Hard Knocks

by Ruby Lang

  It was entirely possible, Helen thought, that she was writing about the ravages of post-concussive trauma in order to avoid dealing with her father and the rest of her family. It was entirely possible, too, that she was doing this because in this case, she could actually do something, anything.

  Depression. Explosivity. Aggression. Dementia.

  Her father exhibited all of those signs at times. Then again, so did she, lately.

  She pushed back her hair and tried to concentrate on patient notes, but her fingers were restless.

  She stood up. Head trauma was preventable, she repeated to herself, swinging her arms around as she paced behind her desk. It was something that people could avoid if their sports didn’t involve shoving, punching, and sticks. Depression. Explosivity. Aggression. Dementia.

  How terrible it would be if that happened to Adam. Or anyone else.

  It wasn’t that she had feelings for him, of course. He was a smart guy. He was, actually, great and unexpectedly funny, and—she faltered—really kind. And sexy—the courteousness was sexy (as were his shoulders). It was strange to think of that person, that gentle, alert person, getting into brawls. She’d hated watching him get pummeled that night and on all the other nights. Not because she cared for him, not that way. (Or rather, yes, she did care, because she was a doctor, and she always cared about helping people.) But she didn’t like him, not more than it was normal to like someone that she’d met and talked to and laughed with, someone who had stripped off her clothes and made her voice go hoarse, someone who had been so unexpected, so different from what she had imagined.

  But it wasn’t like she could exactly deliver the message to him in person. Or that she wanted to.

  Yes, on a few nights, in her parents’ home, in her old twin bed, she had thought of his freckled nose at her chest as his teeth pulled gently on her nipple. She’d slid her hands underneath the waistband of her flannel pajamas, wishing that she felt his big fingers tracing her wetness. The sounds he made when he pushed inside her ... She’d thought she preferred silence from the men she slept with, but she had been wrong. Every small sound that escaped him, every pant, every click of his throat, made her wild. She was amazed that she was the one who was making him groan. She was the one who was making this big, stoic man lose control. And the knowledge had driven her nearly out of her mind with excitement.

  She knew she was not being rational. Yes, this was just one big way of escaping the reality about the house, her mother, her brother, and most important, her father, but that didn’t seem to make her able to shake her thoughts. She couldn’t do anything about Harry, but she could certainly stir up some public opinion. Maybe even help Adam avoid a similar fate. Not that it was personal.

  At least she could do this one thing. She could write about this one thing that could prevent one person from all of this grief—all of her grief. She was not completely helpless.

  She had sat with her father, finally, before she left. She held his hand for a while and tried to talk with him. “How are your friends?” he asked in this new, thick, slow voice of his. “Are you still dancing?”

  “I thought you hated going to recitals, Dad,” she said lightly.

  He shook his head slowly. “All those cute little girls falling over like ducks,” he said.

  But he was woozy and drifting in and out. The space between each word became longer and longer. She wasn’t even sure if he was remembering the past or if he was just in the past.

  She shook her head. He wasn’t as far gone as that. It was the drugs talking. She checked the dosage and looked at his worn, white face.

  “All of you in feathers,” he said.

  Her very first recital. “We were dressed as swans.”

  But he had fallen asleep.

  *

  The Tribune called Helen the next day to fact-check everything.

  She was sitting in her tiny office at the Pearl District practice. She gave a little whoop that they were really running it and then a shudder when she hung up the phone. They had e-mailed a draft back to her, bristling with corrections and queries. It was horrible. Why was she doing this?

  “What’s that about?” asked the receptionist, Joanie, lounging in the doorway.

  “An op-ed I wrote is going to be published in the Trib tomorrow,” said Helen. “If I can change all this stuff.” She gestured to the screen.

  “You mean like in the newspaper?”

  “It’ll be online, too,” said Helen.

  Joanie looked slightly affronted. “I’ll pick up a few copies for the office tomorrow,” she said, turning on her heel.

  Helen sighed. Joanie read a lot—a lot more than Helen did, for sure. She always had a paperback going. Right now, she was in the middle of P. G. Wodehouse. In her off hours, she was an actor in an experimental theater group. Helen thought of her own sad tablet PC, queued up with monographs and NEJM articles. Concussion, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, Parkinson’s, and parkinsonism. Brains. That was her rich mental life.

  She began checking through the queries that the newspaper editor had e-mailed her. Pretty soon, Petra and Sarah were jostling like toddlers through the doorway.

  “What’s the op-ed piece about?” Sarah asked, plunking herself down in a chair.

  Petra hovered behind her.

  “Don’t you have appointments?” Helen asked.

  “Don’t you?” Sarah asked.

  “Is Joanie a little miffed at me?” Helen asked Petra.

  Sarah answered. “She’s used to working for a bunch of condescending shits. Come on, what’s this thing about?”

  “I call for a ban on hockey. I’m a concerned neurologist. The head injuries make it inexcusable.”

  Petra stirred a little, and Helen avoided looking at her. She knew Petra suspected she was going off the deep end. Maybe she was.

