TWO DAYS LATER, I sit in my car outside my mom’s place, staring up at the house with a tight, nervous feeling in my chest. It’s late afternoon, and the January sky is already dim.
“Freaking out yet?” I asked Hazel this morning when we woke up.
She gave me a soft, sleepy smile and shook her head. “Nope.”
After driving home from the League Classic yesterday, we stopped at her place to pick up more of her stuff. Her hair products clutter my shower, the bathroom drawer is now filled with her makeup, and her clothes hang in the closet.
My life is so full with Hazel in it, and now I need to make sure I don’t fuck it all up. I should be at home taking it easy before my game tonight, but after Hazel took the leap and told me how she felt this weekend, I need to address things with my mom so I don’t repeat the pattern. It can’t wait.
And a part of me is addicted to this happy, full feeling. Hazel said my mom misses me. Maybe there’s a chance for us.
Headlights flare behind me as my mom pulls into the driveway, parking beside me. She gets out of the car with a grocery bag in each hand, dipping down to peer in my passenger window.
“Rory?”
I climb out of the car. “Hi, Mom.”
“Don’t you have a game tonight?”
“Yeah.” My eyebrows lift in surprise that she knew that. “Can I talk to you?”
“Of course.” Her expression turns wary. “It’s cold out. Let’s go inside.”
In the foyer, I kick my shoes off and set my jacket over the back of the couch while she zips around, flicking lights on with nervous energy, darting glances at me.
“What can I get you?” she asks. “All I have is water and almond milk, unfortunately. I didn’t know you’d be dropping by.” Her eyebrows shoot up. “Tea. I can make tea.”
I shake my head. “I’m fine. I don’t need anything. We can just talk here.” I take a seat on the couch.
“How’s Hazel?” she asks when she takes the seat across from me, crossing her legs.
“Good. She’s subbing for another teacher tonight at a studio so she won’t be at my game.” She offered to come here with me, but this is something I need to do on my own.
It feels weird, talking with my mom so casually like this. My gaze lands on a framed photo on the side table, and my heart jumps into my throat.
It’s me and my mom on a hike when I was a kid. Joffre Lakes outside Whistler, with the turquoise lake behind us. Her arm around me, both of us wearing big smiles.
“That wasn’t there for the Christmas party,” I tell her, frowning at the photo. My phone buzzes with a text in my back pocket but I ignore it.
She shifts with embarrassment. “I put it away because I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
She thinks me knowing she cherishes those memories of us would make me uncomfortable? “Why would it make me uncomfortable?”
Her mouth tightens. “We don’t have the strongest relationship.”
“You’re my mom.”
The words hang in the air between us, and the embarrassment fades from her eyes, leaving pain. “I know.” Her throat works. “What did you want to talk about?”
There’s no gentle or easy way to say this, so I blurt out the question that’s been sitting in my head for years as my phone buzzes again.
“Why did you leave me?”
She freezes, staring at me a long moment before her gaze drops to her hands clasped in her lap.
“What was it about me and Dad that made you want to leave? What did I do?”
“Nothing.” She gives me a shocked look. “You did nothing wrong, Rory.”
“Then why did you leave us?” The words are strained, and I feel sick. “Why don’t we know each other anymore?”
“At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing.” The living room is silent except for the ticking clock in the kitchen. “Your father was obsessed with making you into a better version of himself, but you were a kid. You were going to five a.m. practices and working on your slapshots out in the driveway for fourteen hours a day on weekends, but I didn’t want every hour of your day to be about hockey and getting drafted when you were twelve.” Her eyes move over my face like she’s wading through memories, and she shakes her head. “It was all you cared about, though. You and your dad?” She crosses her fingers. “You were like this. All you talked about was hockey this, hockey that, and then there was me on the periphery, trying and failing to be a part of your life. I didn’t want to sour something you loved so much. And by that time, my relationship with Rick was in pieces. I loved your father, I still love him, but he was always just waiting for me to leave.”
I think about Hazel, and my skin prickles at the similarity—how, for a long time, I was waiting for her to realize she didn’t want me. My phone buzzes again and again. And then it starts ringing. I haul it out—it’s my dad calling, fucking perfect timing—and turn it on airplane mode to block the rest of the world out before I set it face down on a side table.
“And I told myself that when I asked if you wanted to come with me, I gave you a choice—”
“I was twelve!” The words come out sharper and louder than I meant, and my mom flinches. “I was twelve years old. And you wanted me to choose between you and Dad? That’s really fucked up.”
“I know.” She nods, taking a deep breath. “I hate myself for that, Rory. I think about it every day.” She glances at the photo of us with a sad smile, throat working. “When you stayed with me, you wanted nothing to do with me. I thought you didn’t need me. Your dad told me the both of you didn’t need me, and I believed him because I wanted the best for you. But now I realize you were just being a preteen. I should have fought back. I shouldn’t have given up custody.”
“You gave up so easily.” My chest aches. “Like you didn’t care.”
“I thought it was the right thing to do.” She swallows, staring at her hands again. “If I could do it all again, I’d do it differently. I know that doesn’t erase anything, though.”
“I did need you. I still do.”
Hope rises in her gaze. “I think about you every day, honey. I have Google alerts on my phone. I watch all your games.”
I shake my head. “I thought you hated hockey.”
“I hated that hockey was becoming the only thing in your life. Your dad put hockey above all else—above me, especially—because he told himself it was the only thing he was good at.”
Like me. If only I’d talked to my mom months ago, maybe she would have told me what it took me so long to figure out. All these things we should have said years ago, but instead, we kept them to ourselves and lived our lies.
“I’m sorry I acted like a little shit,” I tell her.
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry I didn’t fight harder for us.”
She gets to her feet and when I stand, she wraps her arms around my stomach, squeezing me tight. Relief and elation and acceptance and love course through me, expanding into every corner of my chest. That worthy feeling floods me.
“I love you,” she says, squeezing me, and her familiar scent washes over me, making my chest tighten with affection.
“I love you, too,” I say into her hair.
“I want to come to your games and sit in the front row beside Hazel and Jamie’s fiancée. I see Jamie’s mom sitting with them, and I want to be there, too.”
Warmth radiates through me. “I’ll get you tickets.”
“And I want to have monthly dinners with you and Hazel.”
“Done.”
It’s the future I want—talking and laughing with my mom and Hazel over the dinner table.
“Honey.” My mom glances with worry at the clock in the kitchen. “The traffic gets really bad on the bridge to downtown on game nights.”
She’s right. Attendance at pregame team meetings is nonnegotiable, especially for the captain, and even if I leave right now, I’ll barely make it.
“I love you,” I say again at the door, and the smile she gives me warms me.
“I love you, too.” She gives me another quick hug. “Now, go. I’ll be watching on TV.”
I hurry to my car. On the merge lane to the bridge, traffic comes to a standstill, and my anxiety spikes.
The bridge is an endless line of red taillights. There must have been an accident. I suck in a deep breath and go to call Streicher through my car’s Bluetooth, but it isn’t connected. My hand slips into my back pocket for my phone, but it isn’t there.
Fuck. I left it at my mom’s place, on the side table.
Traffic inches along, not fucking fast enough. I groan, gritting my teeth in frustration and impatience. Ward hates players being late—it’s the ultimate disrespect to the team, the fans, and him.
I’m stuck in the line of cars on the bridge, so all I can do is wait.
