Peter’s chin is trembling. David stands motionless. In the end David snorts derisively. He has a long scar across his chin, and another between his chin and cheek.

“No, I thought not. Because you’re Peter Andersson. You always let others take penalty suspensions for you.”

David doesn’t even slam the door behind him when he goes into his office, he just closes it silently. Peter hates him for that more than anything. Because he’s right.

*

Kevin looks completely unmoved when he’s being interviewed by the journalist from the local paper. Other boys his age would go to pieces with nerves, but he’s calm and professional. He looks at the reporter’s face but never in the eye, he fixes his gaze on her forehead or the top of her nose, he’s relaxed but not nonchalant, he’s not unpleasant, but not pleasant either, and he answers all her questions without saying anything at all. When she asks about the game, he mutters that “it’s all about doing a lot of skating, getting the puck in the net, creating chances.” When she asks what he thinks victory in the final would mean for the town and the people here, he repeats like a machine: “We’re taking each game as it comes, concentrating on the hockey.” When she points out that one of the opponents checked by his teammate Benjamin Ovich toward the end of the game was left concussed, Kevin claims without blinking: “I didn’t see that incident.”

He’s seventeen years old and already as media savvy as a politician. The crowd carries him away before the reporter has time to ask anything else.

*

Amat finds his mother in the crowd and kisses her on the forehead. She merely whispers, “Go! Go!” with tears in her eyes. He laughs and hugs her and promises not to be late home. She knows he’s not telling the truth. And it makes her so happy.

Zacharias is standing at the far end of the parking lot, in the outermost circle of popularity, while his best friend is in the innermost circle for the first time. The adults get in their cars and drive off, leaving the youngsters to enjoy the biggest night ever, and when the stream of players and girls starts to move off toward the party that almost all of them are going to, it becomes painfully obvious who belongs and who’s going to be left behind.

Zacharias will never ask Amat if he forgot about him or simply didn’t care. But one of them goes, and one stays behind. And nothing will ever be quite the same again.

*

Peter bumps into Maya and Ana when he’s on his way to the cafeteria. To his surprise, his daughter throws her arms around his neck, the way she used to every day when he came home back when she was five years old.

“I’m so proud of you, Dad,” she whispers.

Rarely has he let go of her more reluctantly. Once the girls have rushed down the stairs laughing, the entire rink falls silent. A silence only broken by his own breathing, followed by his wife’s voice: “Is it my turn now, superstar?” Kira calls.

Peter’s face breaks into a melancholic smile and he walks toward her. Gently they take hold of each other’s hands and dance slowly, slowly, in tiny, tiny circles until Kira takes his face in her hands and kisses him so hard that he gets embarrassed. She can still do that to him.

“You don’t look as happy as you should,” she whispers.

“Oh, I am,” he ventures.

“Is it to do with Sune?”

He hides his face against her neck.

“The sponsors want to go public with the news about David taking over after the final. And they want to force Sune to hand in his notice voluntarily. They think it’ll look bad in the media if he gets fired.”

“It’s not your fault, darling. You can’t save everyone. You can’t carry the weight of the whole world.”

He doesn’t answer. She tickles his hair and smiles.

“Did you see your daughter? She going to go back to Ana’s to ‘study.’?”

“Quite a lot of makeup for solving equations, eh?” Peter mutters.

“The hardest thing about trusting teenagers is the fact that we used to be teenagers ourselves. I can remember when some boy and I were . . .”

“I don’t want to hear this!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, darling, I did have a life before I met you.”

“NO!”

He sweeps her up off the floor and into his arms, and all the air goes out of her. He can still do that to her. They giggle like a couple of kids.

*

Through the window of the cafeteria they see Maya and Ana go off down the road with the hockey players and their school friends. The temperature is falling rapidly in the darkness, and snow is swirling around the girls’ bodies.

*

There’s a storm brewing.

20