by Rice, Luanne
They appeared on the blue paper before him, even though, Serge would swear, he couldn’t remember picking up the pen.
Chapter 21
MARTIN HAD AGREED TO PLAY an exhibition and lead—with Ray—a two-day hockey clinic in Toronto. Both families were going, the Cartiers and the Gardners, and they had booked adjoining suites in the grand and elegant King Edward Hotel.
“What do you think she meant, ‘something’s going to happen’?” May asked, looking over at Martin as they packed their bags.
“I think she was dreaming. I think you’ll talk to the doctors at Twigg University and have them tell you she’s fine.”
“I wanted to be done with that,” May said, checking to be sure she had the diary in her purse. “I just sent Dr. Whitpen that letter, and I hadn’t planned to see him all summer.”
She stared out the window at the lake. Martin came up behind her, and her eyes filled with tears.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” May said. “I can’t stand it. Hearing her in so much pain, not knowing if I’m doing everything I can to help her. She’s so tense. She really believes something terrible is about to happen.”
“But there isn’t,” Martin told her. “We’re together. It’s a beautiful summer day. We’re about to go to Toronto with our friends. We made it through a tough winter, and here we are at the lake.”
“We’ll be back in two days,” May said, as if reassuring herself. Martin held her close. He smelled like soap and spice. She closed her eyes and felt her heart beating hard in her chest.
As they loaded up their car, May felt nervous about him driving—what if he lost his vision on the road? So she climbed into the driver’s seat, joking that Martin had to hold smelly Thunder on the way to the kennel. Martin laughed, obliging. Just three hours later, after an easy flight, they had arrived at the King Edward Hotel in downtown Toronto. Everyone from the livery-clad doorman to the manager greeted Martin as if he were a long-lost friend, welcoming May and Kylie with a bouquet of flowers.
“The King Eddy,” Martin said, looking up at the great domed lobby ceiling.
“ ‘Eddie?’ ” Kylie asked.
“That’s what we call it in Canada,” Martin said. “Everyone who stays here has a soft spot for the old place.”
May hung back, listening as the doorman told Kylie some Canadian history. When Martin asked if she and Kylie wanted to accompany him to the stadium, May shook her head.
“I’m going to take Kylie straight out to see Dr. Whitpen. He’ll see us, even if we don’t have an appointment.”
“Want me to come with you?”
“No, but thank you,” May said, remembering the last time he’d gone to Twigg University with them, how he hadn’t even wanted to go upstairs. Besides, he had important work to do today.
Every year since becoming a professional hockey player, Martin had led a clinic for any young child who wanted to sign up. Money didn’t matter—Martin arranged for the ice on his own, and he donated his time and equipment. He had learned his love of hockey very young, and he believed in helping less fortunate kids: He wanted to give back.
Last year, in the whirl of his unexpected marriage to May, for the first time in seventeen years he had canceled the clinic. Perhaps he could have done it all—gotten married, had a honeymoon, moved a family, staged a clinic—but somehow he had failed to follow through on the clinic plans.
Letters had been forwarded to their home—from disappointed kids, alumni of previous clinics and would-be first-timers who had lost their chance to skate with the great Martin Cartier.
This year, watching Martin check his equipment bag, May felt such tenderness for him. He had come to coach unknown kids, strangers’ children who traveled from all over Canada to spend a few hours with him.
He was a good man, wanting to help others. A family approached him, asking for autographs. Martin said yes, and he signed his name and left room for Kylie to sign hers. Giggling, Kylie obliged.
Life had changed dramatically, but all the glamor paled beside the fact that Kylie now had a father who loved and wanted to spend time with her. Holding Martin, kissing him as he prepared to leave, she closed her eyes and tried to ignore the fear she felt in the pit of her stomach.
The cab ride took about forty minutes, and when Kylie saw the familiar gates of Twigg University, she settled lower in her seat. May paid the driver and took Kylie’s hand, leading her into the building. They walked down the dark hall, up the stone stairwell. By the time they reached Dr. Whitpen’s office, May’s heart was racing.
