Thirteen Hundred Dollars by Friday

Chapter 1:

The registration envelope had been sitting in the glove compartment for eleven days.

Daniel noticed it every morning when he reached for the ice scraper. It was pale blue, bent at one corner, with the name of Noah’s hockey club printed across the front. Beneath it lay old gas receipts, a pair of spare skate laces, and a paper wristband from a tournament hotel.

He knew what was inside without opening it.

**Season fee: $1,300. Payment due Friday.**

On Friday morning, rain tapped softly against the kitchen window. The house smelled of coffee and the cinnamon oatmeal Leah made whenever the weather turned cold. Noah’s hockey bag waited beside the back door, half-zipped and giving off the familiar scent of damp pads and old ice.

Leah stood at the counter with the envelope in her hand.

“The payment has to be in today,” she said. “Can you cover half?”

Daniel looked up from his coffee.

It was not an unreasonable question. That was what made the silence afterward feel so strange.

He had been with Leah for nearly seven years. When they met, Noah was five and still needed help tying his shoes. Daniel’s daughter, Sophie, was six and missing both front teeth. The children had grown up in the same house, arguing over television remotes, stealing fries from each other’s plates, and falling asleep in the back seat after long weekends away.