Page 35 of The Forbidden Center

I watch his left skate open.

The defender’s hips follow.

Colt never avoids the hit.

He creates a lane in which the hit is no longer available.

I replay it once more.

I have watched a great deal of this sport and understood perhaps a third of it. This I understand completely. It is not strength and it is not speed. It is a man deciding, half a second before anybody else inside the frame, what the next half second is going to contain.

My note beside the clip is wrong.

I cross the note out while he watches me do it.

Colt says nothing.

No correction sharpened into a victory. No smile waiting for me to admit he was right.

I look at the screen again.

“You should see your face when you work something out.”

I turn toward him.

He is smiling now, and not because I was wrong.

“Coffee still off the table?”

“You never put coffee on the table.”

“That’s not a no.”

“Your appointment is finished, Mr. Riley.”

“Still not a no.”

I open the door.

He leaves laughing. I wait until he is gone before I let myself smile.

Then I sit down, because my legs have an opinion about the last hour and I would rather not hear it standing up.

My phone lights beside me on the sofa.

Unknown number.

did you write it yet

I look at the message for longer than it deserves.

Who gave you this number?

gabi

It is the number Gabi gives patients when a treatment question cannot wait. That answers how, not why.

Why?