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I got her set up in the corner near the coaches’ box. The backpack had everything, coloring supplies, her dinosaur water bottle, crackers, some fruit, a granola bar, organic gummies, and a PB&J for later if we got tied up too long, and the small notebook she’d decided she needed eight weeks ago and had never fully explained. She’d filled twelve pages with drawings and single words she was learning to write. I’d found it open on the kitchen table once, a page that said IRIS DADA DRAGON in careful block letters. I’d put it back exactly where I found it. Of course I packed her stuffed dragon, Gerald. She went nowhere without him.

The iPad was in the front pocket for real emergencies. I left it zipped because I didn’t want her turning into a zombie watching the tablet unless I truly needed her to be distracted for something.

Coach Calloway came out of his office and stopped.

Jack Calloway was thirty-eight years old. Former first-line center, two All-Star appearances, a Stanley Cup from his third season in the league. He’d had a career that got him mentioned alongside a generation of players who’d made the game look easy. A knee injury had ended his playing days at thirty-four and he’d gone straight into coaching. He wasn’t a large man but he’d been the most dangerous player in every room he’d ever entered at the time and it still came off him years afterward in how he stood and how he read the ice, and in the compressed authority underneath both. Regularly on the ice himself, he was a fantastic coach, and a generally nice guy. He saw everything and reacted to almost none of it. He was my hero in that way alone.

He glanced down at Iris then shifted his eyes to mine.

“Sitter canceled on me without any notice,” I said. “I’m working on it, Coach. I’m sorry.”

Calloway nodded once and moved to where Iris had taken off to and was pulling her coloring book out. He lowered himself into the chair beside her carefully. He studied what she was working on.

“Dragon,” Iris told him, without looking up. She was focused on the wings.

“Good color choice,” Calloway said.

He turned his attention back to me and tilted his head toward the ice.

I went. On the double, and with a hefty sigh of relief.

I was the second one out there. Ryan Lindqvist was already on the ice running edges alone, his breath fogging in the cold air, unhurried and deliberate. I’d seen this every morning since camp opened. The captain arrived first. He always did. Not for show, not to make a point, but because it was the shape his commitment took. He led by example and worked as hard if not harder than every guy on the roster.

The rest of the group filtered out and Calloway called the drills. I found my line and went to work. The ice was sharp this morning, my edges gripping clean, and I settled into the familiar mechanics. Weight transfer, reach, drive. My head went quiet. It was what I’d loved about hockey since I was five years old. On the ice, everything else stopped.

Cole Westbrook appeared at my flank before we’d finished the first circuit.

“That your kid?” Cole asked, not breaking stride, nodding toward the boards.

“Yes.”

“She’s wearing your jersey.” He was affected by this, openly. I’d spent enough time around Cole to know when he was being real. “Kovac. Look how small she is. She’s barely bigger than your skate.”

I glanced over. Calloway was angled toward Iris now and was holding up two crayons for her consideration. Iris had her chin in her hand, weighing the options with full seriousness.

“He looks almost happy,” Cole said. “I have never seen a grin or smile or any degree of joy on his face in any context.” He raised his voice across the ice. “Hey, Captain. Kovac’s kid has Coach doing arts and crafts over here. And he’s smiling.”

Ryan glanced up from the power play setup at the far end. His eyes found Iris first, the tiny figure in the too-big jersey with the crooked barrette I had left exactly where she put it, and his expression turned to a grin before he pulled it back.

“Run the rotation,” he said to Cole. “And pay attention.”

“I’m multitasking,” Cole said.

A whistle blast split the air.

Every man on the ice stopped.

Fuck. Iris had found the coach’s whistle. She blew it again, two short blasts, confident, and the sound bounced off the boards and came back sharp and loud.

Cole bent forward laughing.

“Calloway.” Griffin Callahan flipped his helmet up where he was grinning from the crease. “She’s running practice. Right now. She is literally running it.”

Calloway’s face didn’t move. I found Iris. She was already watching me, waiting. I gave a small nod and she blew it a third time.

Theo Marquis had completely abandoned the pretense of checking his tape. He was watching Iris with open amusement, rare enough on Theo’s face that two of the younger defensemen looked at each other.

“Is Marquis smiling?” Kasperi Mäkinen said, from the far boards.