  Luckily, Sarah was bumping in her seat. “Wow, ambitious much?”

  “Not really. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, has been in the news for football players lately, but we’ve got an at-risk hockey team. It’s a local story.”

  “You don’t mind being used as anti-Yevgeny fodder?” Sarah asked.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean, the guys who oppose the new arena and that Russian billionaire owner—Yevgeny Molotov—are just going to use this as more proof that we have to drum the Wolves out of town.”

  “They’re separate issues.”

  “The team’s controversial, and as a result, your argument’s going to be leverage.”

  Helen sighed. “Look, I’m not taking a political stance about the arena. I don’t know enough about it. What I do know is that concussion is associated with dementia, and it’s entirely preventable. To me, it’s black and white.”

  “That’s unlike you,” Petra murmured.

  “You’re right,” Sarah said cheerily. “Black and white sounds so much more like me. God knows, I’m all for preventive medicine, and I hate it when people do stupid things that make them stupider all the time. The world would be so much more orderly if we were all more conscious and responsible and ate our kale. But at the same time, hockey. Something about all that male aggression and sweating and well-defined goals. On ice! I’m a convert.”

  “How can you be so flippant about this?” Helen asked. She was starting to clench her fists.

  “Where better to have chaos than in an organized team sport where everyone knows the rules and the risks?”

  “I don’t think that people do understand the risks. The bulk of our understanding about CTE has been accumulated fairly recently. We only really began to think about it through football players. We haven’t even begun to think about hockey.”

  “Cars kill more people than hockey. Are we going to ban those?” Sarah asked, adopting the furrowed brow and carrying tones of what Helen recognized as the Sarah-Argument-Stance.

  Petra groaned.

  “We have licensing and safeguards, safety features that we’re always
refining, and a police force. Besides, more people do understand the risks of driving. Not a fair comparison.”

  “You’re right, it’s not very fair,” Sarah said, her feet swinging. She was a little too short for the chair. “But it’s not a bad comparison. Most people don’t understand the risks involved in driving. Otherwise, they wouldn’t do it. Moreover, as you said, data’s still early on hockey specifically. Unless you can provide longer-term studies, the link between CTE and playing, skating around, and shooting pucks is tenuous. The problem is the fighting, and even then, it’s more about the long-term effects of fighting. But continuous brawls aren’t the whole sport—it’s just the way it’s played in certain moments. You can’t just call for an outright ban. That’s painting with a broad brush, where a finer will do.” Sarah jumped up. “I’ve got an appointment in five. Got to review notes.”

  Helen watched after her. “I should know better than to get into arguments with her.”

  Petra nodded. “At least there’s no splatter pattern to clean up this time.”

  Helen nodded. “I figure it’s good practice to spar with her if letters to the editor start coming in.”

  Petra lingered. “How’s your dad?”

  “It’s a fracture. Doctor says to expect another week in hospital.” Helen hesitated. “They’re moving him to a rehabilitation facility, then long-term assisted care. In Vancouver. My mother will move in with Stephen and Gordon until the house sells or she finds a place of her own.”

  She hadn’t talked with Petra or Sarah much about her father’s illness. They knew he had parkinsonism, but the subject was too raw, too painful for her. She wondered how much Petra had guessed. “They’ve had this in the works for a while,” Helen added. “The fall just precipitated everything. There was nothing I could do, so I left.”

  “Right,” said Petra. “And this thing with the hockey.”

  “What about it?”

  “This whole thing, this campaign, this stance. It isn’t like you, Helen.”

  “What isn’t like me, Pete? To be decisive, to take action?”

  “To declare something is black and white when, clearly, you have mixed feelings. To take a stance on, of all things, hockey?”

  “I do know a few things about the sport. And what I do know isn’t good.”

  Petra shook her head. “Adam Magnus,” Petra said.

  “What about him?”

  “Did you talk to him about this, before you wrote it?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You do realize that you’ve basically said that the man should be out of a job.”

  “Well, since I don’t expect to ever see him again, I guess I’ll be fine.”

  “Portland is kind of a small town, in a way.”

  “I’m from a small town. Portland is nothing like small.”

  “So this thing, this interest in hockey—”

  “It’s concussion. I’m a neurologist. My brother played hockey, and it was brutal. It’s not a sudden interest. It’s just stuff coming together.”

  “Well, I’m an allergist, and it’s my training to look at outsize reactions to sometimes harmless stimuli. Are you sure that your interest in hockey and concussion has nothing to do with Adam?”

  “It’s not personal. I try to help everyone.”

  “And this behavior has nothing to do with your dad’s brain injury? It’s not a manifestation of all the stress you’re under?”

  “It’s not a behavior. It’s genuine concern,” said Helen. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

  “If you say so.”

