Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Soft, quiet darkness, tinged with a hint of smoke.
Chapter Nine
BLUE
I’ve been keeping busy.
Probably too busy for a guy who’s supposed to be on bedrest, but I can’t help it. I haven’t held onto many of the “life lessons” I learned growing up, but the warnings about idle hands being the devil’s plaything…
Well, I guess those seeds were sown too early.
These days, I’m not worried about the devil getting into my hands; I just can’t stand sitting still and doing nothing. On the rare occasions I watch more than an hour of television at a time, I always have a chess piece I’ve whittled to sand or a crochet project to work on.
My friend Justin Cruise taught me how to crochet back when I was a Badger in Portland, straight out of university. He has an Instagram account where he models his creations half-naked to raise money for a foundation that supports the unhoused. He encouraged me to do the same, but I rarely put my face on social media, let alone my body in nothing but a scarf wrapped creatively around my crotch.
I give in other ways.
Like fixing up old furniture to donate to the thrift shops who donate their proceeds to animal shelters around town.
This antique side table, someone set on the curb for trash pickup, is going to be a beauty when I’m done. I spotted it on my way to grab sourdough pastries for breakfast at The Miller’s Secret and brought it home to keep me busy.
Now, I drag my sandpaper across the top in long, even strokes, following the wood’s natural lines. The walnut emerges from beneath someone’s misguided coat of barn-red paint like a river appearing through fog. Dark swirls. Tight knots. The story of the tree’s life written in rings; the story of the people who used it in what looks like a wineglass stain.
But it’ll all buff out. All it needs is a little time and care.
I left my orbital sander in the closet for this one. I was in the mood for slow work, for the meditation of it. I needed something to keep my mind off the fact that I should be in Canada with my team, helping defend against one of the best offensive lines in the league.
I’m fine to play. My head’s been clear all day. There’s no dizziness when I stand, no nausea, and my vision is as sharp as it’s ever been. But when I called her this morning, Dr. Lyle refused to believe that I possess supernatural healing powers. She insisted I stay home. Still, if I’m this locked in at my follow-up, I’m practically guaranteed to be cleared for the home game on Thursday.
I got lucky. This time.
But hockey is a violent sport, and I’m not getting any younger. The next time some guy with a grudge decides to make me a target, that could be it, the end of my career.
And…then what?
It’s a question I’ve been asking myself more and more often. Not just this weekend, but for the past few months.
Since Bea left.
Since I realized how much I want to be there for her and our baby, and started thinking that helping raise a child would be a meaningful reason to transition out of the NHL. I’ve always known that I’d retire in my thirties. Maybe not this early in my thirties, but I wouldn’t be devastated if this were my last year.
It was never that I wasn’t willing to rearrange my life to be a good father. I just wasn’t sure I could trust myself to know how to do the job right.
There weren’t any good fathers where I grew up, no one to show me what that even looked like.
But I never had a hockey mentor, either.
I learned to play from experience, from getting out on the ice every winter with my friends and playing until we couldn’t feel our legs. I still did well enough at my university tryout to win a full scholarship. I was rough around the edges, but my instincts were spot on.
Maybe being a father would be the same.
And like so many moments of synchronicity in life, that’s when it happens…
That’s the moment the anchor on the broadcast I turned on for background noise announces, “In local news, singer-songwriter Beatrice Nix—formerly of the indie rock group Violet Widow—and an unidentified female passenger were involved in a multi-vehicle collision on Interstate 10 this morning. Authorities say the women’s vehicle was struck by a driver who later fled the scene. The incident is currently being investigated as a hit and run.”
My hand stops moving.
The word stops spinning.
I jerk my attention to the screen to see what looks like cell phone footage of a smoking car crushed against the highway median, then EMTs loading someone whose face I can’t make out onto a stretcher. My heart punches my ribs as the video cuts to a small crowd gathered on the shoulder, and Beatrice standing next to a woman in scrubs.