Page 22

April 2024

“You usually go a lot faster than this, don’t you?” Adam puffed.

Riley smiled mysteriously while looking straight ahead, his cheeks barely flushed as he jogged beside Adam on the sand. Adam couldn’t remember the last time he’d done a beach run, and he was struggling on the uneven surface.

Also, Riley was in really, really good shape. Possibly better shape than when he’d been a professional athlete, and certainly better than Adam’s current condition. And if Adam fell a few strides behind just so he could admire Riley’s ass in his tight jogging pants, well. Everyone had their own fitness journey.

Lucky was joining them too, though he occasionally became distracted by various objects and then would have to sprint to catch up. They’d gone the length of the beach and were now about halfway back to where they’d left their water bottles and sweatshirts. Adam was looking forward to that water bottle.

The tide was out, and the beach was veiled in fog, making the place seem magical and very remote. Adam loved it. And despite the fact that he was struggling a bit, he was loving the exercise too. It felt good to really work his body after several days off. He knew, despite his bad shoulder, that he was lucky to be able to do this. Lucky to have both of his knees and his hips and his ankles. He knew other former NHL players who had less to work with.

When they were a few strides away from their belongings, Adam dug deep and cranked up the speed, pushing himself ahead of Riley.

“Are you fucking serious?” Riley said.

Adam laughed as he raised a fist in the air in victory, then fell to his knees on the sand. “I win,” he panted. Then, “Fucking hell.”

Riley stood over him, hands on his hips, and shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

Adam fell to his back, his arms and legs spread out like a starfish. “Just gonna let the sea take me.”

Riley grabbed his water bottle and took a long drink. Adam enjoyed the view from below.

Then Lucky arrived and started licking Adam’s face.

“Ugh, stop. I’m alive, I’m alive,” Adam sputtered.

“Lucky,” Riley said sternly. “Here.” He poured some water into a small metal bowl he’d brought, and Lucky began to drink happily.

“I should probably do that too.”

“You’ll have to wait until Lucky’s done first.”

“Ha.” Adam held his right hand out, and Riley took it and pulled him up. Adam scooped up his own bottle and soon decided slightly cold tap water in an aluminum bottle was the best tasting thing in the world.

“You all right?”

“Yes,” Adam said testily. “I can run, you know.”

“I mean your shoulder.”

“I wasn’t running on my hands.” Adam grimaced. “Sorry. My shoulder’s fine. I’m just grumpy because I’m not good at running on sand.”

“It took me a while to get good at it.”

“Well,” Adam said, then decided not to finish the sentence. He didn’t have a while to spend here, running beside Riley on the sand. He would be leaving the day after tomorrow.

“It’s beautiful here, with the fog and stuff,” he said instead. “I should take a picture.”

He fished his phone out of the pocket of the hoodie he’d left on a rock, then walked toward the glistening mud-like sand that stretched way out to where the tide had pulled back. He snapped a few photos that didn’t do the place justice at all—he was a terrible photographer—but he decided to send one to Lucy and Cole anyway.

They had a group chat together, years of photos and earnest declarations of encouragement and love from Adam, which were sometimes followed by replies of a single word from one of the kids. More often it was a single letter: k , or y . More often than that, even, there would be no reply at all. Adam tried not to take it personally, even when he watched his kids type endless messages to their friends. There were days when they stayed with him that they barely looked away from their phones. It wasn’t like they weren’t seeing his texts.

Maggie had told him teenagers were just like that these days, but when he’d asked her if they ignored her texts too, she’d changed the subject.

Now he typed out: Wish you were here , then immediately deleted it because it was cheesy as hell, and also because it wasn’t exactly true. He loved his kids, and he’d be happy to explore a beach with them another day, but today was for him and Riley.

And also Lucky, who was going absolutely bananas barking at something.

“Hermit crab,” Riley called out to Adam, as an explanation.

“Ah,” Adam said, then, “Wait, really?” He’d never seen one before.

He crossed the short distance to Riley, then looked where he was pointing. There, just in front of Riley’s damp sneaker, was a little curly shell scooting along the sand.

“Oh wow.” Adam crouched down to get a better look. “Look at that.”

“The beach is full of them.”

Lucky barked again, and Adam held his arm out to protect the crab. “It’s okay,” he told the dog, “we like him.”

Lucky huffed, which sounded to Adam like exasperation. Adam held his phone over the crab and took a short video.

