Chapter 33 The Scout
CALEB
Porter called on a Tuesday afternoon while I was in the locker room with my gear half off and my phone lit up with the Halifax area code and that specific feeling in my chest that came when you knew before you answered that the call on the other end was going to change the shape of something.
I answered.
Kessler, he said.
Porter.
I have been watching your last six games on film, he said. I do that before I make any significant communication. I like to have the full picture rather than a partial one.
Tell me what you saw, I said.
He was quiet for a moment in the way he was quiet when he was deciding how much to give rather than what to say.
The Northwood game, he said. Shaw. You walked away from him four times in that game. I have the timestamps. Four separate incidents where the provocation was clear and the walk away was a decision rather than an absence of awareness.
Yes, I said.
Players who walk away from that kind of targeted provocation either do not care what is being said, he said, which is its own kind of problem, or they have made a conscious decision that the ice matters more than the moment. He paused. Which was it for you.
Someone taught me that the ice was my answer, I said. So I stopped trying to answer everything else.
Smart person.
The smartest I know.
He was quiet again.
I want to move the spring roster confirmation forward, he said. I had planned to wait until January. I do not want to wait until January. I am ready to confirm now if you are ready to receive it.
I sat in the empty locker room in my practice gear with my skates still on.
I am ready, I said.
Halifax spring development program, he said. Starts March second. Six weeks, followed by the June draft evaluation. The organizations watching that evaluation already know your name. He paused. This is the step, Kessler. Not a step toward the step. The actual step.
I understand that.
The legal situation with your father, he said. Fully resolved.
Settled last Friday, I said. Formally and completely.
Good. He paused again. The girl, Mia. She is still part of your life.
She is the most important part of my life, I said.
I read the article Shaw wrote, he said. Her version. The full story.
Yes.
She did not have to do that, he said.
She did not have to do any of it, I said. She did all of it anyway.
Something that might have been a laugh came from Porter, brief and controlled, then gone.
Confirmation will be in your email by end of business today, he said. Welcome to the program, Kessler.
He hung up.
I sat in the locker room for a long time.
Then I called Mia.
She picked up on the second ring.
Halifax confirmed, I said. March second.
A pause on her end that lasted long enough to tell me it had landed somewhere deep.
Caleb, she said.
I know.
That is the draft evaluation pipeline.
Yes, I said.
She was quiet for a long moment.
Are you happy, she said.
I thought about it honestly because she always deserved the honest version.
I am something better than happy, I said. Happy is about the moment you are in. What I feel right now is ready. Ready for all the moments after this one.
She was quiet again.
I want to tell Mom, she said. Can I tell her right now.
Tell her, I said.
I heard her walk through the apartment and say Mom in that voice, and then her mother asking what, and then Mia telling her, and then the sound of her mother laughing, genuine and warm, weak from chemo months but completely real.
I sat in the locker room and listened to that laugh through the phone and felt something in my chest that did not have a word I knew.
She came back.
She says you better make the NHL, Mia said, or she will be very disappointed in both of us.
Tell her I am working on it.
She relayed it.
She says good, Mia said. And she says same time tomorrow for dinner if you want to come.
Same time, I said.
Then she said, I need to tell you something. I submitted the nursing school application yesterday. Hamilton Regional. The accelerated oncology program.
I sat up slightly.
Which program, I said.
Two year accelerated, she said. September start. I was going to tell you first but I submitted it before we had the conversation and I am sorry for the order.
I am not upset, I said. I paused. Which program specifically.
She told me.
I thought about September. About Halifax in March. About June evaluation. About the specific geography of two people building the things they were supposed to build and what that looked like when the map was spread out.
Four hours between Halifax and Hamilton, I said.
I know, she said.
That is not insurmountable.
I know that too, she said.
She was quiet.
Same time tomorrow, she said. That is the only plan I need right now.
Same time, I said.
I put the phone down.
Eli appeared in the locker room doorway.
Well, he said.
Spring roster confirmed, I said. March second.
He crossed the room in four steps and grabbed both my shoulders.
Your dad cannot touch this, he said.
No, I said. He cannot touch this.
How does it feel.
I looked around the locker room. The wet benches. The smell of tape and cold air. The place I had been coming to since before I knew what any of it was for.
Like mine, I said.
It always was, Eli said.