Overtime at the Winter Rink

How it begins

The center circle had become a pond by six in the morning.

Tessa stood at its edge with a thermometer and the expression she usually reserved for invoices. A puck floated against the boards. Pucks, she knew from thirty years of observation, were not supposed to float anywhere near a hockey rink.

"Tell me that's part of the resurfacing," said a voice behind her.

She did not turn. "Tell me you haven't invited the television people."

Luke Bennett's silence was impressively specific.

Tessa closed her eyes. She had once kissed him beneath the scoreboard after a junior final. Since then he had acquired three championship rings, a surgically repaired shoulder and a talent for appearing on breakfast television. She had acquired the qualifications necessary to explain why water was covering his plans.

"How bad?" he asked.

"For swimming? Excellent."

He stepped beside her, his expensive boots stopping short of the rubber mat. A paper tray held two coffees. He offered her the one without a lid.

"You still hate drinking through plastic."

She accepted it before she could decide what accepting it meant.

"The charity match is Saturday," he said.

"The compressor is older than your career."

"My career is over."

"Exactly."

He laughed once, then looked toward the empty stands. The seats had been repainted since he left, but a dark rectangle remained where his photograph used to hang. Tessa had taken it down herself when the roof leaked. She had never found a place to put it back.

From the plant room came three heavy knocks. She put the coffee on the barrier.

"Stay here."

"I can help."

"You can call the television people."

He followed her anyway, ducking beneath the low lintel as though his body remembered the building better than he did. Beside the compressor, a maintenance tag swung in the warm draft.

Tessa caught it and read the date. Then the signature.

Luke stopped smiling before she said a word.