Page 32 of The Man in the Cottage

She chooses the armchair by the window. I sit on the couch across from her, keeping distance between us. The silence stretches out, heavy and uncomfortable.

"So," she says finally.

"So," I say back.

She almost smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Well. What was that about?"

I've been dreading this conversation for weeks. Months, really. Ever since I got here and started to realize that hiding wasn't going to be as simple as I thought. But now that it's happening, I feel almost relieved. The waiting is over. Whatever comes next, at least I don't have to pretend anymore.

"What do you know?" I ask. "From the article."

"Not much. That you're a hockey player. That you beat up a photographer outside a hospice. That you settled out of court and got suspended." She pauses. "It didn't say why you were at the hospice. Or why you hit him."

"No. It wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because I never told anyone." I lean forward, elbows on my knees, looking at my hands. "The team wanted me to do a statement. Explain my side, get ahead of the story. But I couldn't... I didn't want to talk about her. Not to reporters. Not to anyone."

"Her?"

"My grandmother." The word catches in my throat. "She was dying. Stroke, back in January. She held on for a few months, but..." I shake my head. "I was visiting her every day I wasn't traveling. Two hours there, two hours back. I'd sit with her for as long as they'd let me, and then I'd drive home and try to sleep and get up the next day and do it again."

Kelly is quiet. I can feel her watching me, but I can't look at her yet.

"The team knew. They had to—I was missing practices, showing up exhausted, playing like shit. It was the worst season of my career, and everyone knew why, but nobody talked about it. That's how it works. You don't hassle a guy whose grandmother is dying."

"But someone did."

"Yeah." I take a breath. "The photographer. He'd been following me for weeks, trying to get a shot of me looking miserable. I don't know how he found out about the hospice—someone on staff, probably, selling information. But he tracked me there. Waited in the parking lot for hours."

I can see it so clearly. The gray afternoon, the exhaustion sitting heavy in my bones. Walking out of the hospice after watching my grandmother stare at me like she didn't know who I was. And there he was, camera in hand, moving toward me like he'd won the lottery.

"He started asking questions. About the season, the trade rumors, all the usual shit. I tried to ignore him. I was so tired, Kelly. I didn't have anything left. I just wanted to get in my truck and go home."

"What happened?"

"He followed me to my truck. Kept pushing. And then..." I stop. Close my eyes. "He asked me how it felt to be losing my season and my grandma at the same time. Asked if I thought God was trying to tell me something."

The silence is absolute. I can hear my own heartbeat in my ears.

"I don't remember deciding to hit him. I just remember my hand on his collar, and then I was swinging, and then someone was pulling me off. A nurse. She came out for a smoke break and saw what was happening." I open my eyes. "He pressed charges. We settled. I got suspended. And my grandmother died three days later, while I was in a meeting with lawyers."

"Travis."

"I wasn't there." My voice cracks. "I spent months visiting her every day, and when she actually died, I wasn't there. I was sitting in a conference room explaining to a bunch of suits why I wasn't a danger to anyone."

Kelly doesn't say anything. She just sits there, looking at me, and I can't read her face. I don't know if she's horrified or sympathetic or something in between. I don't know if anything I've said makes a difference.

"I'm not sorry I hit him," I say. "I know I should be. I know it was wrong. But he followed me to a hospice where my grandmother was dying and asked me if God was punishing me. I'm not sorry he bled."

"I wouldn't be either."

I look up. She's leaning forward now, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes steady on mine.

"If someone said that to me," she says quietly, "outside a hospice where my grandmother was dying, I don't know what I would do. But I don't think I'd be sorry either."

Something loosens in my chest. Something I've been holding tight for months.