Peach Soda and Goalie Tape

I text Graham.

Need another pair of hands. You skate easy, right?

His answer comes before I put my phone down.

Hector says easy laps are fine. No hard pushes. No heroics.

Good. Bring gloves.

I reach Margo’s house after dark with two coolers and a bag of paper-wrapped sandwiches. Graham is already there, lifting folding chairs from the back of her garage. He wears a black knit cap and a coat that makes his shoulders look even broader. His right leg moves cleanly when he turns.

I do not measure the step. I do not count it.

“You got here early,” I say.

“You said you needed help.”

“I said I needed hands.”

“I have two.”

“Useful ones?”

“We are about to find out.”

Streetlights along the alley throw pale pools across the yard. Stars show above the roofs. The pond sits behind Margo’s garage, black-blue under a dusting of scraped snow. Graham carries chairs to the edge while I set out a thermos of coffee, another of hot cider, and a foil pan of roast corn.

Margo comes outside in her red parka and points at Graham.

“You the goalie?”

“That’s me.”

“You fall through my ice, I am not pulling you out.”

“I’ll stay near the edge.”

“Smart man.”

He looks at me. “Your aunt has your bedside manner.”

“She taught me everything except hip anatomy.”

“That was considerate of her.”

The others arrive in pairs, all adults from Margo’s block or her bowling league. They lace skates on benches and pass around sandwiches stuffed with roast chicken, pickled onions, and sharp mustard. Graham takes one without asking what is in it.

“Rehab changed you,” I say.

“I was hungry.”

“Before rehab, you would have inspected it like a suspicious puck.”

He bites into the sandwich and thinks about it. “Still could be a suspicious puck.”

“It is chicken.”

“Chicken can be suspicious.”

I hand him an ear of corn, charred at the edges and slick with butter. He eats it standing beside the pond, careful not to drip on his gloves.

“My grandfather made corn like this,” he says. “Except he used a grill with a busted leg. Had to prop it up with goalie sticks.”

“Goalie sticks?”

“He kept them after every season. Said a man never knew when a grill would need repair.”

“Did it?”

“It did.”

I tell him about learning to cook for myself in a cramped apartment on the North Side, where my first landlord kept turning off the heat and I made soup every Sunday because soup gave the place a reason to exist.

“What kind?” he asks.

“Lentil. Too much cumin. Every week.”

“Better than pretzels.”

“Everything is better than pretzels.”

His mouth does that small curve I have come to know too well.

When most of the food is gone, we step onto the pond. The ice has been cleared into a rough oval. Graham takes one slow lap beside me, then another. He does not push wide. He does not test the edge of what his body can do. He skates with patience, which is how he plays when he is at his best.

“Hector happy with you?” I ask.

“He says I am boring now.”

“That is good news.”

“He says boring players stay available.”

“He sounds wise.”

“He also says I should stop asking him when I can face live shots.”

“Can you?”

“He said Monday.”

The word settles in me. Monday. The last test. The last step before his crease and his mask and a playoff game that will ask everything from him.

We circle once more. Margo laughs near the boards of piled snow. Somebody drops a glove. A car passes beyond the fence, tires hissing over salted pavement.

Graham slows beside me.

“I like this,” he says.

“The pond?”

“You. Outside the arena. Feeding me chicken.”

“That is a very narrow future.”

“I can expand it.”

I look at him.

“I want more than rehab-room conversation,” he says. “More than late appointments and you telling me my lunge is bad.”

“Your lunge was bad.”

“It improved.”

“It did.”

He comes to a stop. His skates make a soft scrape. He lifts one hand, then waits.

“Can I touch you?”

“Yes.”

His palm settles at the side of my neck. He gives me time to move away. I do not. His mouth meets mine slowly, patient as his best saves. It tastes like mustard, butter, and cold night. He kisses me once, then again, deeper but still careful, like he knows exactly how much force matters.

I want to stay there until the lights go out.

Instead, I put my hand on his coat and ease back.

“Monday comes first,” I say.

His eyes close for one brief second. “I know.”

“Then we wait.”

“I hate that you are right.”

“You have said that before.”

“I expect to say it again.”

He takes my hand instead, and we skate one more quiet lap before we go back to the food.

Minneapolis: fourteen degrees, clear sky, ice holding.

Monday’s final test is clean. By Thursday, Graham is back in his crease.

Hector signs the clearance report. I do not touch it. I have nothing left to approve, measure, or direct. Graham’s body is his again, and that fact follows me through the arena all night.

The deciding game fills every seat. Wet coats steam near the doors. Hot dog onions burn on the grills behind the concourse. The crowd comes in red and quarry gray, carrying cowbells and bad opinions.

I wait in the tunnel before warmup.

Graham skates toward me in full gear, mask balanced on his blocker. He stops close enough for me to see the scrape on his chin from shaving too fast.

“How’s the leg?” I ask.

“Boring.”

“That is my favorite answer.”

“Hector’s favorite too.”

“If anything changes, you tell him.”

“I will.”

He studies me for a moment. “You got another peach soda?”

“Maybe.”

“Save it for after.”

“That is not an acceptance.”

“It is progress.”

He pushes off toward the ice. No wide reach. No rush. Just the clean, compact stride we worked for.

The Duluth Iron have Jace Morrow at center. He is thirty, built like a loading dock, and he spends sixty minutes trying to make a goalie regret having knees. He crowds the blue paint. He wins draws. He sends pucks toward traffic and follows them himself.

The first period ends one to one. Graham stops twenty shots, most of them ugly. Morrow gets under his mask after a whistle and says something that makes Graham laugh once.

That scares me more than anger would.

In the second, Morrow cuts through the slot and pulls two Quarrymen with him. The pass comes across low. Graham has to move left.

Four weeks ago, that push folds him.

Tonight, he sets his right blade under him first. His hips stay square. He slides across with control and catches the puck against his chest.

I let out the breath I had been holding.

The Iron score later anyway. A screened shot, too many bodies, no clean look. The board reads 2–2 heading into the third.

I stand at the tunnel mouth with Hector beside me. He has his arms crossed.

“You look worse than he does,” he says.

“I am not playing.”

“Neither am I.”

“That has never stopped you from being irritating.”

He almost smiles. “Good save in the second.”

“I saw.”

“You did.”

Cal gives us the lead with six minutes left.

He steals the puck near the blue line, darts around Morrow’s reaching stick, and waits one extra beat. The whole building expects him to shoot. Instead, he slips a flat pass through two skates to Tomas Reed at the far circle.

Reed scores high glove.

Cal slams into the boards, yelling hard enough to shake his helmet loose. The Quarrymen bench empties around him. Graham skates halfway out of his crease and pounds his blocker against the top of the net.

Three to two.

The final two minutes take years.

Duluth pulls its goalie. Morrow parks himself in front of Graham again. Every puck comes through legs, sticks, bodies. Graham sees some. He guesses the rest.

With twelve seconds left, Morrow wins the draw clean.

The puck goes to the point. Shot low. Graham drops and seals the ice. The rebound kicks left.

Morrow is waiting.

He sends the puck across for a one-timer at the far post.

I know the shape of that save. I know the danger in it. I know the old version of Graham would throw himself too wide because there is no room for patience in the final seconds of a playoff game.

But he does not throw anything.

He brings his right skate under him. He pushes only as far as he needs. His blocker gets there first.

The puck strikes it and falls dead beside his pad.

Graham covers it.

The horn goes.

The building breaks open.