“You a filmmaker now?” Riley said.

“I thought the kids might like it. They’re hard to impress.”

“I heard teens are pretty wild about hermit crabs, yeah.”

Adam elbowed him in the shin. “They’re always watching animal videos on the internet. So I’m making one.”

Above him, Riley chuckled. “Do you even know how to send a video?”

Adam ignored him. Sure, he’d always been shit when it came to technology, but he wasn’t a hundred years old.

“Can I send them a photo of Lucky?” Adam asked. “Do you mind?”

“Go ahead. Lucky loves a camera.”

Adam took some slightly blurry photos of Lucky, then sent the best one to the kids. He wrote, This is my friend Lucky.

“I regret that I didn’t get to see Lucy and Cole grow up,” Riley said.

Adam’s head whipped around to stare at him. “You do?”

“They were great kids. I loved playing with them. I kind of always assumed I’d never have kids, so it was nice, being Uncle Riley.”

“Why did you assume that?”

Riley shrugged. “Seemed at the time that I would be living life in the shadows, y’know? If I wanted to keep playing hockey. And by the time I quit I was such a mess I couldn’t even imagine being in a relationship with someone, let alone raising kids.”

“And now?”

Riley looked out to sea. “I’ve made my peace with it. I don’t think it was ever my destiny. I’m okay with that, and I have my nieces now.”

“I wish you’d seen Lucy and Cole grow up too. I wish my kids knew you.” Silently, he told himself that they still could get to know Riley. There was time.

“Seems like they turned out okay without my help.”

“Thanks to Maggie, yeah.”

“You’re a great dad,” Riley argued. “I mean, probably.”

“I do my best, but you know what the life is like. Barely home, weird hours, laid up with injuries for at least part of every season, and sometimes recovering from surgery in the summers. I’d get moody and stressed when the team was shit.” He scoffed. “Seems like a stupid thing to get so worked up about, really. Hockey.”

“Yeah, well. If you’ve got a cure for that you could make a fortune in this country.”

Their gazes met, and Adam smiled at Riley’s slight smile. “Anyway. They’re not hurting for money, so I was good for something at least.”

“There you go.”

“And I’d like to say they’d give up the money in exchange for more time with their dad, but hell no. You should see Cole’s gaming computer.”

Riley laughed.

“I am trying, though,” Adam said. “These past couple of years, since I retired, I’ve been showing up for everything. Maybe too much. Lucy actually told me once that it seemed forced.” He sighed. “That fucking hurt.”

“Sorry.”

“Teenagers, right? Everyone tells me it’s normal, but it still stings.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “Harv was my role model for fatherhood, you know.”

Riley’s eyes turned soft. “He was a good one.”

“The best. I’m not saying I’m even half the dad he was, but he was who I wanted to be. Basically the opposite of my dad.”

Riley grunted in agreement as he kicked at a pebble.

“And Maggie’s a great mom. We both aimed to support our kids in whatever they wanted to do but not push them too hard. Dad thinks being a hard-ass is the only way for your kid to succeed, but you’re proof that it isn’t true. There’s a ton of proof that it isn’t true.”

“I doubt your father considers me a success.”

“Well, I do. I hope you do too. And I’m a thousand percent sure your parents do.”

“I guess,” Riley said, then looked at the sky. “Yeah. They do. Dad was always proud of me. Maybe he still is, somewhere.”

“He’s probably bragging about you to everyone in Heaven right now.”

Riley huffed, then looked at Adam again. His eyes were misty, but he was smiling. “Definitely. And seeing if anyone needs a ride anywhere.”

“Do they have Ford F-150s in Heaven?”

“Of course they do. Otherwise it would be Hell.”

They both laughed, then Adam took another pull of his water bottle. He noticed, as he was wiping his mouth, that Riley was still looking at him, and his gaze seemed…interested.

When he noticed Adam noticing, he looked away.

“We still on for breakfast at your mom’s?” Adam asked.

“Yeah. We should head back and get ready.”

As they were walking to the stairs that led to the road, Adam found something interesting.

“Look at this fancy thing.” He picked up the white, spiraled shell and rested it in his palm.

“That’s a moon snail shell. Is it empty?”

“Yeah.”

“You should keep it. Maybe Lucy would like it. We can wash it at the house.”

Adam wasn’t sure if a snail shell would win his daughter’s heart, but he kept it anyway. If nothing else, it would be a nice souvenir of this roller coaster of a week.