  *

  The Wolves had won. They had actually gotten ahead by a goal and stayed that way by the time the buzzer sounded. There had even been a short fight—enough to make Adam seem useful. It was still hard, though. He shouldn’t complain. Aside from a few bruises and the strain to his trick knee, he was all right. Plus, he’d forgotten how good it felt after a win, the sound of sticks falling to the ice as grown men let go, slapped backs, whooped and hollered, piled up on Serge. The high lasted all the way back on the plane ride home, through the time Adam dropped his luggage and looked around his apartment and sighed in contentment. Maybe he could keep this, he thought. Maybe they would continue, he could retire on some sort of medium note, and he could get a job coaching a minor league team. Maybe he could even find something around here, and he would be able to stay in this city, have some sort of normal, enjoyable life. Modest goals seemed suddenly within reach.

  He decided to go for a run along the waterfront. It was raining, but he didn’t mind. That was another thing he loved about this place. He didn’t mind cold. He had grown up in cold, in dry, sunny, frigid country. The rain was bracing and he liked to watch it from his big window, and he enjoyed being out in it, with the water slapping across his face. He was doing something, really just sparring with the elements, a battle without actual rancor or hard feelings, just good fun for everyone.

  He came back, drenched and happy. He still had to go in for a medical check and to work on weights. Matt, his trainer, was concerned that he was getting too lean. But Adam didn’t want any more bulk.

  His phone rang. It was Serge. He sounded slightly alarmed.

  “Your girlfriend, Dr. Helen Chang Frobisher—”

  Adam’s heart stopped. “What happened to her?”

  A nervous laugh. “Relax, she’s all right. Well, except she might have Yevgeny’s goons after her, if his people bother to read the newspapers.”

  Adam did not quite relax. “What do you mean?”

  “She says we should be run out of town. It’s in the Tribune. I have a news alert about the team set up for my phone.”

  “Are you sure it’s her? How do you even remember her name?”

  “Helen Chang Frobisher, Portland neurologist. Your lady love. It’s her.”

  Adam opened his laptop and found the newspaper’s website. He looked through the sports section. Nothing.

  “Are you sure? I don’t see it.”

  “It ran on the opinion pages. I doubt anyone will pay attention to it, but Adam, are you sure she was okay with your leaving? Or were you such a lousy lay?”

  “She left me,” Adam said, gritting his teeth.

  He found the page.

  Serge laughed. “So I guess it was option b, then.”

  “I. Was. Not. Lousy.”

  And there it was, her name in the opinion pages.

  He could hear her clipped voice in his ears, explaining the symptoms, laying out in ruthless detail all the things that could happen to a body during the course of a hockey season. He could see her hands, slicing the air for emphasis.

  “Well, it’s not a love letter, this little piece, and the medical stuff isn’t news to any of us,” Serge said. “The anti-arena people might latch on to it, though. Although, it does send chills through me when she writes that physicians aren’t sure how many concussions or micro concussions are too many. Until it’s too late. We’ve all been in the fights. Sooner or later, we start losing the words, forgetting, getting depressed. It starts making you a little, I don’t know, paranoid, you know.” A pause. Serge asked, “Is paranoia one of the symptoms?”

  Adam was reading quickly now.

  Depression, explosive temper, short-term memory loss, word-finding difficulty, aggression.

  He was having almost all of those symptoms right now. First she’d fled his bed, and now she was insulting his profession in public. He was an adult—he knew what the stakes were, and he had made a choice. And here was Helen Frobisher treating him like a know-nothing child who couldn’t keep himself safe. Clearly, she had no respect for him at all, and he was furious. He had no words to say how angry he was. And above all, he was having trouble remembering why he had liked Helen Frobisher at all.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Helen was sitting in Stream on Friday night, thinking about the last time she’d been here. Petra was sticking her tongue out at Ian. Ian was saying something ridiculous and affectionate, and Helen was
wishing that her drink would just hurry up and arrive.

  Instead, Adam Magnus stormed in looking furious and magnificent, and for a moment, the room went still. As his eyes scanned the room, Helen noticed the bruise right across his cheekbone, the short, golden hair, and icy eyes. Anger lit his whole body like a filament. She couldn’t look away.

  Sensing trouble, Ian stood up, but Helen barely noticed him. He was a tall man. Adam was taller.

  He was incandescent. He was glowering.

  He was looking right at her.

  Her heart started racing. And, oh lord, she did not just lick her lips, did she? But here she was, gazing up at the six-foot-plus-infinity inches of the blazing glory that was Adam Magnus, and her tongue once again traveled the perimeter of her mouth because suddenly she was parched from looking at the hot fury of this sun.

  His steps toward her were light.

  “Helen Frobisher, we need to talk.”

  “I can’t. My—”

  “You. Me. Now.”

  “In a public place? You want to make a scene?”

  “A newspaper is pretty much the damn definition of public, Helen. You started it.”

  The last was in another low rumble that made her entire body tingle down to her toes. She squirmed uneasily, and he leaned in closer.

  Beside Helen, Petra cleared her throat. “Hey,” she said.

  And because, despite his fury, he was a polite Minnesota farm boy, Adam dragged his eyes over to Petra and said curtly, “Hi. I’m Adam.”

  A giggle escaped Petra’s lips. “Don’t you mean, Madam, I’m Adam?”

  “Pete,” Ian said, low.

  But Adam had caught Petra in his burning glare. “Are you making fun of me?”