I felt a little looser in the second period, watching my Red Sky Raiders take it to the blue team. Vinnie was right about one thing-it felt good to use my body again. For something other than cutting wood or shoveling snow, anyway. If this was a mistake, it certainly wasn’t a big one. It wouldn’t rank up there with the other major mistakes of my life. Like getting married when I was twenty-three years old, just out of baseball, not sure what I was going to do with my life. Not a good reason to get married.

Or letting myself get talked into becoming a private eye. And everything that happened after that.

Or Sylvia. Letting myself fall in love with her. Yes, I’ll say it. The puck is in the other end. I’m skating back and forth in front of my net, wondering why I’m thinking of these things. But yes, I’ll say it. I loved her. “I’ve been hiding up here,” she told me. “I’ve been hiding from the world. I think you are, too, whether you admit it or not.” And then she left. Just like that. “I hope I’ve touched your life.” The last thing she said to me. What a melodramatic college-girl thing to say. I hope I’ve touched your life.

Yeah, Sylvia. You touched my life. You touched my life the same way a tornado touches a trailer park.

The puck coming this way. The blue center behind it. The sound of his skates in the empty arena. Snick snick snick snick.

Funny how things come into your mind at a time like this. It used to happen in baseball. I’d be settling under a pop fly and I’d think of something else in my life with a sudden clarity like it was the first time I’d ever thought of it.

Like my biggest mistake of all. A madman’s apartment in Detroit. Aluminum foil on the walls. My partner and I frozen with fear, watching the gun in his hand.

Snick snick snick snick.

Sylvia. I am in her bed and she is looking down at me. We have just finished making love in the bed she shares every night with her husband. He is my friend, but I don’t care. She owns me.