Page 30 of Slapshot Baby

Then he walks out after the others.

Once they’ve left, Brennan pulls the chair close. He sits with his back straight, hands on his knees.

"They give you my name?"

“I know you, Coach.”

"Good. Saves time." He studies me with no softness in it. After days of everyone treating me like glass, it's a relief. "They tell you the truth, or the comfortable version?"

"Working on getting the truth." I look at the balloon bobbing on its string. "How's the team?"

"Sick with worry and pretending they're fine." He shifts, joints protesting. "Your medical team wants to talk to you this afternoon. I've spoken with them already."

"Okay. Why are you telling me?"

"Listen to them before you react. You have a history of hearing bad news and immediately trying to solve it with stubbornness."

"When?"

"March twenty twenty-three. You played through a separated shoulder because you didn't want to miss a road trip."

I have zero memory of this. "Did it work?"

"I benched you for two weeks."

Sounds accurate, honestly.

He stands. "Whatever Dr. Harold tells you, hear the whole thing. Then we'll figure out the rest."

He leaves as the doctor walks in.

She's mid-forties, composed, reviewing a tablet as she sits. She speaks the way good coaches speak: direct with no filler, respecting the person enough to skip the cushioning.

"Your short-term memory is fully functional," she says. "You're forming new memories without difficulty. That's the positive news."

"And what’s the negative news?"

"You've lost approximately four years of autobiographical memory. That’s retrograde amnesia. Given the location and severity of the injury, that's consistent with what we expected."

"Will it come back?"

"Some of it might. Memory after an injury like this is unpredictable. For some people a smell or a voice or a face pulls a whole stretch of time back. For others the gap stays a gap. I won't tell you which one you are because I don't know. And anyone who says they do is selling something."

"How long till we know?"

"There’s no clean answer. It might be weeks or months. Usually what's coming back has mostly come back inside a year. What hasn't by then, often doesn't." She holds my eyes. "Plan your recovery around the man in this bed, not the one you're hoping to get back."

The room is very quiet except for the machines beeping

"What about hockey?"

She sets the tablet on her lap. "Your motor function is intact. There's no neurological barrier to returning to play eventually. But your brain needs significant recovery time. A second impact before you've healed would be far more dangerous than the first."

"How long?"

"Three to six months before clearance for contact practice. Longer before game readiness."

I snort.