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“Wasn’t a compliment.”

“I know.”

I start dressing.

The game refuses to become anything except a game. Roman misses a pass in the first. Finn takes a stupid penalty in the second. Ryan tells both of them exactly what he thinks.

Early in the second their center slides his bottom hand low before the linesman is even set. Eighteen years and they still tell me. I give him the tie-up he wants, and while he’s busy wrestling my stick, Roman comes in behind him and takes the puck off the dot like it was left there for him. It was. Roman scores. Nobody in the building watches my part, and I don’t need them to.

My right shoulder starts burning halfway through the second and keeps burning. Pain I understand.

Late in the third, I reach for a puck along the wall and my left hand disappears.

I can see the glove around the stick. I can see my fingers. I can’t feel the bottom hand.

The puck comes loose anyway. I kick it to Ryan, finish the shift with my right hand doing too much, and get back to the bench.

Two minutes left, up a goal, and the next draw is in our end. It’s been mine for eighteen years. I leave my stick across my knees.

Sully’s hand lands on Ryan’s shoulder.

“Ryan.”

Ryan doesn’t look down the bench. He goes over the boards like the draw was always his.

He sets his feet the way I set mine. He wins it clean, back to Brick, and Brick fires it the length of the ice into the empty net.

“Good,” I say, to nobody.

Eighteen years answers for me. Fine. Nothing. Give it a minute.

I pull off my left glove.

“Maren.”

She comes down the bench.

“My hand’s numb.”

Her face changes. “Which?”

“Left.”

“How much?”

“Most of it.”

“When did this start?”

“Tingling in November. First time it went completely numb was Dallas.”

“I was on that trip.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re telling me now.”

“Yeah.”