Page 115 of Knocked Up

My blocker was on it, face down, wrist strap up. The lining was unlaced along the top seam, all the way open.

"What is that?"

"Sit down."

"Beckett."

"Tessa, please sit down," I said, "because I've been trying to do this for three weeks and I've got exactly one run at it."

She sat down.

I took them out one at a time and put them in front of her. I did not do a preamble on any of them. I had one going in the truck that afternoon and it was terrible.

"That's the exam form."

She did not touch it. It has been in there since the 4th of October and it looks it. It was folded in four, the fold gone soft and furry. There was a shine on it where the strap sits.

"That's Bear's recheck."

"It's not Bear's recheck."

"Beckett, that's a four-week recheck on a…"

"You wrote that at five in the morning," I said, "standing at the counter out there, after the first time. You did it so the night would have a piece of paper attached to it that made it look like medicine. You put it where I'd find it and you went into the kennel run. And I picked it up on my way out and I've had it in this blocker every single time I've gone onto the ice since."

Tessa put one finger on the corner of it and did not say anything.

"That's the first scan."

"I know what that is."

"It went on the floor at the adopt-a-thon in front of forty thousand people and it's got the crease in it from the concrete." I put it next to the form. "That's the twenty-eight-week strip."

"You kept the strip."

"I asked Charlotte for it in the car park."

"You did not."

"I went back in," I said. "She was very nice about it."

I kept going, because if I had stopped I would have started explaining.

"That's the board. It's a four-by-six of a refrigerator door with two amendments on it, printed on Colfax the day after the worst night we've had. I've taken it onto the ice thirty-one times.

"That's her bracelet. They cut it off her on the Thursday.

"That's Walt's card."

Tessa picked that one up. It is an index card, grease-stained through in one corner. The ink has gone brown. It says low and slow twice, once in the method and once at the bottom, underlined.

"This lives in your jacket."

"It lived in my jacket until the 29th of June," I said. "It's lived in here since the morning after you made it wrong."

"I did not make it."

"You put two handfuls of celery in it," I said, "and I ate two bowls of it at midnight on the worst night of my professional life. I've thought about it about once a day since, so it's in here. That's just where things go."