Stephen White - Critical Conditions

She collected the little machine and said, “No problem. I’ll get a printout and a report to you tomorrow.”

Sam said, “Not me. Route it to Malloy. Hope your teeth feel better soon.”

As we walked toward my car to drive to Denver, I told Sam that I thought Scott Truscott would really appreciate Sam’s extra seat to the game.

Sam seemed to be considering it. “He’d owe me one, wouldn’t he? Big time.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he would. He sounded desperate for a ticket.”

A shiver seemed to work slowly up Sam’s spine. He said, “It’s tempting, the leverage. But hockey’s sacred to me. I don’t mix home and work, and I don’t mix hockey and work. I don’t think I can do it.”

An hour later we settled into our seats in Denver to watch Gretzky and Sandstrom and Sakic and Forsberg do their things.

Simon Purdy’s seat sat empty next to Sam.

The Avalanche opened badly; they lost a player for a game misconduct in the first five minutes. Sam wasn’t upset by the penalty, explaining that the player had been defending his goalie. “It was a necessary hit. The guy had been screwing around in Roy’s crease from the moment they dropped the puck, and he wasn’t getting the message. This is only one game. But the guy whose face ended up in the glass will remember the lesson when the stitches come out. And he’ll remember about justice the next time he sees the Avs. And, most important, he’ll remember when the playoffs come in a couple of weeks.

“Keep that in mind, Alan. In hockey, you’re always thinking about the playoffs. The rest is just setting the table.”

Sam wasn’t exactly grumpy during the game. But he was preoccupied. Mostly, though, he wasn’t content. I counted on Sam’s underlying contentedness, even when he was irritated or pressured. His demeanor was a constant, like the color of his eyes or the contours of his immense shoulders.

Shortly after Sam and I had started going to hockey games, Lauren had asked, “What do you guys talk about? Just sports, or what?” I knew that it was sometimes Lauren’s style to begin meaningful conversations with a distancing move. Years ago, my interpretation of her style had been wrong; I’d decided since that the tendency had little to do with her discomfort with intimacy. Rather, she was protecting some transferential image she had of me, allowing me room to pretend that nothing meaningful was actually occurring during the conversation. It was a simple relationship sleight-of-hand to try and keep me from running.

She asked the question about Sam and me and hockey as she turned her back to begin clearing dishes from the dinner table.

Instinctively, I thought I knew where she was heading. I said, “Well, we do talk a lot of hockey. Sam’s a hockey evangelist and I don’t think he’s going to stop preaching until I’m converted and can recite every name on the Stanley Cup since 1950. But we talk about other stuff, too.”

“That would be hard? The Stanley Cup name thing?”

“If you’re not Canadian or from Minnesota, yes, it would be hard.”

“Like, what else do you talk about?”

“Cop stuff. Life. You know.”

“No, I don’t know. Hanging out at sporting events isn’t exactly your style. It’s forty-five minutes to McNichols, the games seem to last forever, it’s forty-five minutes back home. You guys go to two games a week sometimes. You’re spending a lot of time together. Does he talk about his family, do you talk about us? What goes on?”

I presumed that she wasn’t interested in just the facts. “You know how Sam used to seem content all the time? I mean gruff and prickly, but content?”

She thought about it a moment, said, “Yeah.”

“It’s different now. I’m not sure what it is, but I think he’s working up to telling me about it, whatever it is. Something has knocked Sam off balance. We’re still dancing around it.”

“Different how?”

“The contentedness, the joy, is gone. He’s brooding about something.”

“Something with Sherry?”

“Maybe. He doesn’t talk much about her.”

“Do you ask?”

“I don’t pry.”

“Simon?”

“He seems thrilled with Simon. Simon’s great. Soccer, peewee hockey; Simon even has Sam out rollerblading, if you can believe that.”

She tried on the image. “I think I’d like to see that.”

“Me too.”

“Work? Is it work?”

“No, I don’t think so. If I had to guess, I’d say family, or maybe something existential, some life-change thing. I’m not sure yet.”

“Does it have to do with last fall? With the shootings and everything?”

“That’s what I thought at first, but no, I don’t think so. He doesn’t seem to dwell on that much. I really don’t think that what’s bothering him is anything he’s talking about.”

“Well, then, it must be something he’s not talking about. What is he avoiding?”

I’m the psychologist. It should’ve been my line.

I said, “That’s a good question, sweets. But I’m not sure. Maybe it’s Sherry, maybe it’s his marriage. I’m patient. He’ll talk when he’s ready.”

She pulled a stool up to the sink so she could sit, and started washing dishes. With her back turned, she said, “You avoided my question before. Do you and Sam talk about us, about you and me?”

I had avoided it once and I was tempted to ask her to repeat the question and blame it on the running water. I didn’t. I said, “Yes, sweets, we do.”

She nodded.

“You want to know about what?”

“You’d tell me?”

“Of course.”

She edged closer to the front of the stool so she could more easily reach the sink. “I’m not sure that I want to know. I’ll let you know when I do.”

Our eyes never met during the entire interchange.

My mother always said don’t ask questions that you don’t want to know the answer to. Prosecutors, like Lauren, always say don’t ask a question that you don’t already know the answer to. My assessment was that this time Lauren’s discretion adhered to both rules.

What she wasn’t prepared to hear again was that her illness had changed us. I thought she wanted to know if I was confiding in Sam about it. But what was more compelling to her was her need to hold onto the luxury of pretending that her ascetic style of coping with multiple sclerosis was working like flawless software, and that our marriage remained blissfully uncontaminated by the toxic neurological residue of her stripped myelin.

Gretzky had scored during the early penalty but the Avalanche were up three to one when the second period ended. Peter Forsberg had a hat trick already. Sam said he liked Forsberg’s toughness much more than his puck handling and then stood and asked me if I wanted anything. He meant at the concession stands.

I replied, “Yes, Sam, there is something I want. I want to know what’s bugging you lately.”

“Case today is screwy.” He didn’t miss a beat before replying and pronounced his answer in a convincing fashion, as though he were really upset about work.

I said, “Yes, it sounds like it is. But it’s not your case and that’s not it anyway. Screwy cases consume you, they don’t bum you out. Anyway, whatever has been going on with you has been going on quite a while. Much longer than Dr. Edward Robilio has been Dead Ed. What is it, Sam?”

He looked at me as though he were actually going to answer. Instead, he shook his head a little and said, “I have to piss,” stood up, and disappeared down the tunnel that was next to his seat.

Ten minutes later he returned and handed me a soft pretzel covered with hard grains of some product that was masquerading as cheese. I said, “Thanks.” The scent of the faux Parmesan flashed me back to the aroma of Mike Toohey puking on my desk in the seventh grade. I held the wax paper at arm’s length and started breathing through my mouth.