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I was fourteen the winter he decided I couldn’t read a defense because I didn’t know how to wait. It was dark before we started most nights. The streetlight came on over the driveway, and Mom had the TV loud enough that I could hear it whenever the kitchen door opened. My fingers went cold inside my gloves. The pucks got harder when they were cold, and louder against the garage.

One night, there were twelve left in the bucket when I told him I was done. He told me to go again. I dropped my stick and said, “I’m fucking done. You do it.”

“What the fuck did you say to me?” he said, and I already knew what was coming.

He looked at my stick on the concrete between us, then walked over and picked it up. I thought he was going to hand it back. He hit me with it instead, hard enough that I went sideways into the garage door. I remember the sound more than the pain; the garage rattling behind me, my shoulder hitting metal, the stick against my body. Wood and fiberglass on a body makes a particular sound. The same one from Greeley’s kitchen.

Dad stood there afterward with my stick in his hand, and I had one palm on the garage because I hadn’t gotten my feet under me yet, and neither of us said anything for a few seconds. Then he held the stick out. “Are you ready to listen now?”

I looked at him.

“Take it.”

I took it. He walked back to the bucket and kicked a puck across the concrete toward me. “Thirty-nine.” There were twelve left. We finished all twelve.

“Nash?” he says over the phone.

I blink at the wall. “Yeah.”

“What happened?”

I sit back down on the step. “Greeley went first. Good rep. Got it flat off the wall and hit Barnes coming through.”

“And you?”

“I held at the hash marks.”

He goes quiet, then laughs. “You held. Jesus Christ. Finally. I’ve been telling you that since you were thirteen. Every fucking year. You come in too high because you get impatient.”

“I know.”

“No, you didn’t know. That’s why we spent half your childhood fighting about it. You remember? You’d get so goddamn mad at me. Throw your shit around. Tell me you were done. Tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about.”

I don’t remember throwing anything. I remember dropping my stick.

Dad laughs quietly. “You were such an asshole.”

I lean forward and put my elbow on my knee. “Thanks.”

“You were. You know you were. But that’s why I stayed on you. Somebody had to. You had all the talent in the world and absolutely no patience.”

“Still don’t.”

“You do when it matters. That’s the difference. You finally figured out how to take the correction instead of fighting the person giving it to you.”

The stairwell feels colder than it did a minute ago. I pull one sleeve down over my hand.

“How many reps?” he asks.

“Six each to start. Then more.”

“And Greeley? Better than you?”

“No. Last three were mine.”

“There you fucking go. You stayed low? Made him commit?”

“Went through the middle. Scored on the last one.”