“Tell us about one of your earliest memories learning to play.”
The interviewer, a former college player turned broadcaster, sits with his pages of questions in his lap. Across from him, my dad and I are in identical director’s chairs. The set is a white-hot spotlight surrounded in darkness but for the red lights of two cameras watching this awkward farce unfold. Not unlike an interrogation. Or a snuff film. To be honest, I wouldn’t be against someone getting murdered right now. Preferably the Armani-suit-wearing jackass beside me.
“Garrett?” the interviewer, Bryan Farber, prods when I don’t reply. “When did you first pick up a hockey stick?”
“Yeah, I was too young to remember.”
That’s not a lie. I’ve seen photos of myself at the age of two and three and four, gripping a child’s Bauer stick, but I don’t have any clear recollection of it. What I do remember, I’m not about to share with Farber.
This guy doesn’t want to hear about my father ripping the covers off me when I was six years old and dragging me out in the freezing sleet to make me pick up a stick too big for my little body and slap at street pucks.
“I think you have a picture,” Phil says, smoothly jumping in. “One Christmas when he was little, maybe two years old? Wearing a jersey the guys all signed for him. He’s in front of our tree with a toy stick in his hands. He took to it right away.”
“Do you remember standing up on a pair of skates for the first time?” Farber asks with a schmaltzy TV smile.
“I remember the bruises,” I say absently but maybe on purpose.
My dad, clearing his throat, is quick to interject. “He did fall a lot at first. First time we went skating was winter on the lake behind our Cape Cod house. But he never wanted to go inside.” He dons a fake faraway look, as if lost on memory lane. “Garrett would wake me up and beg me to take him out there.”
Weird. I remember crying, begging for him to let me go home. So cold I couldn’t feel my fingers.
I wonder if I should tell Farber how my punishment for complaining was getting on a treadmill with weights on my ankles at seven years old. While Phil shouted at my mother to shut up when she objected. He said he was making me a champion and she’d just make me soft.
“Were you motivated by living up to your father’s success?” Farber asks. “Or was it a fear of failure in his shadow?”
“I’ve never compared myself to anyone else.”
The only fear I ever knew was of his violence. I was twelve the first time he actually laid a hand on me. Before that, it was verbal jabs, punishment when I screwed up or didn’t try hard enough or just because Phil was in a bad mood that day. And when he got bored of me, taking it out on my mother.
Farber glances over his shoulder, where his producer, my agent, and my father’s agent stand near the closer cameraman. I follow his gaze, noting that Phil’s rep and the producer seem annoyed, while Landon just looks resigned.
“Can we cut for a second?” Landon calls. “Give me a word with my client?”
“Yes,” my dad’s agent agrees. His tone is cool. “Perhaps you can remind your client that an interview requires actual answering of the questions?”
Landon pulls me to a darkened corner of the studio, his expression pained. “You’ve got to throw them a bone here, Garrett.”
I set my jaw. “I told you, man, I don’t have any good memories growing up. And you know me, I’m a shit liar.”
Nodding slowly, he runs a hand over his perfectly coifed hair. “All right. How about we try something like this? How old were you when you realized you were playing hockey for yourself and not for him?”
“I dunno. Nine? Ten?”
“So pick a moment from that age range. A hockey memory, not a dad memory. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.”
Once we’re seated again, Farber makes another attempt at coaxing anything real from me. “You were saying you’ve never compared yourself to your father?”
“That’s right.” I nod. “Honestly, for me, hockey was never about trying to become successful, landing big contracts, or winning awards. I fell in love with the game. I became addicted to the thrill, the fast-paced environment where one mistake can cost you the whole game. When I was ten, I dropped a pass at a crucial moment in the third. My stick wasn’t where it was supposed to be, my eyes were on the wrong teammate. I blew it and we lost.” I shrug. “So the next day at practice, I begged my coach to let us run the same passing drill over and over again. Until I mastered it.”
“And did you? Master it?”
I grin. “Yup. And the next time we hit the ice, I didn’t miss a single pass. Hockey’s a wild ride, man. It’s a challenge. I love a challenge, and I love challenging myself to be better.”
Bryan Farber is nodding with encouragement, clearly pleased that I’m opening up.
“I remember that game,” my dad says, and I don’t doubt it. He never missed any of my games. Never missed an opportunity to tell me where I went wrong.
Farber addresses me again. “I bet having your dad rooting for you on the sidelines, challenging you as well, was a great motivator, yes?”
I clam up again. Damn it, I’m never going to survive this interview. And this is only the first taping. We’re supposed to be doing this twice.
An hour into filming, the producer suggests we take a break, and I get off that set as quick as I can. How was that only an hour? It felt like two fucking days.
I avoid the green room and instead grab a drink from a vending machine down some random corridor. When I return to the soundstage and check my phone, I realize I have about a dozen texts and a voicemail from Hannah.
Since she’s not one who’s prone to drama or panic, I signal to Landon that I need a second, then step away to check the voicemail.
She’s talking fast and a bad signal or noise in the background garbles some of the message, but the parts I do grasp nearly stop my heart.
“Garrett. Hey. I’m sorry to do this, but I need you to come home. I…um…”
I frown when she goes silent for several beats. Worry begins tugging at my insides.
“I really don’t want to tell you over the phone, but you’re filming and I’m not sure when you’ll be home and I’m sort of freaking out here, so I’m just going to say it—I’m pregnant.”
She’s what?
I nearly drop the phone as shock slams into me.
“I meant for us to sit down properly and talk about this, not to blurt it out in a voicemail. But I’m pregnant and I’m, um, bleeding and I think something’s wrong. I need you to take me to the hospital.” Her voice is small, frightened. It makes my blood run cold with fear. “I don’t want to go alone.”
“We about ready to get started again?” the producer calls impatiently.
I look over to see Farber and my dad have already taken their seats.
After a brief stuttering glitch, my brain snaps back to the present and the only thing that matters: getting to Hannah right fucking now.
“No,” I call back. I rip off my mic pack and toss it at Landon, who’s approaching me in concern. “I’m sorry, I have to go. There’s been an emergency.”
