Page 20

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Ben Stirling

Today is the day.

Game day.

It’s not until I find myself in the kitchen making a pre-game snack a few minutes before we’re due to leave for the arena that I realize the gravity of my mistake. I can’t do this.

I can’t.

Not, I don’t want to do this. Not, I don’t think I can do this. I can’t do it.

I cannot do it.

I can’t go to a game where my team is playing and I’m not. I can’t sit in the stands when I belong rinkside, on the bench. I can’t line up for drinks and snacks when I’m supposed to be in the locker room getting ready to play. I can’t watch Bryce skate out, leading the team, my team, because that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. I can’t do it. I can’t fucking do it.

My heart starts to pound and my breath comes in short, raspy gulps.

As soon as I allow the conscious thought in, everything that goes with it comes rushing at me at once. Images flicker before me like a reel of film in an old-fashioned movie. Heart rate lines dip and spike on a monitor. Electric green, red, and blue against a black backdrop. The sickly smell of disinfectant and hand sanitizer. A high-pitched beep that started out steady but grew weak as I watched. A medical professional saying my name, speaking English, but using words I still don’t understand. Luca’s face. His eyes wide in horror and shock. ESPN headlines. Tragedy. Death. Disaster. My name splashed across papers and screens. Liz’s name too. Hands on my shoulders. The team in my living room, big men huddled on sofas and sitting cross-legged on the floor. Trays and trays of lasagna. Blackeyes around me, holding me up. My feet on the ground, my back straight. My heart broken. A wake where I stayed upright but felt like I was falling. Luca’s face white and drawn. The bone-chilling wail of his cries in the middle of the night. An empty locker and a group chat. A travel bag at the front door, gathering dust. Long calls to Coach. A team I love but am no longer part of. Boxes of hockey sticks and match sweaters in the guestroom that I don’t know how to unpack.

Life going on without me.

I can’t do it.

I can’t go to the fucking game.

Of course I can’t do it.

Going to a playoff game and not playing is right up there with the most insane idea I’ve ever heard of. What the fuck was I thinking?

“Are you okay, Daddy?” asks Luca, lips moving carefully around the sandwich he’s eating. He’s wearing his Blackeyes sweater. The one I got him. The one with his name and the number six on the back.

“Uh, um, I’m just…I need to make a call. I’ll be right back. Keep eating, okay?”

I tear down the hall, doorways and photographs blurring as I stagger past them, and lock myself in the guest bathroom.

My phone is in my hand. I stare at the screen, unseeing. Then I hit call.

“I can’t,” I say the second I hear his voice. “Jelly, I can’t .”

“I’m on my way,” he says. His voice is soft and low. Calm. “I’ll take him.”

Metal chinks against metal. Keys, maybe? A door slides shut with a soft snick . Jeremiah stays on the line but doesn’t say anything else. I can tell from his breathing that he’s walking.

He’s walking to me.

I rush to the door and open it before he arrives. When I see him, everything slows. The sound of my heart and my lungs and the images burned into my retina. It all slows.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” I ask. “I know it’s a lot, and I’m sorry I’m being like this. I’m not usually like this. I never used to be—”

“'Course I’m sure.” His smile is steady and serious, and then it’s not. It changes from staid to silly. “When you think about it, it’s kind of perfect. It’s really weird for a huge hockey fan never to have seen a live game.”

“What’s going on?” asks Luca when he hears me approach. “Are we going to miss the game?” He sees Jeremiah and flicks his head quickly from him to me. “Is everything okay?”

I put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze gently. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Most things are okay, but I’m not feeling a hundred percent.” I take a breath and expel it slowly. I want to be honest with him, but I also want to communicate in a way he’ll understand. “You know, Luca, since Mommy died, it’s been really hard for me to think about hockey without feeling sad. I wanted to go to the game with you tonight, and I know you’ve been looking forward to it, but I don’t think I’m ready. I know I’m going to be ready soon. I know it. I know before long, you and I will be rinkside, cheering the Blackeyes on, but I don’t think tonight is the night. I’m sorry, my boy.”

“’S okay, Daddy. I don’t mind.” His little face is sad, but he braves a smile and wraps his arms around me. “We can work on my plane, or we can build a tower out of my magnets.”

“Well, here’s the thing, Luca,” says Jeremiah. “I was wondering if you’d let me take you to the game. I know it won’t be the same as if your dad took you, but I think we’ll have a good time. We could get some snacks and you could teach me the Blackeyes goal song? What do you say?”

“What do I say?” yells Luca. “I say it’s a great idea!”

From there, things happen quickly. Luca rattles off questions like he’s reading them from a list, and Jeremiah responds the same way.

“Do you have a jacket, Jelly?”

“No.”

“A team jersey?”

“No.”

“A Blackeyes hat or scarf?”

“Also no!” Jeremiah starts laughing, and Luca follows suit. “I have nothing. I am literally completely unprepared for the fun we’re about to have!”

“It doesn’t matter! My dad has everything. You can use his things.”

By the time they’re at the door, I feel like I’ve been spun in a tumble dryer set to a long cycle. Luca is ready and pumped, and Jeremiah is wearing my black jacket and one of my beanies. The jacket is a little big on him, covering his hands to his knuckles, and the beanie was pulled on in such a hurry that the logo is off-center.

It makes him look boyish and silly and sweet at the same time.

It makes me want to hug him. So I do.

He isn’t expecting the embrace. He’s turned away from me, and one shoulder juts into my sternum when I pull him toward me. He shifts, turning to face me, and as he does, my other arm finds its way around his waist. Low around his waist. Firm around his waist. Without meaning to, that arm, the low one, tightens.

I squeeze a soft puff of breath out of him.

If I were someone who gave a lot of thought to things like what it would feel like to hug my very nice male neighbor, I’d say he felt stockier than I had expected. Stronger. More muscular. More solid.

I step back and release him quickly to stop it from becoming one of those hugs where neither party is sure how long it should go on for or whose job it is to end it.

“Buy him anything he wants,” I say. “I’ll reimburse you.”

“Anything I want?” cries Luca.

“Buy yourself anything you want too—on me. Seriously, I mean it, Jeremiah. I owe you big time. Anything you want. I’m not just talking about at the game. I’m talking a crate of salted caramel ice cream delivered to your door. An entire shelf of books. Two shelves. A Caribbean holiday for you, Marcus, Vanessa, and your aunt. And her dogs. Name it, and it’s yours.”

He gets a funny look on his face. “A sun-drenched beach holiday?” His chin tilts down and his left shoulder raises slightly. “Not unless you come with me, Ben Stirling.”