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Mr. Owen. I don't know what happened. He won't tell me. But I know my son, and I know he is sad, and I think you are sad too. Get better. Come eat tourtière. The offer does not expire. — Josée.

I read it until the ice on my knee turns to water.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

RÉMY

I find out from the team's website, like everybody else.

It's eight in the morning. I'm sitting in my car in the parking garage under the practice rink with the engine off, because I got here too early and I don't want to go inside yet. I'm scrolling, not reading anything, and there it is at the top of the page. A photo of him from October, in his captain's jersey, with the C on his chest.

Captain Owen Hale will miss the remainder of the Final with a lower-body injury. The organization thanks Owen for seventeen seasons of leadership and wishes him a full recovery.

Seventeen seasons of leadership. Like a retirement notice. Like an obituary.

I read it again. I read the part that says remainder.

I knew. I saw his face on the ice, and Dana's face, and Anand running. I heard the sound he made. I knew it was bad.

I didn't know it was over.

He didn't tell me. Of course he didn't tell me. I moved to Sorel's room. I didn't go to the trainer's room after. I stood in the family lounge with Maman crying on my shoulder and my dad clapping me on the back, and I didn't go to him. Why would he tell me anything?

I sit there in the car until somebody knocks on the window and I jump so hard I hit my knee on the steering wheel.

It's Kowal.

"You coming in?" he says through the glass.

"Yeah."

He looks at me. At my face. At the phone in my hand, still showing the photo.

"He texted me last night," Kowal says. "Hale. Asked me to look out for you. In the room. On the ice."

I stare at him.

"Figured you should know," Kowal says. He starts to go, then stops. "Maya says to tell you she's wearing your jersey to the watch party Saturday. Hers is the only twenty-seven in the whole school." Then he walks away toward the elevator.

On the radio in the training room, somebody's got the sports station on. The afternoon guy, the one who said circus pick in October. He's doing his morning show now, too, because it's the Final and everybody wants more.

"—and I'll tell you what I'm seeing with Castel. It's the rookie wall. It's textbook. Eighty-two games, four rounds of playoffs, the kid's twenty years old, he's hit the wall. Three points in the last five games, and one of 'em's an empty-netter. You watch him out there, the joy's gone. Remember the slide? Remember the pink laces? Where'd that kid go?"

"Could be the other thing, too."

"What other thing?"

"Come on. The picture. The hotel. Whatever's going on there, it's in his head⁠—"

Dana reaches over and snaps the radio off without looking up from the tape she's cutting.

"Idiots," she says.

I'm sitting on the table with my skates on, waiting for her to check my ankle, which doesn't need checking. I just didn't want to be in the room.

"How is he?" I ask. I don't say who.

Dana stops cutting tape. She looks at me.