone rang in my locker.
It was a specific ringtone—the default Apple one, descending three notes—for a list of key contacts that included Matt, Lena, and my mother in that order. The ringtone for those three overrode silent mode right now because of the imminent birth of my niece or nephew.
I dug it out one-handed. “Matt,” I answered. I sounded steady.
“Hey.” Matt’s voice was low and tight. “Lena’s in labor. Active. Came on fast last night. Mom is with her. Contractions are five minutes apart. I’m taking her to Genesee.”
“I’ll meet you there. I’m at the rink,” I said. “Practice ended six minutes ago. I can be at the hospital in about twenty minutes if I leave now. Faster if I run the lights, which I won’t do.”
“Don’t run the lights.”
“I won’t. I said I won’t.”
“Just… come.”
“I’m coming.”
He hung up.
Cap was watching me. The locker room wasn’t silent because locker rooms never were, but the volume in the corner where I was had dropped.
“Lena,” Cap said.
“In labor. I have to?—”
