* * *
MIKE SAW BRIDGET only briefly on occasional mornings. They’d nod, and that was about it. He was absorbed with work, where he’d won the starting goalie’s job. Now he had to make sure he played well enough to keep it. His entire focus was on rebuilding his hockey skills and reputation. When he wasn’t practicing, training or playing, he was watching tape and conferring with coaches. He still had to prove himself. His last playoff performance was fresh in everyone’s mind so he overheard a lot of negative comments, but he kept up his cool front. He wasn’t nicknamed Iceman for nothing.
October started well. There were a couple of shootout losses, some wins. Turchenko started in the second of a back-to-back pair of games and didn’t do well. Yes, things were going almost exactly the way he wanted. And then, just as that first month was winding up, it happened.
Toronto was playing Philadelphia on Hockey Night in Canada, one game before the first meeting of the season against Quebec. Mike was playing like he wanted to, and feeling good about the next game against his former team.
There was a two-on-one breakaway in the third period. Mike was focused on the player with the puck, but kept his peripheral vision on the man’s teammate, waiting for a possible pass. He could hear the crowd responding in the background over the scraping of skates on ice. Everyone was shouting, and suddenly his goalie crease was crowded with hockey players, one guy landing in the net. Mike was trying desperately to ignore everything but the puck when he felt a weight on his ankle through the pads, and a sharp pain. The whistle blew, and one by one the players stood up, all except for Mike.
Damn. He knew what that feeling was.
The coaches and trainers came out. Mike insisted on getting on his good foot to let one of the trainers pull him over to the bench upright, but that was just for pride’s sake. He wasn’t going to be playing the rest of this game, or quite a few after this. Turchenko put on his helmet to take over, while Mike finally surrendered and let the medics carry him away.
Mike had his ankle tended to by the team doctors. They fitted him with a soft, removable cast which meant he had to take more care not to reinjure himself, but overall recovery would be shorter. He was given a strict regimen to follow, including in-home therapy sessions with the team trainers. Then he was sent home to recover. And to wait. Wait to see if Turchenko would take his job.
“Home” was the solitary splendor of a hotel suite. Last season Mike had been traded at the trade deadline, so they’d put him up in a hotel for the remainder of the season. He’d been so angry with management—they’d asked him to waive his no-trade clause. He’d agreed to the deal but walked out in an icy fury before even finding out where they wanted him to go.
He hadn’t even thought of listing his property in Quebec. Reality just hadn’t sunk in yet. Quebec City had been his home for his entire hockey career. He was popular, had friends, fans. But management slanted the news so that it seemed he’d asked for the trade, and when his replacement had led Mike’s former team to sweeping a playoff series over Mike and the Blaze, the fans back in Quebec had seemed to be happy he was gone. Suddenly he was no longer wanted at home in Quebec, but he had nowhere else to go. Toronto hadn’t welcomed him. He’d been waiting to hear that another trade was in the works, but that hadn’t happened. He’d finally listed his Quebec home when he’d come back to Toronto at the end of the summer, but he was still living at the hotel.
And he was once again quietly and impotently furious. Unlike the O’Reillys, his temper was slow-burning and stayed under the surface. His career was out of his hands, and it was infuriating.
Two days later he was able to watch Turchenko earn a win against Ottawa. He wanted to throw the remote at the television. That was supposed to be Mike’s win. Mike didn’t think Turchenko played well, but he was good enough, and the pundits were predicting Turchenko would take over the starting position permanently.
That would leave Mike playing backup until Toronto could find another team willing to take on his expensive contract. If he didn’t bounce back from this injury, regain his form, there might never be another contract. That, he refused to think about.
The best-case scenario was that he’d recover and play at his previous top level. In that case, whether or not the Blaze kept him till the end of the season, neither Toronto team would be able to offer what he could ask for in free agency next summer. There wasn’t a single scenario that left Mike living in Toronto, so this was a temporary stay. The impersonal hotel room underlined the impermanence of his future. When he wasn’t winning, it turned out people didn’t want to be with him. His mother had called, but she was busy in Phoenix. She’d come if he asked, but she’d raised him to be self-reliant.
Then he got the text.
* * *
THE O’REILLYS WERE watching the game when Mike went down. Bridget had been at a meet on the other side of the city, and had stopped in on the way to her basement suite. Her mother warmed up some food for her while she joined her dad and Cormack and Bernie and Bert.
Bridget’s mom didn’t follow hockey, but she liked Mike, and even though they hadn’t seen him for a month, she picked up from their talk that the young man who had no family around had been hurt. A couple of days later when Bridget stopped by to catch up, she found that her mother had made up her mind.
Bridget and most of her brothers had inherited their father’s temperament: they could fire up in anger, but it passed as quickly. Bridget’s mother didn’t have a temper, but she could be incredibly stubborn when she made up her mind. Mike’s story had touched her, and she was concerned that he was injured, in a new city, with no family for support.
Bridget tried to explain that he was a highly paid professional athlete and could afford any care he needed, and that the team was invested in keeping him well. Her mother said that he had been very nice to the family, and that they should return the favor. When pressed, Bridget had to admit that she did have a way to contact Mike. She hated doing it. Mike hadn’t reached out to them since he’d provided those tickets, so she felt she was crossing a boundary Mike had put in place. But as a result of her mother’s insistence, she finally agreed to ask him if they could do anything for him.
She pulled up the number on her phone that Mike had given her and started typing.
This is Bridget O’Reilly. My mother was worried—
“Do you have to tell him who you are? Doesn’t the phone number let him know that?” Her mother was reading over Bridget’s shoulder.
“Mom, he sent me one message. I highly doubt I’m in his contacts. It’s just going to pop up as a random number.”
“And say we were all worried. You make me sound like a fusspot.”
Bridget rolled her eyes, since her mother was behind her and out of view, but she deleted the second sentence.
This is Bridget O’Reilly. We hope you’re doing well.
Bridget was not going to sound like she was up at night worrying about his injury.
Do you need any help?
“Ask if he’d like some soup. There’s nothing better than homemade soup when you’re not feeling well.”
“He doesn’t have a cold, Mom. He broke a bone.” According to the papers, it was an ankle bone. He’d be out four to six weeks, which meant it would be December before he’d be playing again. She started her text over.
This is Bridget O’Reilly. We saw you go down and hope you’re recuperating well. My mother has some homemade soup she thought you might like.
She hit Send before her mother came up with anything else.
Bridget knew Mike would think they were overstepping. He’d probably block her number, if he hadn’t already. After all, they hadn’t done anything but nod in passing for most of a month. He couldn’t be close friends with every group of fans he interacted with.
Bridget