“My service gave me the message you called,” he said, meeting them at the door. A shock of hair fell into his eyes. He wore khakis, a blue oxford shirt, and sneakers without socks. He wasn’t smiling, but he seemed excited.
“Kylie, why don’t you go play with the dollhouse?” May said, pointing her toward the playroom.
“I want to stay with you.”
“Please, honey?” May asked, looking directly into her eyes. “I’ll be right there. Just let me talk to the doctor for a minute.”
Kylie shrugged, doing as she was told.
“Has something happened?” the doctor asked quietly. “Since you wrote the letter?”
“Yes.” May removed the diary from her bag.
Lowering his wire-rimmed glasses from the top of his head, Dr. Whitpen took the notebook to his desk and began to read.
“She says Natalie hides in a cupboard by the fireplace,” May said. “Natalie leaves tracks everywhere, evidence that she’s been crying.”
“Crying about what?” Dr. Whitpen asked, scanning the pages.
“She cries because she can’t get her father to understand. Or because Kylie can’t get him to understand. It seems we all know what’s supposed to happen except for Martin. He’s meant to go see his father. I went to visit Serge at the prison.”
Dr. Whitpen lowered the notebook. “What did he say? Did he talk about Natalie?”
“He’s filled with remorse,” May told him. “It’s weighing on him, so heavily, and he wants to set things right with Martin, as soon as possible.”
“That fits,” the doctor said, nodding his head. “That goes along with Kylie’s sense of urgency.” He read to the end of the pages, taking note of certain passages.
“But I don’t talk to Kylie about it,” May added.
“I’m not sure that matters.”
“No?”
“You’ve never talked to Kylie about these things she sees. She just…” he paused, gathering up his clipboard, a tape recorder, and the notebook, “sees them.”
“I don’t suggest them to her?”
“Not from what I’ve been able to discern,” he said. “But let’s go talk to her now.” And they headed for the playroom to see Kylie.
Kylie watched her mother and Dr. Whitpen coming, and she turned back to the dolls. They all stared at her, the little beings that had seemed so alive on other visits to this office. They had whispered jokes and stories, they had laughed at her big hands coming through the small windows. But now they were just dolls.
“Hello, Kylie,” the doctor said.
“Hi,” she said shyly.
“Your mother tells me you’ve been spending the summer at Lac Vert.”
Kylie nodded. “I got a dog.”
“Thunder,” he said, reading the blue notebook.
“I can read now,” Kylie added, remembering the cross-stitch message. The hair on the back of her head stood up, but when she looked into the dollhouse, the little creatures were still just dolls. Something was gone.
“Tell me about the cupboard in the dining room,” he said, crouching beside her.
“You know,” Kylie whispered. “Natalie was in there.”
“Natalie cried,” he said. “You saw her tears.”
“They stuck to my fingers,” Kylie said.
“Why was she crying?”
“Because something’s going to happen.” Kylie had been feeling nervous all mornin
g, kind of dizzy.
“What’s going to happen?” he asked.
Kylie shrugged. She didn’t like this new feeling inside. Something was missing. She hadn’t told her mother yet, and she didn’t want to tell the doctor.
“Who knows what’s going to happen?” he asked. “Can you tell me that?”
Kylie just shook her head. “Let’s play the card game,” she said.
He nodded. He had funny hair that fell over his eyes, and sometimes she couldn’t see what he was thinking. If she could see a person’s eyes, really look into them, she could usually read their thoughts. But right now, he was hiding his eyes. He handed her the deck, and she cut it. Then he shuffled, she did, and they started to play.
“Blue,” she said.
He held up the first card, a look of surprise on his face. “Red.”
“Next card, blue,” she said.
“Red.”
“Next one red.” But it was blue.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Kylie got them all wrong except one. She glanced back at the dollhouse: just dolls inside. Outside the window, birds were just singing. She didn’t feel any magic inside her anymore—no magic at all.
