*
In another part of town, in a rink on the way down to the lake, a meeting of the members of a hockey cub is coming to an end. A vote has come to an end. The results have been counted. Everyone is dealing with the consequences.
*
A group of men in black jackets are scattered throughout the gathering. Some with their families, others alone. Men and women disappear into the parking lot. Everyone is talking, but no one is saying anything. It’s going to be a long night in houses where all the lights are off, but all the people are awake.
*
The club’s president remains seated at the table in the cafeteria long after everyone has left. Tails is standing alone in the darkness out in the stands. This club is their lives. Neither of them knows who it belongs to now.
*
Amat is sitting on Zacharias’s bed when his phone buzzes. A single text. A single word. From Maya.
“Thanks.”
Amat replies with a single word. “Sorry.”
The thanks is for what he has done. The apology is for how long it took him to summon the courage to do it.
*
Kevin’s parents are the first to leave the meeting. His dad shakes a few hands, exchanges a few brief words. His mom says nothing. They get in separate cars, drive in different directions.
*
Sune goes home. Feeds the puppy. When the phone rings he is both surprised and not remotely surprised. It’s the president of a hockey club. Sune stays up after he ends the call, suspects he’ll soon be getting a visitor.
*
Kevin’s mom stops her car. Switches the engine off but contemplates switching it straight back on again. She turns the headlights off, but doesn’t move. Her body has no energy, she feels feverish, can hardly grip the wheel with her fingers. Her insides have burned to ash, her body is just a shell—that’s how she’ll remember feeling.
She gets out of the car, walks into the residential area, finds the right row house, and rings the doorbell. It’s the last building before the Hollow.
*
The puppy hears the visitor before the knock on the door. Sune opens up and tries to tell the little creature to go away, but his voice doesn’t even come close to hiding who already has the power in their relationship.
“Any difference between hockey players and dogs?” David smiles grimly outside.
“At least hockey players occasionally do what you tell them,” Sune mutters.
The two men look at each other. Once upon a time they were mentor and pupil. Once upon a time the love between them was unshakeable. Times change.
“I wanted to come round so you heard this directly from me . . . ,” David begins.
“You’ve got the A-team job,” Sune nods.
“The president called?”
“Yep.”
“It’s nothing personal, Sune. But I’m a hockey coach. This is what we do.”
*
Benji’s plastered foot isn’t a plastered foot anymore, it’s a wooden leg now. He’s got a black patch over one eye, his room is a pirate ship, and his sister’s children are the enemy. They’re fencing with hockey sticks, shrieking with laughter as he chases them around, hopping on one leg. They pull the quilt and sheet off the bed and throw them over his head, making him stumble and nearly pull over an entire chest of drawers. Gaby is standing in the doorway, arms folded, doing her special Mom face.
“Shit,” one of the kids says.
“It was mostly Uncle Benji’s fault!” the other one claims instantly.
“Hey! You don’t tell on your friends!” Benji shouts, trying to crawl out from under the bed linens.
Gaby points at her children and says sternly:
“You’ve got five minutes to tidy up in here. Then you go and wash your hands, and come out and eat dinner. Grandma’s nearly ready. And that goes for you too, little brother!”
Benji grunts beneath the covers. The children help him. Gaby goes into the hall so they can’t see how hard she’s laughing. Laughter that’s sorely needed in this town tonight.
*
Sune draws a deep breath, down to the very depths of his bulky frame. He looks at David.
“Do you really hate Peter so much that you couldn’t be in the same club if he stayed?”
David sighs in frustration.
“This has nothing to do with him. I just can’t accept what he stands for. This is hockey; we have to be capable of putting the club’s best interests ahead of our own.”
“And you don’t think Peter’s done that?”
“I saw him, Sune. I saw him in the parking lot when the police took Kevin off the team bus. Peter drove there and watched because he wanted to see it happen. It was revenge.”
“Wouldn’t you have done the same in his place?”
David looks up, shakes his head.
“If I was in his place, I’d probably have had a gun with me. That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“So what are you talking about?” Sune wonders.
“I’m talking about the fact that hockey only works well if it’s in a world of its own. If we don’t get all sorts of crap from outside mixed up with it. If Peter’s family had waited until the day after the final to report Kevin to the police, he’d still have suffered EXACTLY the same judicial consequences. Police, prosecutor, trial, the whole lot, it would all have happened exactly the same, just one day later.”
“And Kevin would have been able to play in the final. And maybe the juniors would have won the final,” Sune concludes, although evidently without agreeing.
David is adamant:
“That’s what justice is, Sune. That’s why society has laws. Peter could have waited until after the final, because what Kevin did had nothing to do with hockey, nothing to do with the club, but Peter chose to impose his own punishment. So he damaged the whole team and the whole club. The whole town.”
The old man’s breath wheezes as it fills his big body. He’s old, but his eyes haven’t aged.
“Do you remember, David, just after you got onto the A-team, we had a guy who suffered three serious concussions in two seasons? Everyone knew that if he got one more he’d have to stop playing. We came up against a team who had a huge hulk of a guy on defense, and he knew about that, and after the first shift, he purposefully went straight for our guy’s head in a hit.”
“I remember,” David says.
“Do you remember what you did to the other guy?”
“I decked him.”
“Yes. Our guy got another concussion, that match was his last. And the referee didn’t even give the back a penalty. So you decked the other guy. Because sometimes referees get things wrong, and sometimes there’s a difference between breaking the rules, and offending morally, and you believed you had the right to impose your own justice out there on the ice.”
“This isn’t the same thing,” David replies, more confidently than he really feels.
Sune thinks for a long time, pats the puppy, scratches his eyebrow.