Page 25 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
Ah, he knows how to motivate a gal. Blake’s Café. The wobbly stools where he used to boost me up before anyone else arrived, just the two of us, while the barista played Miles Davis and the rink hummed next door and I thought I was his whole world.
Clearly, I come by the lying honestly.
Everly
All right, I’ll be there.
Dad
Good.
Everly
I’ll get ONE hot chocolate. I’m not staying for the exhibition. And I’m not signing anything.
Dad
We’ll see. You are my daughter, after all. The rink’s in your blood, whether you like it or not.
Love you, Evie.
Everly
Love you too, Dad.
I set the phone down and sit in the silence of my office. The evening shadows are long, the room well past that romantic afternoon glow. My gaze travels to the letter I set nearby. I think of that version of Beckett in the dark—a man trying to run from the past.
It’s about time I face mine.
BECKETT
Sutton Arena smells the same. That’s what gets me—not the banners or the scarred boards or the scoreboard flickering like it’s sending an SOS to a rescue team that disbanded in 2004. The smell. Cold air and rubber and that specific sweetness of fresh ice that has no name but lives somewhere in the back of my skull, labeled home.
They’re ripping the rink out next month—gutting the arena space and pouring concrete for Sparky’s Laser Tag. I’ve tried not to read into the fact that Sutton Arena was once called home by some of the greatest hockey players of our time and will now be home to acne-riddled prepubescent teens wearing sweaty Velcro vests.
Yes, this is a true tragedy. At least the mall will go on. The stores will stay. But the ice is living on borrowed time.
Three rules this morning: show up, skate, leave. Do not seek out Everly Hart. Do not attempt to repair seventeen years of personal wreckage at a charity event in a suburban mall.
I break rule one in under an hour. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The event is rolling when I arrive—two p.m. sharp, because Coach said don’t be late, and I’ve learned the hard way that Coach Hart’s suggestions are anything but.
The stands are packed. Wooden bleachers creaking and groaning, stuffed with families and kids in Blue Ox jerseys and old-timers who remember when Sutton Arena was the beating heart of East Metro hockey. A hand-painted banner stretches across the boards: FAREWELL SUTTON ARENA—ONE LAST SKATE. Someone’s taped balloons to the penalty box. The Zamboni—so ancient it might qualify for a museum exhibit—squats in the corner like a retired warhorse watching the cavalry ride out without it.
And the ice. Gray and scarred and magnificent. Every nick and groove a story—a hundred thousand blades, a hundred thousand mornings when somebody showed up before dawn because the ice was the only place that made sense.
My dad skated on this ice. I don’t think about that often—I’ve built an elaborate internal filing system for thoughts about my father, organized by emotional payload, and the heavy stuff lives in a drawer marked Do Not Open. But standing here, smelling the ice, hearing the boards rattle when a kid slams into them, the drawer rattles too.
Michael Benson. Thirty-one. Dark hair like mine. He practiced on this exact sheet before the accident, and somewhere under all the resurfacing and all the years, his blade marks are still here. Invisible. Permanent.
I lace up. Step on. And for three seconds, my brain goes quiet.
Then Candy plows into me from behind and the spell shatters.
“Benson! Kids’ clinic in five! Move your carcass!” Candy shouts, skating backward.
“Come on.” I gesture toward the surrounding arena. “I was having a moment.”