When Martin walked into the Air Canada Centre, all the kids began shrieking with excitement. Although he had played here with the Bruins, this was his first clinic in the new arena; previously he had gathered everyone together at the old Maple Leaf Gardens, sacred ground to any hockey player—veteran or brand-new.
Looking around at the modern glass architecture, he thought about history and tradition and wondered what his father would think of the place. To the shouts of “Martin!” “Sledgehammer!” he waved and smiled.
The crowd was mainly boys from the ages of eight to fifteen, but from the very beginning Martin had always made sure that girls were welcome. Martin had had a daughter, and he had been coached for a long time by his mother.
Alone in the players’ locker room, Martin saw no sign of Ray yet, and he was relieved. His hands shook as he laced up his skates. He hadn’t been back on the ice since that last Stanley Cup game, and what May suspected was true: His vision had been steadily growing darker all through the early summer.
Back at Lac Vert, it didn’t really matter. Everything was beautiful, and his work was slow and lazy. Planting the rose garden, moving rocks, Martin could see fine. He could pretend everything was okay. But here, at an ice arena, where every movement was precise and every shadow meant something, Martin felt afraid.
“So, you made it this year,” Ray said, shaking his hand as he walked into the locker room.
“Last summer I was a little busy, getting married.”
“Hard to believe.”
“That someone would have me, or that I’d settle down?”
“Both, my friend.” Ray laughed.
“Enough out of you,” Martin said.
“This year I thought you might stay away for another reason,” Ray said. “Five seconds to go, the clock ticking…”
“Enough,” Martin said, closing his eyes. It didn’t matter that Ray was only teasing, that they had already talked out the debacle of Game 7. Martin didn’t even want to hear it mentioned.
When he and Ray took the ice, the small crowd went wild. Martin had always made one absolute clinic rule: no press, cameras, or paying fans. The stands were partially filled with parents, grandparents, family friends, and a few others. The lights were very bright. Martin blinked hard, darkness gathering in the center of his vision.
As he skated up and down the ice, fog formed and lifted. Now he could see clearly, now he was looking through a scrim. As if some dust or sand had blown into his eyes, he kept blinking, to try and clear it away. The kids cheered as he skated, and Martin knew he could make his moves blindfolded.
“Whoa, watch it,” Ray said as Martin nearly tripped over his stick.
“Sorry,” Martin said.
The skaters had been assigned to five lines of ten kids each: blue, red, green, yellow, and orange. They assembled on the ice, and Martin addressed them all and thanked them for coming. As he spoke, their silence was complete. In that vast cavern of ice-cold space, Martin heard his own voice echoing in the rafters.
“I know why you’re here,” he said, and although he spoke quietly, his voice boomed in his ears. “Every one of you, no matter whether you’re from Saskatchewan or the East, from Quebec or right here in Toronto. You’re here because you dream.
“All the time,” Martin continued. “In July, when it’s hot out and all your friends are swimming in the lake, you dream of winter when it freezes, when you can put on your skates and go out on the ice. At night, when you’re supposed to be asleep, you dream of waking up nice and early, hitting the ice before anyone else, when the surface is clear and black.
“If you live on Nova Scotia or Vancouver Island, you look out at all that salt water, at the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, and you dream it has frozen, that the rocks are goals. If you live downtown here in Toronto, you dream that you have the keys to the ice—the Air Canada Centre or better yet, Maple Leaf Gardens. That you could play your game better than anyone who ever played here before—Wayne Gretsky or Mario Lemieux or even Rocket Ray Gardner!”
Everyone cheered and laughed, and Martin swallowed with emotion. The kids were going wild, thrilled to be playing with him and Ray.
Gazing at the sea of children, he saw himself at their ages. He remembered being that young, of the dreams he had had of meeting a real hockey player. His dreams of playing with a professional, of being taught by his own father. Of playing with his idol, Serge Cartier.
