The Guardians

Kieran nods. Spins around to give his mother a kiss. As Sarah and I head downstairs and out the door he tels us to have a good time.

'What about dinner?' I ask Sarah as we slip into her car.

'They had pretty good hot dogs at the arena last time I was there,' she says, pumping the gas until the Honda's engine coughs to life. 'Mind you, that was over twenty years ago. Give or take.'

'You just went for the hot dogs?'

'Course not. There was a cute boy who played right wing at the time.'

'Bit of a hot dog himself, if I remember correctly.'

'Nah. He was just a boy. And they're all hot dogs.'

The Grimshaw Arena hasn't changed much since the days we charged around its sheet of ice, cheered on by parents and sweethearts and fans who saw good value in a night out that consisted of a four-dolar ticket and seventy-five-cent hot chocolates. The tickets are double that now, and the stands, when Sarah and I find our seats behind the penalty box, feel dinkier than in my day There is stil the cold of the place. A refrigerated air that huddles Sarah close to me for warmth.

For most of the first period we just watch the game—surprisingly exciting, though the players are smaler than I was expecting, just a bunch of cherry-cheeked kids trying to look tough behind their visors—and eat hot dogs that, as Sarah recaled, aren't half bad. It feels to me not just like an old- fashioned date but like an old-fashioned first date: no low lighting, no alcohol. The opposite kind of thing I'd do with the girlfriends I dated during my Retox days, if you could cal them dates. If you could cal them girlfriends.

At the intermission, we catch up on the last couple of decades of each other's lives in broad strokes. Sarah tels me about her 'okay job' as assistant office manager of a contracting firm in town; the handful of women friends she goes out with once every other week to get hammered and 'complain about our marriages, or how we wished we stil had one;' how she feels that while her life isn't necessarily great, she's not miserable either, like she's 'floating on this black ocean without sinking into it, y'know?' I talk about the deals I hustled to rise from restaurant manager to hedge-fund pusher to owner of my very own nightclub, where I would hire and fire and in the evenings feel ten years younger (and in the headachey mornings feel ten years older). I speak of the Parkinson's indirectly, referring to it as 'this disease thing of mine,' as though it's a vaguely ridiculous side project I'd been asked to be a partner in and now can't get out of.

'Who's taking care of your nightclub while you're here?' Sarah asks.

'It's not mine anymore. I sold it.'

'Why?'

'I figure I'l need the money later, when this disease thing of mine gets worse.'

Sarah nods in precisely the same way that Kieran had earlier.

'Kieran strikes me as a fine young felow,' I say.

'That he is.'

'He tels me his dad hasn't realy been in the picture for a while.'

'Kieran's father is a liar and third-rate criminal, among other things.'

'It must be a drag. For both of you.'

'Not for me. He's just gone. But Kieran doesn't fuly understand that yet. He doesn't get how some people are just rotten.'

You mean me? I want to ask.

And then the image of Tracey Flanagan returns. Standing blind on the threshold of the Thurman house's front door.

'What about you?' Sarah asks.

'Me?'

'A family. Wife? Kids?'

'No wife. No kids, either. As far as I know.'

'I suppose those were things you didn't want anyway.'

'I was preoccupied. Wilfully preoccupied.'

'Sounds kind of lonely,' Sarah blurts, then rears back. 'Oh my God. That came out wrong. I didn't mean to assume—'

'Yes. I think I've been lonely. And not terribly happy either, though I never let myself slow down long enough to realize I wasn't. Until recently, that is.'

'Your ilness.'

'That. And Ben. And coming back here. Seeing you.'

This last bit isn't flirtatious, it just comes out in the uncrafted way of the truth.

The second period starts, and Grimshaw begins to pul away from the tough but unskiled Elmira boys, our forwards buzzing around their net but unable to put one away. It is the sort of game where things can go wrong: you're winning as far as the performance goes, but the scoreboard only shows the goals. It makes me think that this is what moving to the city from a smal town is al about. It's not about the quality of life you live, but about putting up the hard numbers for al to see.

'You ever feel like you missed out on something?' I ask. 'Staying here?'

'Missed out?'