Chapter 20: Apology

On Saturday I sat in the upper bowl again, between my grandmother and a man in a gray hood.

Soren had pulled the hood low and kept his head down.

He was still suspended, and he had come anyway.

"If I'm in the building when he says it," he had told me in the parking lot, "I want to hear it."

He sat with his bandaged hand in his lap and his shoulder turned from every lens.

I noticed that, and I noticed that I noticed.

Down at the boards, the team's publicist in a navy blazer saw me and waved at the stairs to the ice.

I shook my head.

She mouthed, please.

I shook it again.

At seven the lights went down, and a spotlight swung to center ice.

Brady skated out alone in a suit and skates, holding a cordless microphone and a stack of cards.

The crowd was quieter than it had been a week ago.

Some booed.

Most just watched.

"Good evening," Brady said.

His voice came out hoarse over the speakers.

"I want to take a moment to apologize. To our fans, to our sponsors and to the Ironbacks organization."

He read from the cards.

"I also want to apologize to Hanna Ostrowski, for any pain she may have experienced during a difficult period for everyone involved."

A groan rolled around the bowl.

"Hanna, I know you're here," he said. "I'd like to invite you down."

The spotlight swung to the upper deck and found me.

I was on the jumbotron, thirty feet wide, with my face drained of color.

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