“So let’s do it,” he said, his voice thick and low. “Let’s make our dreams come true right now—let’s play.”
The kids took turns, line by line, shooting the puck and being coached by Martin Cartier and Ray Gardner. Martin talked about discipline and concentration. He corrected grips and postures. He talked about passing and defense, and he answered questions more intelligent and perceptive than any professional interviewer’s.
Then the kids cleared the ice, to watch Martin and Ray show them practice drills. Martin’s heart was pounding as he skated down the ice, waiting for Ray to fire the first shot. The two of them had been doing this for decades, beginning on the clear December ice of Lac Vert.
Wham! The puck hit his stick like a cannonball, and Martin returned it full force. The two friends skated back and forth, exchanging passes, slamming shots into the net, sending the puck away and gliding after it. The kids laughed and yelled. Martin knew Ray’s style so well, he hardly had to look at all. He’d reach out his stick, and the puck would be there. He’d whirl around, and Ray would find him.
Eyes in the back of his head…
His father, marveling at Martin’s superhuman peripheral vision, his incredible skill at anticipating passes from behind, had come up with the theory that his son, in fact, had eyes in the back of his head.
He skates like a blind man, his father had said once, giving Martin the ultimate compliment. His senses were so acute, so fine-tuned, he could find his man without seeing him, hit the goal without looking directly at it.
“Practice constantly,” Martin heard himself saying to the kids right after scoring an easy goal on a perfect pass from Ray. “Find yourself a buddy, and do drills every chance you get.”
“Buddy,” Ray said, dropping the word over his shoulder as he skated by in search of his son.
“Every chance you get,” Martin said, his voice filling the arena again as everyone fell silent to listen. “Others might skate faster, shoot better. But if you focus, if you put in two hours a day, if you really concentrate, hockey will become second nature. The worst that will happen is you’ll make a really good friend.”
Martin paused, aware of Ray watching him from the sidelines.
“And if you practice every chance you get, if you get a sense for where you are in the world, on the ice, in relation to the puck, your friend, and everyone else—well, one day, you might just get the skill
you need to play like a blind man.”
“A what?” someone called.
“A blind man with eyes in the back of his head,” Martin said, staring through dark fog at the crowd of young faces.
The SkyDome was packed, the baseball game was exciting, and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Chicago Cubs 4–2. From there they headed to the Hockey Hall of Fame. It stood in downtown Toronto, at the corner of Yonge and Front Streets, occupying a stately Beaux Arts building that had once been a bank.
At first the other tourists surrounded Martin, begging him for autographs. Some had their pictures taken with him. Although he complied, his shoulders were so stiff and his mood so dark that most people soon backed away.
“Are you okay?” May asked.
“It’s one thing to bother me when I’m alone,” Martin said, “but it’s another when you and Kylie are with me.”
“I like it,” Kylie said.
They visited the goal scoring arena, where visitors were able to challenge the greatest hockey players of all time. Martin seemed strangely quiet as he led May and Kylie through the exhibits, showing them the photographs, archives, equipment of his game: retired jerseys, sticks, skates of revered players, and the exhibit showing how masks are made. When they came to the Honored Members Wall, they stopped to stare at the glass plaques.
“Are you up there?” Kylie asked.
“No,” Martin answered.
“Not yet,” May said, sliding her arm through his.
“Takes three years after retirement, if I make it here at all,” Martin said. “And I don’t plan to retire for a long time.”
“Is your father here?” Kylie asked abruptly.
“Yes,” Martin said, starting to walk away.
“Where?” Kylie asked.
Without even looking, Martin pointed at a plaque right in the middle.
“Serge Cartier,” Kylie read.
“There was some talk about kicking him out.” Martin was gazing down the long hall. “They should have.”
“Did you ever come here with him?”
“Once or twice,” Martin said. “We brought Natalie when she was little. Stood right here, in this very spot.” He stared down at the floor, as if he could see her small footprints.
