Chapter 12: The Report on the Table

In the morning the lake was white with fog, and the stove had burned down to coals.

Nolan sat at the kitchen table in a flannel shirt, with a pot of coffee and the thin brown envelope in front of him.

He didn't push it toward me. He waited until I had sat down.

"Read it," he said. "Slowly. I'll answer anything you ask, and I won't stop you."

I took out two pages.

It was a hospital letterhead from Duluth, dated three years ago, in the middle of the playoffs.

Patient: Rudd, Lars. Procedure: surgical repair following skate-blade laceration.

I read the first paragraph, which I understood.

I read the second, which I understood less.

The third was a table of numbers, and at the bottom, one line in the surgeon's blunt handwriting.

Post-operative semen analysis: no sperm present. Findings consistent with permanent loss of production. Patient counseled.

I read it four times.

The words didn't change.

"He knew," I said.

"The surgeon told him in the trauma room. I was standing at the curtain."

"Three years ago."

"The week after, he had the team doctor write the letter your clinic got. He drove it there himself."

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